the town of Kew...

I went to the National Archives today which is in the little town of Kew just southwest of London. It was about a 40 minute ride by train. I was really happy to see this other side of England, the small town side. London is awesome but I guess I like a smaller less hurried pace sometimes. Kew was a very quaint little town. It is a town because in England, you only call a place a city if it has a Cathedral. So Canterbury is a city, London is a city, but Kew is a town.

Here's a row of houses on my walk from the train to the National Archives.



The National Archives looked like a fairly new building and it was so nice inside. It took me a bit to figure out how to do things but finally I did. Unfortunately everything I wanted was on microfilm. But I was able to convince the librarian guy, who was really nice, that I really needed to see Elizabeth's translations (Boethius) up close because the microfilm was hard to read. He approved me to do this and on Friday I will most probably be the first person in a 100 years to look at her translations (I Know this because the last person to do this published them in a book and no one has mentioned them since). So I am excited.

The entrance to the National Archives.



There were geese all over the place, and ducks and the little ducklings, geeslings, ducken, goosen, many more moosen were not afraid of me at all. I thought those geese were from Canada..how did they get over here?

Tomorrow I think I am going to Oxford to try to see what I can see in their library. THere is a chance I will not be able to because I didn't have the form filled out by my advisor before I left america. I have two letters which tell everything the form asks, we will see how flexible they are. I probably won't wear my Oxford hoodie when I go. I am sure they won't be impressed.

On another note, I must seem to look like I know what I am doing as I have had many people ask me directions. That is a laugh for those who know me. I did also find that in Kew the English people seemed much nicer and even twice strangers approached me at the Tube station when I looked confused staring at the map asking if I needed help. So I guess the big city types just are in more of a hurry.