Another super full day for the Staceys in their marvelous western Europe adventure, the final week of which is in London. Once we got breakfast out of the way, it was on to our first stop of the day, the British Library. We only had a couple of hours there, so we played in their digital exhibit, The Sound and the Fury: The Power of Public Speaking, featuring audio clips of famous speeches you can listen to. Following that, we visited the Treasures, including:

• A possibly original Shakespeare manuscript
• An original manuscript of Alice in Wonderland
• Original copies of Magna Carta
• A Gutenberg Bible
• Original music transcripts from Mozart and Handel

It was quite fascinating, but our time was short, as we had a tour at the BBC at three. Well, that's a lie. I was convinced that our tour was at three. It wasn't. More on that later. Making our way to the BBC via Tube, we needed to grab some lunch, so we hit a food court in the nearby Westfield London Mall -- what a groovy mall! It was just opened in October, and it's huge, ultra modern, and bears a striking resemblance to a cross between an Apple Store and the bridge of the Enterprise in the new Star Trek. I took advantage of the fact that I was actually *ahead* of Newfoundland time (3.5 hours, to be exact), and got to call Mom to wish her a happy birthday in the morning (for her). I picked up a little pre-paid SIM for my unlocked iPhone in the train station this morning, and it worked like a champ. Now, I have a UK number, too. :) We left the mall, duly arriving at the BBC at least five minutes before our tour at three, we sat and waited. And waited. And waited. At 3:20, Tisha asked me if I was sure it wasn't at 3:30. Guess what. It was at 3:30. We began the tour in the BBC news center. The newest building in the complex, it comprises seven floors, houses all of BBC News (Television, Radio, and Internet), and employs over 2000 people. After a brief overview of the news operations (for example, we learned BBC is the biggest news organization in terms of viewers, with CNN trailing behind), we made our way to the Television Factory, as it's called. Here, we learned about the construction of the buildings (from a bird's eye view, it resembles a question mark), interesting history tidbits (only three people have been allowed to drive in the center of the circular complex -- the Queen, Jennifer Lopes -- because she was being a cantankerous diva and time is money, and Jeremy Clarkson in a tiny car. We saw a real working studio, Studio 6, which was being used to rehearse Mock the Week, and was home to many other shows, including Doctor Who in the Tom Baker days. In fact, we discovered our tour guide was Rosalind Lloyd, who starred in one of the Douglas Adams Doctor Who stories, The Pirate Planet. Very cool! We visited a dressing room, heard some stories, played in an imaginary TV studio, and visited the BBC shop that's not open to the public in general. The complex itself employs 8000 people! It's got a W. H. Smith, a dry cleaner, a beauty salon... all inside the building for the employees. A great and fun afternoon. By the time we were done about 90 minutes later, we made our way to Westminster to visit the Parliament. There was a bit of a wait, as this is the last week Parliament is in session, and a bunch of people were queued up to visit their MP on appointment. Once it started drizzling, they let those of us who just wanted to see the galleries to go in as well. The process reminded me of my visit to the Canadian Parliament back in 2003. I have a lot of thoughts on that, but I'll jot them down later when I'm not so tired. We climbed many, many, many stairs and sat in the gallery overlooking the debate in the House of Commons, and then, after some time, went back downstairs, across the hall, up not as many stairs, and visited the gallery overlooking the House of Lords as they debated. It was 9:00 by the time we left Westminster Palace (where the Houses are housed), and I was feeling the need for beer, so we hopped a cab up to Euston station to visit a recommended pub. Yes, we could have used the Tube since we were right there, but I hadn't ridden a cab yet this visit, and I just love those London cabs. We made our way to the Doric Arch and enjoyed a few pints and some crisps. At 10:30, we called it a day and made it back to the hotel. And, once again, I'm too tired to bother posting the pics from my phone, so it'll happen sometime soon. On Thursday, I'll be going to Oxford, and they have WiFi on the bus, so maybe then. Nighty night.