RAF Museum, British Library

May 26: RAF Museum

Left the hostel around 10, stopping at our favourite water tap near St. Paul's to fill our water bottles. Another cool, overcast day, just right for travellers. Galen took us on the Underground out to Henden, a fairly long way, to where the stations are above ground!

On the way Galen was trying to write a list on a piece of paper, and the girl sitting across from him offered her notebook for him to write on. It was nice to speak to a stranger; she said she wanted to go to Canada some day, which seems to be a common sentiment here.

Noted a couple good pieces of language use on the tube. "Alight at Collindale for RAF Musuem," and "Improvement works may affect your journey, particularly on weekends."

Walked over to the RAF Museum, which is four big buildings filled with planes. In a way it's all so familiar to us by now (after years of going to air museums) but there were many new things here. A complete collection British planes, for one thing, plus history of British operations during the Cold War, which we never see in North American museums. A British take on air traffic control, and air pioneers like Amy Johnson and Mr. Chichester. We watched a short promo film for the RAF and Kate wanted to sign up right away.

Ate a lunch we'd brought with us at one of their picnic tables. Will bought a "Victorian lemonade;" later we read on the label "Does not contain more than 0.5% alcohol by volume." He liked it.

The hands-on stuff for kids at this museum was excellent: some of the clearest demonstrations of flight principles I've ever seen.

It was a relief to be out of the downtown core for a few hours. Left the museum with a patch and a new pack of playing cards that has a different aircraft on each card.

On the way into London I got off at Kings Cross so I could go to the Magnificent Maps special exhibit at the British Library. On the way out of the station I discovered my Oyster card would not get me out: the little lights went red when I swiped it, instead of green. Turned out that in order to travel with a London travelcard to Zone 4 of the Underground, as we'd just done, I had to add £1.30 to my card. So I figured out the machines that let you add pay-as-you-go money. Kate had to do the same when she and the boys arrived at St. Paul's.

The maps exhibit was thrilling: eight rooms of huge wall maps from 1400's to the 1700's. I stayed in there until closing time at 6:00, and boy did my feet hurt. Learned that all the rivers on the east coast of North America at one time had Spanish names, saw some measurement units I'd never seen before ('verges' ?), and picked up the Italian names for eight winds (Levante, Greco, Scirocco...). A great premise for a journey would be to take one of these old maps and go to the same place today and see what you found.

I took the #45 bus back from Kings Cross to Ludgate Circus and walked up to St. Paul's, where I found Kate and the boys in Pizza Express. I knew to check there because I tried phoning her and there was no answer, which meant she was in a noisy place. I myself grabbed some things to eat out of Marks & Spencer, and we went home to our familiar and cozy hostel.