Today we headed out to see the British Library. On the way we stopped by a local market to see what it had to offer.
It reminded us of the market in Japan because both are right beside a transit line and curve along the length of the track, and both have small booth sellers. There really isn’t anything like it in Toronto. It was novel to us.
We had a very good iced coffee at The Italian Coffee Club while we waited for the man at the momos booth to cook some up fresh for us. They were also delicious.
A pleasant lunch in our bellies, we headed for the tube station. There were two police officers and staff at the door today. Strange.
I was a little freaked out, as I always am with police officers around, especially when they usually aren’t there, but I strode by passing my wallet over the gate and it let me in fine.
I continued to walk and turned to see if Toria were behind me. She was having trouble scanning her card momentarily. Then the transit staff lady told her to step back.
“It’s like I’m talking to myself…” she muttered. Is this some kind of British passive aggression? Seemed pretty odd.
The ride itself was uneventful. We rode the circle line around to the north end of it arriving at Euston Square. Here we exited and made a right and walked in a big circle around the next block or so to arrive at Speedy’s Sandwich Bar & Cafe!
Not familiar? I wasn’t either but I had been informed that it was the filming location for the newer Sherlock TV series. We took a series of photos and went inside.
Inside were more photos up on the wall and a drawing in the corner. A small display case was on the left and some very 20th century diner tables.
The food was passable but bland. Something we expected to find in Britain, but this place was particularly inoffensive. It hit the spot though, and that’s all that really mattered. We also had a pretty good ginger beer. Maybe not good to people who like a lot of ginger, but it was one which Victoria would actually drink. It was watered down and sweet.
Then we exited and headed back north and then west toward the library. There was quite a bit to see in here and I think you could spend a lot of time just exploring the library alone.
We happened upon the rare books display, which was kept dim and cool to preserve the aged and delicate tomes. Some were more delicate than others. I saw some people taking photos at some booths surprisingly some with flash as well, despite the message at the front about light damaging the books.
Kids were using phones, but some old guy with a standard point and click camera was using the autofocus complete with a visible light range finder shinning on the book. Oops!
I decided I could get away with at least one shot without any kind of light emitting from my camera, so I took this one to show off the pretty illustrated books seen below.
We took a look in the book store and the gift shop, didn’t find anything of interest and headed outside for a coffee. We were both quite tired at this point. Perhaps jet lag. Perhaps it was the 25000+ steps we took yesterday.
Victoria had asked me on our way over if I wanted to stop at Paddington station since I had made note of it on the way over.
I said that it wasn’t that important to me, because I was pretty tired, but we stopped over anyway to see what was there.
I did end up taking a lot of photos here. It turns out it’s at the eastern part of Little Venice, which we had previously intended to explore!
There was a great little art show here showcasing art that combines electronics and physical media such as metal, resin, plastics, and lights. I took a few neat looking videos of the pieces exploiting the depth of field control of my DSLR.
We did get video of some water fowl for Natalie. There, I hope you like it!
I saw this sign both misspelled and silly and decided to pose beside it with the shirt that Victoria had given me. (She decided she does not like graphic Ts anymore, and it was previously hers.)
Then we returned to the tube station and headed back home. We were very tired at this point, so we took in some UK television and headed for bed.
Goodnight!
