Hello friends and family!
It has been an excellent trip so far. I flew in to Heathrow business class! Loved the little beds. My friend Katie and I flew together. It was great to have someone with me and we had a little pod type seats, so we were in our own little world. We arrived yesterday but it was a bit of a jet-lag fog. I did get to see Dad, Reagan, and my sibs which was GREAT! I wish I could have seen them longer. Other than that, not much to report. Although we did end the day at a pub! Having real "London" food. It was fun.
Today was my first real day in London. I slept 13 hours! YAY! Woke up, had some instant coffee with delicious London cream, got ready for the day, and met friends for lunch. I am not sure if that is all to exciting for you to read, but there are people who really want to know what my day has been like, so I will share as much as I can with you. If you get bored, please feel free to skip parts or stop reading altogether. I will try and make this somewhat an interesting read for you though. I want it to be worth your time.
I digress... We had lunch a Nando's. A chicken restaurant and then met the group to head to the Tower of London. We walked from our NYU in London residence to Covent Garden, a place I will for SURE be visiting again, and then caught a bus. The weather was SPECTACULAR. Just beautiful. Sunny, a bit hot... Just wonderful. Londoners keep telling us not to get used to it.
We arrived at the Tower of London and I was glad to be there but not excited. However, when I walked into the GIANT inside that is the Tower of London my breath was taken away. Perhaps it's a sign of maturity, perhaps it's all the DND I have been playing, perhaps it's from watching all the episodes of the Tudors, but I was mesmerized. The history. The bloodiness. The fact that ANNE BOLEYN was BURIED UNDER OUR FEET! It was just breath taking. I couldn't believe. I listened to every word of our tour guide. I listened to where people were executed and where they were kept when they were taken into custody. Some of the buildings are over 2,000 years old. That is just amazing. I wish that I could have stayed longer. I didn't even get to see the Crown Jewels. I have heard they are amazing but with the time that we had I wanted to go through all the Towers.
The people that I went with were supremely fun people as well. We posed, read signs intermittently, listened to the tour with our own commentary, and had a GREAT time! I am exhausted and would love to write more but I will post some pictures below. If you have Facebook you probably have already seen them so don't feel that you have to go on. I also apologize for any grammatical errors that might have snuck into this post. I promise to do my best to continue posting. Thanks for reading. :-)
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| Taylor, Me, Abby, Erica ready for the Tower of London! |
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| Our amazing Beefeater who gave us the tour. He has been in the military for over 40 years and is a proud member of the Queen's personal guard. It would be amazing to learn all that he knows and hear all he has seen. |
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| The tower where Thomas Cromwell was held when he was charged with treason. |
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| The gate had a different name but Henry VIII renamed it the Traitor Gate because of all the traitors that went through it. |
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| The Bloody Tower that also used to have a different name. It was renamed the Bloody Tower after Henry VIII was no longer reigning. It was named the Bloody Tower because of all the people he had executed. |
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| Look at that sharp and scary portcullis! |
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| Me looking "scared" at the Bloody Tower. |
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| In what used to be a Tudor dwelling. |
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| A remake of what it would have looked like. |
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| Us pretending to be very proper and regal. |
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| Dana and I getting married by the beautiful stain glass! |
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| This Beefeater was not in the best mood. Taylor chose to capture is feelings for us in this dramatic picture. |
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| It's hard to tell that there is a ghost in this picture. It's also hard to explain what this was. The picture shows the exact screen that we were looking at. There was a "ghost" in the picture behind us and we look like ghosts as well. It was very cool. |
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| Me holding a Crossbow! A REAL one! With no arrows! |
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| The crown of someone. I probably should remember who. I thought it was pretty. |
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| Katie, Dana, and I posing on one of the long walkways between Towers. The Tower Bridge is behind us! |
