I spent the morning tidying up my room, buying groceries and doing a couple hours work on my essay before heading to Paddington Station to meet up for class.

Clas was pretty cool. We looked at train stations and tunnels all day, spending a lot of time on the H'Smith/Circle/Metropolitan lines. We looked at Paddington, Kings Cross and St. Pancras stations before going to Rotherhithe on the south bank to go to the Brunel museum.

The Brunel museum was overall a small operation which had displays about the tunnel under the Thames from Rotherhithe to Wapping (a Brunel idea/invention). It was originally intended to be a tunnel for cargo (as a response to the heavy traffic on the Thames). However, as most things go, they ran out of money so they were unable to build the large shafts on either shore, with ramps for the horses and carriages (necessary to transport the cargo). So instead it became an underground shopping arena then later, a fairground. Now it is used by the Underground system. it was the first underwater (at least under river) tunnel in the world, and became part of the oldest underground system in the world. The coolest part was going into the shaft (the small one built during the construction process). Now obviously, since trains now run through the tunnel, a cement platform/floor was put in place about 1/3-1/2 of the way down the shaft. We had to crawl through a very small opening then climb down scaffolding to get to the platform. Once in there you can see marks on the wall where the staircase and handrails used to be for pedestrians to get down to the tunnel. The shaft, until very recently, had been closed for 140 years. The museum acquired it and intend to restore it as much as possible and host parties in it, a la Victorian style.

Once we climbed back out of the shaft I made my way back to the flat (in the underground during rush hour, ugh), then just hung out for the evening.