Day 6: A Little Sun and a Lot of Sleep Make a World of Difference

Spring peeps through

California Dreaming on Warren St.

As I peeped through the padded night mask stolen from the first class section of my Virgin Atlantic flight out through the curtains, I noticed something I hadn’t seen yet in London, THE SUN!! Yes! The SUN! Could it be that this country was indeed touched by rays of the radiant sphere? Could it be that Seasonal Affective Disorder and Vitamin D deficiency were not the inevitable fate of every one of this country's inhabitants? Could it be that sunglass displays were not in fact someone’s idea of a sick joke? Could it be? As I bounded out of bed, rapidly dismantling the research thesis I began crafting in my head on: “English Plantlife and their Alternative Pathways to Photosynthesis,” I realized just how much I took the sun for granted. I swore in that moment that never again would I curse the sun or the rain as I fiddled with the A/C or windshield wipers while stuck in traffic on the 405. Finally over jet lag with 12 hours of sleep the night before (I hadn't gotten that much sleep since I started med school!), I prepared myself for a full day of sightseeing and city walking. With my London A-Z in hand I took off in search of all city wonders. As I am first and foremostly a nerd, despite country of birth or origin I headed straight for the "medicine museum" first.

Ayahuasca Oddities and The Wonderwall

Free entry for the incurably curious

Henry Wellcome was a pharmacist and a philanthropist whose love for medicine and its eclectic history founded the ‘Wellcome Collection:  A Free Destination for the Incurably Curious.” Sounded like just my thing. Founded on Euston Road not too far from campus, its most current exhibit was called “High Society: Mind-altering drugs in history and culture.” Sounded just like my thing. This was sure to give “high tea” a WHOLE new meaning. The exhibit was an immense display of historic drug paraphernalia ranging from ancient hookah pipes and betel nut cutters, to 1960's makeshift beer bongs. 
There were laudanum inspired photographs, crack house dioramas, absinthe induced literary pieces and psychedelic walls of revolving colors. But for as much as I searched, I could not find a room that gave "free samples" or had "how to" workshops. Major letdown. Alas, I pressed on. The top floor of The Collection, was an enormous and beautiful reference library that housed every historic book known to the ancient and modern world of medicine. Lister, Darwin, Mendel, Semelweiss, Grey, Nightingale, Curie....you name them, they were there. 
After thoroughly romping through pre-historic JAMA and BMJ articles and combing through medieval manuals on consumption and bloodletting, I remembered that I wasn't on call anymore, nor was I anywhere near a hospital and perhaps I needed to get out of the medical library. 

Early pharmaceuticals made from heroin and cocaine

So, with fervent determination I went back onto the street ready for my next adventure. That's right, to another library. The nerd in me would not go quietly. Out of the Wellcome Library and into the British one.

Newton

Gutenberg, Alice and the Magna Carta  The British Library is overwhelming. It is a giant, bustling city with acres and acres and floors and floors of books. Old books, new books, out of print books, e-books…on and on. In the middle of the Library is a glass walled column that houses the King’s Library. From all around you can see large, ancient, leather bound tomes from every language, dead or alive, ever written in. I was exhausted just thinking about the pages of texts and stories and history that were written in those pages! But this is not a stuffy library by any means and it's even a bit noisy! It is a vibrant, fully functioning, operational, social spot with laptops, backpacks and study groups everywhere you look. On the piazza entrance there is a giant statue of Newton and beneath it there are cafes and restaurants where people come to eat lunch and do some reading. The moment I walked into the library, I knew it was going to take more than one day to grasp it all, so I headed straight for the rare documents gallery first just in case I ran out of time. In this one, dimly lit, purpled-walled room lived Shakespeare’s first folio, Handel’s original Messiah, The Canterbury Tales, The Gutenberg Bible, The Magna Carta, and ALICE IN WONDERLAND!! all beautifully conserved and displayed. People take on an immediate silence and reverence when they enter this room, an almost quiet-holiness washes over them. All the original works of great Masters in a single four walled space can be a little overwhelming.

The library piazza

But by far, the display that most seduced me was Lewis Carroll’s diary and his first draft of Alice in Wonderland. I spent more time with the Mad Hatter than I did with Gutenberg, Chaucer and the Magna Carta combined! I was really glad the Queen built a place for all of the great works to live in. And I was even more glad that she invited all the people of the world to come and see them for free.