Tinawi Palooza: Tower of London

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. :-)

Taylor, Me, Abby, Erica ready for the Tower of London!

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.

The tower where Thomas Cromwell was held when he was charged with treason.

The gate had a different name but Henry VIII renamed it the Traitor Gate because of all the traitors that went through it.

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.

Look at that sharp and scary portcullis!

Me looking "scared" at the Bloody Tower.

In what used to be a Tudor dwelling.

A remake of what it would have looked like.

Us pretending to be very proper and regal.

Dana and I getting married by the beautiful stain glass!

This Beefeater was not in the best mood. Taylor chose to capture is feelings for us in this dramatic picture.

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.