New to Kew

Yesterday and today, I was in London at the National Archives, which are located in Kew (which is part of London). I took a bus from Exeter up to London on Wednesday morning, and I arrived in London on Wednesday afternoon.

From the Victoria Coach Station, I went out to the Victoria Railway Station to get some lunch, and then into the Victoria Tube Station to catch a train out to Kew Gardens. While waiting for my train, I discovered that the Victoria Line was "Closed Due to Industrial Action." Apparently, the drivers were unhappy about something or other and went on strike.

Once I got out to Kew, I set about finding the National Archives, which have signs that kinda, sorta point to them from the Kew Gardens Tube Station. I did eventually find them, and then set about getting myself a Readers Ticket, which lets me look at the documents in the archives. Mine is valid for six months, so it expires the day before my birthday.

After a few hours, I left the Archives shortly before they closed and went to the Globetrotter Inn to check in. If that sounds familiar, it's because it's where we stayed when Amanda's family were in London. Once I got checked in, I ditched most of my stuff, and took a couple of books with me to the Subway in Hammersmith. I spent about an hour and a half at Subway, working on some reading, before I went back to the hostel to get ready for bed. I decided to go to bed a little early, since I was pretty tired and knew that I had a long day the next day.

On Thursday morning, I awoke with a start and panicked that I had missed my check-out time. I felt better once I found my phone and realized that it wasn't even 7:30 yet. I had planned to get up at 8, but I decided to go ahead and shower, which I did. After my shower, I went downstairs to breakfast, and then went back up, finished packing, and got checked out. I got to the Stamford Brook Tube Station around 9:00, and then realized that you can't get an Off-Peak Day Travelcard until 9:30. Rather than springing the extra £3 for an additional 30 minutes of riding time, I picked up a copy of Metro, the free London paper, and read it while I waited for 9:30 to arrive. It was mostly concerned with the new Budget, which was formally proposed yesterday.

After I got my Travelcard, I went into the Tube station to find that there were "Severe Delays" on the Richmond Branch of the District Line, which just happened to be where I needed to go. Thus, I had to wait for a while longer for a train to arrive before I was able to get out to Kew. The good news was, once I got out to Kew, I didn't have any further problems.

I worked at the National Archives until around 1, at which time I had to leave Kew to go back into central London to meet one of my lecturers at the University of London at 3 pm. I met up with him, and stayed at the Institute for Historical Research to do some work on an upcoming paper. I headed back over to Victoria Station when they closed, to try to find a McDonalds to use the internet there.

However, the McDonalds at Victoria is a McDonalds Express, which just has a counter that opens out onto the station concourse. Thus, I wasn't able to get on the internet, so I had to go on over to the Coach Station and sit and do the Sudoku in The London Paper. I managed to do the Simple and Medium ones, but made next to no progress on the Difficult one in the 20 minutes or so that I worked on it before it was time to board the bus and head for home.