The British Library is built to look like a boat...

 Our first week in London was somewhat of a whirlwind, which is perfect for alleviating jetlag I suppose. No time to fall into a nap when the town is waiting. Our fantastic British Life and Culture instructor Nicole Moody took us on a surprise trip to the British Library not far from King's Cross station, which saved me from planning a trip with my Encounters in Humanities students (and from taking an ill-advised nap.) 

This is St. Pancras outside King's Cross station...a hotel now but maybe not one I can afford. It is another example of beautiful architecture you can find all over London though, which we have to appreciate as residents of Midwest suburbs. Certainly the Brits are proud of it for good reason.

Here see King's Cross station itself...a major travel hub, from which myself and my students will travel to the continent via Eurostar...

The British Library for instance, has been rebuilt to look like a boat as you can see here. This isn't the original building in which the collections were housed, but I have to say I find this redesign pretty adorable. 

People do actually sit around and study in this library, too, which surprised me. In the area, and in many areas around London, you would also notice numerous temporary installments of modern art, such as this giant illuminated bird cage, in which you can sit on a swing like a canary. For Encounters in Humanities, you could probably book a tour of these sites.

My students were to observe the free collection in the library, as I did too. I saw original notebooks by the Brontes and Virginia Woolf, and even Angela Carter, which I didn't expect. They had a copy of The Girlhood of Shakespeare's Heroines as well - my mom gave me a copy of that long ago that sits on my shelf, so that made me feel special. But I was also pleased to see a lot of emphasis on books as works of art, and the acknowledgement of a tradition that began with some of the oldest religious texts. Those tended to be my favorite...very beautiful.

Notes for teachers: This is definitely a good stop for Encounters in Humanities. If you wanted to get specific, you might provide a prompt that asks students to discuss the intersections between text and art highlighted by the collection. This might be a good stop for Women Writers as well, if just for memorial reasons. If you incorporate a book-making element into your creative writing, this would be a must.