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Connaught House | |
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The dorm rooms here have high ceilings and big windows with transoms. I'm very grateful because the weather is unusually warm here this week. I will have to seek out the laundromat soon, there will be no rewearing any article of clothing before it's washed. This part of London is very pretty. Every block or two there is another "square," which is reserved as a park. Much greener than I was expecting. Around five today, I spotted a gothic church while I was out walking and thought, "how lovely, I can attend evensong." However it turned out to be an apartment building with flats to rent--The Cloisters Flats, as the sign read. So much history that it's all just jammed in together. Connaught Hall appears to be from the 1800s. The electric and plumbing are all later additions. (And you can see the modifications.) I'm curious what it originally was. The staff, of course, are just students, so they are not terribly interested in the history of the building. Perhaps I'll have better luck tomorrow. The University of London's School of Education was having their graduation today. I walked past a very very new, modern building and there were people in caps and gowns with their parents and well wishers. I took my trusty map (scanned in and blown up from Maggie and Ox's "Pocket London") and found "Senate House," where registration for the Paleography course is tomorrow. Lots of construction so some of the streets and squares in that area were blocked off. When I found it, it was part of a giant white building with a flagstone court. The big wooden doors were open into a marble floored foyer and then another set of locked carved wooden doors. Good that everything is so close together. There's an Indian "Quick Trip-ish" store just down the way, so tonight for dinner I bought premade samosas. Nuked them in the microwave here at the hall then wandered over to the park to eat them. (If I sat still for a second, I'd start to nod off, so I thought I'd better distract myself.) Met a lady from Scotland who was also eating food from the Indian grocery. We sat and had a pleasant hours conversation. She's from Edinborough originally but just moved to Aberdeen. I asked what her favorite parts of Scotland was. She said the rocky coasts, and the city of Edinborough. She said it was a real Scottish town, not just European the way many of the big towns were. She kindly took a picture of me, and we both laughed at how careful we're being with our belongings because we're in London. Came back up and continued airing out my room. Everything smells like cigarette smoke unfortunately. However, the sheets and bedding were all fresh, and I'd brought three of my own pillows and extra pillow cases. Lovely to have an internet connection in my room, although I also used the wi-fi in my laptop at a nearby coffee shop, so I'm all set for staying in touch. It feels so natural to be able to continue chatting daily with everyone at home, even though this is the first trip I've been on where the internet has been so readily available that it's as much a part of life as breathing. I remember when traveling over the pond meant being entirely cut off from home. |
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