Today, Monica decided that she could no longer put off her research, which (theoretically) is the reason she's here, although until now she's been detoured into daily touring. This morning, she went off to the British Library to get her library card and start collecting the info she needs, but at £1 per page photocopying charge, she may find her research is more expensive than the tourist traps.
So, like Eponine, I am "on my own..." Oh wait, that was France. Maybe not so applicable after all. Never mind.
(When we were in Piccadilly Circus last week, there were many posters for musicals and plays being performed. I saw one for Les Miserables, and said, "Hey, look-" Monica immediately cuts me off: "You saw that twice already. We're not going again." Tyrant.)
What's a Canadian girl to do, all alone in London? Well, you know I can't stay out of trouble for long - it's probably no surprise that I ended up being dragged away to the Tower of London. (Or walking there of my own free will, which is a more accurate, but less picturesque description of the day.)
Yes, Jackie told me it was expensive, and Monica said she wouldn't go for the same reason, but I can't help it. It's a medieval fortress! How can you resist that? So I paid my £15 pounds to get in, and actually tagged along with the Beefeater tour guide. He was quite good with quite a theatrical flair - alternately making amusing jokes or telling grisly tales about the history of the Tower.
The White Tower dates back to 1078 (William the Conqueror), and was built on the site of an ancient Roman fortress (see? Rome built things to last!) that Julius Caesar had supposedly founded. Later rulers added onto the Tower, so now the White Tower is in the middle of a whole lot of towers and walls. We saw Traitor's Gate, the waterside entry to the fortress (and one of the shops was called "Traders Gate" - ha ha, punny!). Traitor's Gate is where most of the prisoners were brought into the fortress. I guess if you came in there, you were presumed guilty until proven innocent. Which didn't happen often.
There was a picturesque cottage-like row of houses, which were called "The Queen's House". Henry VIII had them built for Anne Boleyn (in addition to being fortress and prison, it was also a royal residence by that time). Ironically, by the time the cottages were completed, Henry had tired of Anne, and she was kept there for two weeks before she was beheaded. :'-( Henry's an @$$.
The Tower Green is just outside of the Queen's House, which is where the high-ranking nobility and royals were executed. It's more private, away from the rabble, whereas other prisoners were brought out for the crowds to watch. There's a plaque marking the site. I think he said that 9 people were executed on the Tower Green, of which only one was a man (I think he said it was Essex - Elizabeth I was fond of him, and so had him executed there instead of in public. Makes you wonder what she was like when she WASN'T fond of you).
I stayed near the back of the tour group, sometimes wandering off to take pictures and coming back again. Fortunately, I did rejoin in time to tour the church, since it is only accessible of the Beefeater tours. It's the Chapel Royal of St Peter ad Vincula, and the people executed at the Tower were buried beneath the church. In the 1800s, Queen Victoria had them excavate the church, identify as many bodies as they could, and give them all proper burials. There were 1500 bodies under the church (!!!), of which they were able to identify only 35. Anne Boleyn, Catherine Howard, Jane Grey and her husband are all buried at the front of the church.
Catherine Howard, one of Henry's later wives, was executed for adultery with Thomas Culpepper. Right before being executed, she said, "I die the Queen of England. But I would rather die as Thomas Culpepper's wife." Hah! Translation: "Up yours, Fat Henry."
Some of the other towers had "graffiti" carved into the walls by the prisoners who stayed there. That's the most elaborate, painstaking graffiti I've ever seen.
One of the other interesting things I learned on the tour was that the moat around the Tower was supposed to fill when the Thames rose, and then drain when it receded - except that they dug it 15 feet deeper than the Thames. So the water came in, and it stayed, forever and ever. And all the sewage draining from the fortress would just settle in the moat and percolate. When the Thames rose, it only made things worse by stirring it up. The stench would be unbearable. As the Beefeater put it, "Imagine the heat of summer, the biggest cesspool in all of England, and it's right over there." Eek! It wasn't until the 1800s, when the Duke of Wellington finally had it drained and filled it in with earth.
There are ravens. I didn't see any up close, but I did see one sitting on top of the White Tower, and I could hear them croaking every now and again.
There were also displays on weaponry, another on Guy Fawkes. I saw several "changing of the guard"s. And, of course, there are the Crown Jewels. Holy crap. They're really unbelievably large - it's hard to believe that they're actually real. And some of the sceptres are massive - they must be incredibly heavy. You have to stand on moving sidewalks that take you past go this exhibit, otherwise people would stand there forever. And when you leave, there are these huge steel doors, like the ones they have in bank vaults.
