The month-long, 3-city European research trip has begun — albeit slowly and plagued by flight delays and one very expensive taxi ride.  I had a fantastic 12-hour layover in London thanks to my old roommate Jen, who has lived there for a while and gave me a personalized walking tour of a city about to be completely overrun with a million visitors.  The streets of London are already so crazy and packed that I’m very afraid for those citizens who are staying in the city.  At least, according to advertisements plastered around town, they can work from home.  Welcome to the grad student lifestyle, 9-5ers.

2 of my favorite things (other than Jen) in London: this Siamese taxidermy cat and a total butchering of the spelling of Oaxaca on the Mexican food stand.

After traveling for 48 hours from SD – London – Paris, I arrived at CDG too late to catch the last metro into town and resorted to the aforementioned overpriced, but extremely delightful, taxi ride.   Probably the best 60 Euros I’ve ever been forced to spend.  When I checked in at my hostel (a steal, by the way, $20 per night & that includes breakfast and homemade Korean dinner), they had informed me that I couldn’t take a shower.  That wasn’t about to happen.  I pretty much forced / pleaded my way into hot water and that was also well worth it.

Today I headed off to the Bibliothèque nationale de France, which is amazing.  There are two locations — one for manuscripts and the other for books — both of which I managed to visit.  The research was a bit slow, but I’m hoping that things will pick up tomorrow.