Last night I got the arch of my left foot to pop, which cured the shooting pains. Unfortunately, though today contained about half as much walking as yesterday, that was still about 40% more than my feet wanted to do. If I can survive Westminster tomorrow morning, though, I think I’ll live. After that, there will be more sitting, less walking.

So let’s continue with my perambulations, as taken (mostly) from my journal, whose formerly sleek black exterior is rapidly becoming war-torn indeed.

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Woken up at 6:30 this morning by a fire alarm. Good morning, London.

The rest of my shared room decided they might as well get up, so after a failed attempt to go back to sleep (and mind you, I didn’t get to sleep until after 1 a.m.), I get up, too. We might as well get started.

I have many things scheduled for upcoming days, but nothing for today. This is deliberate. Today is just for the City.

For those not familiar with its history, a brief primer: London the city is a sprawling monstrosity, but the City of London is a tiny thing, approximately one square mile, and back in the Elizabethan era, it was all there was. The City; some suburbs beginning to burst out of its walls; Westminster upriver, connected by a thin thread of development; Southwark across the Thames, connected by the one and only London Bridge. I’m staying in a hostel near St. Paul’s because I wanted to be in a place that existed back then, and where I could walk the City.

There’s almost nothing here that dates back to the sixteenth century, though. The Great Fire saw to that in 1666, and what it missed, the Victorians got. I have to scrounge to find Tudor-era buildings; that’s what the next few days are for. But the City is still here, and that’s what today is for. Many of the streets are still right where they used to be, even if now they’re lined with Starbucks and Pret. Sir Christopher Wren had grand ideas after the fire for how to redesign the city into a more harmonious pattern, but while he was busy planning, Londoners were busy rebuilding — right where everything had been before. I walk different road surfaces than my historical characters did, but the roads themselves are often the same.

So today was a wandering day, and what you get is a wandering journal.

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Moving has been eating very nearly my every waking minute for over a week now (packing, transporting, unpacking, organizing), but I thought I’d take a moment to post about my upcoming trip, and how incredibly helpful people are being. Once I’m home again and have a complete list, I’m going to post something on my website naming off every individual who has assisted me in planning the research aspects of my trip: both the ones who will be giving me personal tours of sites I’m visiting, and the ones who have helped coordinate those tours. At this point, I’ve got assistance lined up for when I go to the Tower of London, Hampton Court Palace, Hardwick Hall, and the New Globe Theatre’s archives. These people have very busy work schedules, I know, and so I’m deeply grateful for the time they’re taking on my behalf.

Regular service of novel-related posts will resume in the not-too-distant future. After I get myself entirely out of the old house, and remember that oh yeah, I have a novel to write.