Seven pairs of socks for two pounds!?!

This morning I woke up with what it is either a cold or some kick-tale allergies, so I decided to take it easy today to give myself time to recover, especially since I've only been averaging about five hours of sleep a night since we've gotten here. Much of that fact is due less with the time change than with the fact that my bedtime, especially since I moved back to NC, usually falls sometime between midnight and two in the morning, with a wake-up time between 8 and 10 in the morning. My mother, however, is asleep no later than 11 is up at 7. Therefore, I've spent the last few nights unable to go to sleep until about 2 in the morning, but waking up a little after 7. Couple this with the fact that I lost basically an entire night of sleep on the flight over here and, well, let's just say that I could use more naps in my life.

Therefore, we scrapped our plans for the V&A and decided to just go to the British Library, which is much closer to our hotel. I spent the morning in the Sir Ritblat Gallery, where they house the "treasures of the British Library" (or so it says in the gallery's subtitle). These treasures included several copies of the First Folio, the Magna Carta, Virginia Woolf's notebook from when she was writing Mrs. Dalloway, an exerpt from Jane Eyre written in Charlotte Bronte's own hand, pages from Da Vinci's notebooks, and the only surviving copy of Sir Gaiwin and the Green Night from the period when it was written. Unfortunately, photography isn't allowed in the gallery, so no pictures today.

I also took a tour of the library where I learned about the inner workings of the library, including book storage and retrival. The British Library has more than 200,000,000 books and hundreds of kilometers of shelf space, almost all of which is filled, spread among 3 or 4 (I can't remember which) different storage facilities across England. Anyone (really, anyone...not just British citizens) can use the materials (or become a reader, as they call it) as long as they can prove that they have a valid research need. It was really amazing! I'm definitely going to go back before I leave.

On our way back to the hotel, I found a great used bookstore where all the books were only 1 or 2 pounds. I caved and bought a complete collection of John Keats' poetry. Then we went back to the hotel to rest for a couple of hours.

Deciding that it was time to finally conquer the tube (now that the strike has ended--last night, in fact), we decided to go to Primark (especially after all that I heard about it from Christina and Kate). The prices were great, but the store was terrifying. It was like Walmart on the day after Thanksgiving. I found a couple of things, tried them on over my clothes because the line for the dressing room ended somewhere in Ireland and then decided that I valued my life too much to fight the crazy check-out line.

After escaping from the craziness of Primark, I got my first plate of fish and chips of the trip. It was FABULOUS! And, since it came with peas, I decided that it counted a completely healthy meal. I mean, there were vegetables involved, right?

A small aside: In between getting off the tube and going to Primark, we definitely watched a well-dressed man on a bike run into the back of a city bus. He was okay, so it was all good, but it was a strange sight to behold.

After a little more shopping, we called it a night. Hopefully I'll get some sleep tonight. No idea what we are going to do tomorrow. Suggestions?