Three Thousand Fifty-Six Stairs (more or less) and Counting

Upon arriving in London, Katy and I were faced with these stairs.  Each day, my flatmates and I have been battling them -- all 71 of them, to get to and from our flat.  On average I suspect that I take around three round trips daily.  That equals to 2556 stairs since we've been here (and that's only up, double that for the up and down).  Needless to say that after 13 days I have come to terms with these stairs ... heck, I have even begun to appreciate them.  Though I may be a bit biased, I do believe that we have the best flat.  Sometimes putting in a little bit of hard work pays off in the end.

You may be wondering why the extra 500 stairs in my title ... and I shall now share.  Today we toured St. Paul's Cathedral.  Our wonderful tour guide, John, gave us the scoops on the history of the Cathedral, pointed out interesting crypts, and even took us to this special place.  All you Potter heads should be able to recognize stairs from scenes in "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire".  It's real name is the Geometric Staircase.  I feel so much more informed about this wonderful building - it makes the experience so much richer.  To top off the day, classmates Kaitlin, Eric, Elana, and I climbed the 500 stairs to the top of the cathedral:

Spiral Staircase

Not for those who dislike tight spaces.

The view from a tiny little window.

The view from above - see the River Thames and the London Eye?

How would I have seen this without putting a little extra in?

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Something worth mentioning - I am, after all, a library student - was our trip to the Barbican Library.  Nestled between two art galleries in a business district in London, the Barbican Library is one of three lending libraries in the area.  I was most impressed by their music collection (of which they are known for). 

I was surprised to learn that children and adults get different library cards, thus restricting children from checking out certain videos or CDs.  When asked whether or not they do the same for books, the librarian mentioned that they do all that they can to encourage kids to read "appropriate" books.  The reason why this took me aback is because most librarians in the US would have a cow if this happened outright in their libraries.  Generally, librarians in the US back the ALA's (American Libraries Association) beliefs in Intellectual Freedom.  Basically, everyone has the right to have access to many different viewpoints through resources in the library.  It's quite the interesting topic, which can get very heated.

My favorite thing this about the library happened to be a children's program which is funded by England's Department of Education.  It is called Bookstart.  The premise is that every child should have access to and own books.  Thus children are given packs of books (for free!) at three stages in their development - the first coming at 18-30 months.  How cool is that?

It kind of goes to show how important reading is to this country.  Perhaps we should learn to take a few extra steps and begin something like this in the US - imagine the view our children will gain from it.

SUPERTOURed and SUPERTIRED, Tara.