Bloomsbury

I attempted to go down and have lunch with a friend today who is doing research at the British Library. We ended up never meeting up, but I enjoyed a pleasant stroll around Bloomsbury. It is such a lovely neighborhood, really just perfect in so many ways. Tons of bookstores, universities galore, rows of townhouses surrounding adorable Georgian grassy squares, and walking distance from both Camden to the north and the busy West End neighborhoods to the south. Way too posh for normal human beings to ever actually live there, I imagine, but one can dream.

I spent a happy hour walking around the British Museum. I'd been there once before, but I just wanted to poke my head in and see the Elgin Marbles to remind myself that the United States didn't invent imperialism. Also wandered around the Roman Britain collection, which is quite nice, and the Asian and American collection, both of which were predictably poor.

And as it always seems to do in London these days, world politics found a way to intrude. On my way back up to Mornington Crescent to catch the tube home, I found myself on a street that seemed both strangely familar, but also strangely eerie--it was hard to put a finger on it, but people just seemed to have strange expressions on their faces. I looked for a street sign, and realized that I was in Tavistock Square, right where the bus blew up on July 7. No trace of the blast or anything on the street or the adjacent building, but there was a definite air of unease circulating around.