Visit to the British Library

I went down the street to Sally's to get a straightner and a small thing of hairspray. My hair just hasn't been cooperating much so I decided to tame it. It was a bit strange walking into a store I was familiar with back in the states but it was very different. Kinda like when I went to a Denny's restaurant in Japan. Except no food. The set-up was basically the same, but all the brands were British/European. Did not recognize a single one. So I shall see how I like this "Schwarzkopf - Silhouette" brand.

When I got to the tube station, I thought I'd actually explain inside. There was an accessory store, a store called "Joy" that sold expensive clothes, crafts and strange greeting cards, a grocery store, a convenient store, and some restaurants that all had yummy smells coming from them. There's also a gym and a cinema on the upper floors. Cool stuff.

As I walked over to the tube entrance, there were some people trying to advertise a new make-up that they had coming out soon. Since no one was really paying attention to them, I decided to talk with one of them. I ended up having a nice conversation with Lauren. She talked about the make-up (of course), but mainly we talked about traveling and where we both have been to. After chatting for about 20-30 minutes I had to leave, but Lauren gave me a free treat bag with some of the make-up she was selling. See? Being nice can be a bonus :)

Found the library easy enough. I know I use this word a lot but the library was HUGE. There was a big courtyard with a little cafe and a big statue/artwork. When I went inside, I noticed there was a restaurant (can you believe that? An actually restaurant INSIDE of a library!) and decided to have some lunch. I got a egg and cheese sandwich and some herbal tea to warm me up (been raining literally almost everyday lately). After lunch, I went up to the information desk to find Aly Conteh (friend of my dad's who I will be staying with later on). We confirmed some details and chatted about what I've seen/where I've been along with some comments about the weather. Apparently it's never this wet in July over here. Aly then asked if I'd be interested in seeing an exhibit the library had about British writers and I said yes. So he got me a ticket for the exhibit with his work ID, said our farewells, then parted.

The exhibit was actually quite fascinating. I did recognize some authors but it was still really intriguing to learn about other British authors (except Edgar Allen Poe an American. Still pretty cool that he was part of the exhibit). They had lots of displays of first editions, drafts, and manuscripts of books. I got to see one of the only remaining first drafts of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (the author got the story idea from a frightening dream he had and wrote it down when he woke up. His wife though, was worried about her husband's mental health and she was just really terrified of the dream so she kept burning his drafts), the last pages of the manuscript for "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone", and some letters that Edgar Allen Poe wrote to someone who was asking for his advice about a story.

The exhibit was divided into the different parts of England based on the type of land. Country side, Big city, by the sea, along the river, and so on. With each area, they displayed the different authors and the description boxes talked about the author's connections to the type of land they wrote about.

When I went through all the exhibit, I figured out one thing for sure. My reading list grew much longer.