Abbey and Tower

I can honestly say that I don't really remember much of Wenesday. I kept doing things on Thursday (like going to the library for research) and stopping to think, haven't I done this recently? But when? I was in Nivelles yesterday. It took me a while to remember that it was Thursday and I'd relaxed for Wednesday. I must have been pretty tired, but it was three days of lots of walking and early mornings.

Friday wasn't too early of a morning, though I did wind up getting up way before my alarm went off due to garbage trucks outside. I went grocery shopping so I'd have breakfast this morning and something to eat when I came home if I didn't get something in London.

We took a late-ish train into London, so we didn't get in until almost 11. Then we didn't get into Westminster until 11:30, and we only had 2 hours to look around. There were some really neat parts, mostly the dead people, all the kings and queens since Henry III are buried there, plus other famous people, like Newton and Darwin, Wordsworth, Lord Byron (not Shakespeare), but it was also really cool to go into the Chapter House. For now it's set up as a display on the Royal Wedding, but you can still see the amazing tiles in the floor and the paintings on the wall. The windows were replaced after they were destroyed in WWII, but there's writing along the bottom that tells their story.

Honestly, St. Paul's is more spectacular. It's beautiful and not as crowded. The dead people were cool at Westminster, but St. Paul's has dead  people too. Sir Christopher Wren, Admiral Horatio Lord Nelson and Wellsley, the Duke of Wellington. That was pretty cool.

The Tower of London was awesome. It was a lot less fortress-y than I excpected, but then I realized that it's very fortress-y. It has a probably 15 foot high, 30 foot thick outer wall, and a 25 foot high inner wall. Plus it used to have a moat! And then there's the white tower inside, so it's very fortress-y, it just doesn't look it. It also reminded me of the Alamo. It's also a really old building (of course the Tower has a few hundred years on the Alamo) but it's smack in the middle of downtown, though it was in the middle of nowhere when it was built.

The original Tower, the White Tower, was begun by William the Conqueror, then various kings expanded through the years. We went on a tour with one of the Yeoman, and he told us who died where and how and who was imprisoned where and for how long. There were some really good stories. Of course they were about executions, so they are sad, but some of them are humerous in a morbid fashion. There was a bishop that Henry VIII wanted to execute, but the bishop had fled to France, so Henry decided to execute his mother, a 70 year old lady. When she was lead to the scaffold, she refused to kneel and said she'd done nothing wrong. The executioner looked at Henry VIII who told him to 'Get on with it!' The Executioner proceeded to chase the 70 year old lady around the scaffolding until she was caught, held down and executed.
Our guard was really funny.

After the tour, we went and saw the Crown Jewels. Which is where I lost everyone. There are some really big rocks in the Crown Jewels. And a really, really big punch bowl. It said it holds like 41 bottles of wine. After that, I got ice cream, because it sounded good, and now I can say I've eaten ice cream at the Tower of London. It was good ice cream, toffee and butterscotch. Then I wandered around and made it up on the walls. I was trying to get to the princess walk, but made it to a whole bunch of other places instead. I went through the bloody tower, where Edward V and his little brother (they were 12 and 9 at the time) disappeared. The next king, their uncle Richard III, is generally blamed with having them murdered. In the 1700's, two bodies were found and are generally believe to be the princes.

I also made it to a gift shop and got a postcard for me and souveniers for my family. :)

Finally, I made it to the Princess Walk, the only place Elizabeth was allowed outside while imprisoned by her sister, Queen Mary. It has the best views of the Tower Bridge. I ducked my head in the White Tower, which has an armory exhibit, but there was too much to see and it was almost time to go. I headed towards the gates to get a map, and ran into the graduate students. I waited with them for the rest of the grad students (and Ariel) and then we headed home. I had chips (crisps to the people here) left over from lunch and a chocolate au pain for dinner. I'd been craving one for like a week now. It was amazing. On the way back, the grad students discussed plans for Monday, and they're going to Hyde park. I think I'm going to go with them and also look at the Victoria and Albert Museum, since most of them are going to the British and I've seen it before. I wouldn't mind going back, but there's so much other stuff to see.

Today is Canterbury Cathedral, so I'll probably have another post and some more picture up this afternoon. Now I have to go get batteries for my camera and chips (or fries to us) for lunch.

Also, John wanted to be in my blog, so a shout out to John. :)