On Monday and Tuesday, I worked hard in the BL. Come Wednesday, it was hard for me to make myself go off and do what I had planned for that day because I felt like I had been away so long from the work. But, since I had written it on my calendar, I felt these were things I "had" to do. Basically, if it gets written on the calendar it becomes a must do. It's probably a really good thing that I sat down right when I got to London and planned out my three months, both research and sightseeing. Anyway, my plan for this day was go to the City area of London and see Leadenhall Market and the Bank of England Museum.

Ever up for a London adventure, I decided to use some of the bus tickets I had left from when I went to the Donmar for the first time back in June. Consequently, this was the first time I had ever tried to catch a bus by myself and was not a little nervous about the whole thing. By now, I felt very comfortable with the Tube but hadn't tried the busses at all. So, I walked over to Kings Cross to catch my bus and did so very successfully. I got off at Liverpool Street Station, which is a short walk from where I wanted to go. Liverpool Street Station is really neat because it's one of the old style train stations, like Kings Cross and Victoria, and also has the famous Great Eastern Hotel.

the trains at Liverpool Street Station

the Bank

Having really had a good time at the museum, I happily walked back over to Liverpool Street to catch my bus back. This is where my problems started. I got on the bus okay and everything, but I failed to think that getting on the bus going the opposite direction might be a really good idea. So, I rode the bus all the way to Whitechapel, only to be told that I had to get off at its last stop. There I am sitting by myself on the top level of the bus waiting for it to continue on, when the driver announces to me personally (they have little cameras so the driver can see what's going on) that I have to get off the bus. I felt so stupid. Evidently, in London, one cannot simply ride the bus around its whole route. I had to walk across the street and catch the same bus going back the way I just come in order to get back to Bloomsbury. The only good thing about all this bus riding is that it was double-decker bus and I rode in the front seat on the top level. It's a rather odd sensation. I continually felt both a certain exhilaration at seeing so much at so high a height and terror that the bus and myself were going to topple over at any moment. I highly recommend doing this at least once when you're in London, just for the experience of the thing. Just don't do it on a queasy stomach.

I was so annoyed with myself and bus when I got Kings Cross that I decided that I had do something else in order to get in a better mood. I decided to do some things in Bloomsbury and see Polluck's Toy Museum and the Dickens House Museum. Polluck's is basically several very small rooms jammed full of every imaginable kind of old toy from the nineteenth-century. It's really neat, but very miserable on a day as hot as that day. I have to admit that I thought it more than a bit overpriced. Maybe it's something that only people really interested in toys should do on cool days;-) Anyway, I just wasn't in the mood for it that day.

Now, at this point, a normal person would have gone home and called it a day. I, however, had already decided to go to the Dickens House and to the Dickens House I went. I have learned in the past few weeks that I shouldn't even half think about adding something to my sightseeing days because my desire to see as much as I can will make do it no matter how tired and ready to go home I am. However, since the Dickens House was in the neighborhood, it wasn't that bad of decision. The museum is located on a residential street, and I walked past it several times before I realized where it was. They only have this one little sign on the place, and it's very easy to miss. To get into the museum, you ring the doorbell and they buzz you in. I guess they do this since you pay in the shop, located in the back of the first floor, and to protect the collection from Dickens memorabilia robbers. The museum is quite nice and has a number of really interesting displays. I liked the exhibition of Dickens' reading tours, which featured everything from his performance copies of the novels (marked with things like "hit the desk three times") to the reading desk he used. They also had this small little display about other nineteenth-century literary people who lived in Bloomsbury (the early Bloomsbury group, if you will). I was very interested to learn that Mary Elizabeth Braddon, author of Lady Audley's Secret, lived here. Mostly, these people all moved to better places once they could afford it.