It'd be nice if the Sultans could Swing me a better lot in London. It should be clear that for me telecommunications is the central factor determining the quality of my accommodations. In this respect, London is the worst place so far. Oh, there are internet ports in the rooms, but one must have a King's College login to access them. No guest access here like at Queen's. There are no phones in the apartment and no common room with computers for people to use. That puts London just below Cork on the telecommunications scale. Frankly, I'm disappointed. For a place that caters to international travelers--in LONDON of all places--you would think they'd have some sort of solution to the telecommunications question. There is a bar directly across the street that has "free" wifi (with purchase of course), but that's hardly acceptable in my book. Nevertheless, it's something I'll have to deal with. Let's just say I'm glad I'm only here for a week. I couldn't afford to be here longer!
The room itself isn't too bad. There's a mini fridge, two pillows, and the sheets are really comfortable. The bathroom, however, is one of the most "European" things I have encountered thus far. I will upload a photo later, but it's basically a triangle with one corner being the "shower," with a bar bisecting the triangle that holds the curtain rod. When the shower curtain is closed, the toilet is inside the shower. I shit you not (excuse the pun). Now I was a part-time custodian for about 3 years in undergrad and I am by no means a germophobe, but I do not like grimy things. This bathroom scares me. Needless to say, another reason I'm glad I'm only here for a week.
On the research front, today was very productive. I spent the day at the Imperial War Museum, which is one of the coolest museums in London (again, another one I think the Colonel would thoroughly enjoy). When I got to the reading room they had the files I had requested waiting for me at an assigned seat. The chairs were comfy and the room was big and bright. Really, it was ideal for doing research. The only drawback was that of the probably 30 seats available they crammed everyone right next to each other so there wasn't much room to work. That kind of sucked, but otherwise, I enjoyed it. I must say that most of the research facilities here have been great, with the obvious exception of the National Library of Ireland. Tomorrow's plan is to go out to the National Archive at Kew. I know that I can use the old digital camera there so hopefully I'll only need the one day there. We'll see. It looks like it's probably a 45 min Tube ride in the morning. If you think that public transportation in Chicago is expensive where a cash fare for a single ride is $2, try London where the same goes for £4 ($8). Yet another reason I'm glad I'll only be here for a week.
Finally, a totally unrelated thing, but one I think worthwhile - a format change for this here blog. I've decided that an "Album" of the week isn't really cutting mustard any more. Sometimes I find myself picking an album because of a particular song on it. Since the music industry seems to be going retro to the 50s and 60s where singles ruled, I'm changing the Album of the Week to This Week's Music, which may include a single song, an entire album, or a live concert. Since, personally, I prefer live music, I'll provide links whenever possible to live music. Singles and records, I assume people (and I use this term loosely since there are 4 people reading this) can do a Google or iTunes search for a song or album.
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