So, after I'd wandered through all the towers, and along all the walls, and seen the jewels and displays, I decided it was such a lovely sunny day that maybe I'd walk along the Embankment side of the river on my way to the London Aquarium. It's not as nice as the West End - more modern glass and steel buildings, and a million business men all outside on coffee breaks. (A lot of businessmen in London wear pink shirts or pink ties. I don't know why. I just noticed it, that's all.)
Too bad I hadn't headed toward Tower Bridge. They lifted the lower bridge to let a ship pass through - as it was, I could see it from a little ways off.
It was a lovely day to walk, but after a while, I began to bake in the sun. Hot. Very hot. Walking was a really dumb idea. Haven't I walked for miles, every single day? By the time I reached Blackfriars Bridge, I decided to take the tube, as I knew there was a station there. Hop-skip-and-a-jump, and I'm back at Westminster. Walking across the Bridge on an incredibly crowded sidewalk. Everyone and their dog is out walking today. Large groups of people are standing there taking pictures of Big Ben (which is actually really impressive, but still... I'm walking here! I'm walking here!).
I get to the London Aquarium, eager to get out of the hot sun, and there's a lineup. Too many people inside already. Aargh. I go to the ice cream shop next door. £3, £4, or £5 for an ice cream? Yes, I'm a tourist, but I'm not THAT dumb. A return to the Salvador Dali museum next door? No. London Eye? Long lineup, and I might melt like a bug under a magnifying glass in those little glass bubbles. I give up - I'm heading back home. Back again, across the incredibly crowded Westminster Bridge.
I decide to get a hotdog and a Coke, and step around the corner into a shady spot to eat it. Several friendly pigeons approach. They seem friendly, but eventually I realize that their little eyeballs only focus on the food. I start tossing them pieces of bread and pigeons, as you know, can see food from 5 miles away. More and more start congregating. I look furtively around for the pigeon police, but apparently it's okay in Westminster to feed the pigeons, although a passing Londoner does warn me, "They're going to attack you." Don't be silly. They're pigeons! And besides, I got a great photo out of it - a pigeon standing next to my Coke, with the London Eye in the background. Now, THAT's art.
Anyway, finished my hotdog and caught the Jubilee line back to West Hampstead. The trains have been running slow on hot days - one of the companies contracted to do maintenance on the tracks didn't heat-proof the rails, or something like that, and the trains have had to reduce speed during hot days. Needless to say, the lawyers are fighting it out.
Monica had agreed to meet me back at home at 5 p.m. as we were heading to Sadler's Wells for the "Madame Butterfly" ballet in the evening.
She arrived home a bit late, and flustered. She'd had a few misadventures of her own. When she's going to the British Library, she takes the Thameslink trains which are faster and have less stops than the tube, but are not as user-friendly - they don't announce the stops, and it's sometimes hard to see the platforms, so you really need to know where you're going. When she was leaving the Library, she was pleasantly surprised to see that there weren't very many people on the train, even though it was rush hour (should have been the first clue). She was unpleasantly surprised when the train roared past West Hampstead, and on and on, out into the countryside. Literally out of London and into the countryside, with green fields on both sides. When the train finally stopped in St. Albans, she got out in a panic, telling the conductor she'd got on the wrong train, and how much did she have to pay to get back? (You can get hefty fines for travelling outside of your zone.) He didn't want to hear her long sob-story, but just ordered her to "Get on this train!" and sent her back to London post-haste.
Anyway, we headed out to Sadler's Wells a bit early, since there are no tube stops really close to it, and we didn't know exactly where it was. After we'd got off the Jubilee line and were transferring, we heard an announcement that the northbound Jubilee line was suspended since there was someone on the tracks (???). Crazy. We hoped they'd get him off the tracks by the time we were ready to go home, but at least we'd got out before this person decided to take their tube-walk.
Since Neil had said we shouldn't go to the Angel station (a bit "dodgy"), we got off at Farringdon and walked for about 15 minutes. The Sadler's Wells is in a modern glass and steel building. Oh look, one of the floors is closed off for a private function. We've noticed that a lot in London - it seems you can't go to a gallery or a museum or a ballet without someone having a "private function" in a roped off area.
We'd bought cheaper tickets (cause, hello! we're cheap!), so our seats were on the 2nd level in row N. When I got to my seat, my nose started bleeding - the air was very thin up there. I think the rows went up to Q, but I wasn't sure if I could climb that high to see. On the positive side, the rows are very steeply placed, so nobody's head is in your way.
Eventually, way way far away, the ballet began... and about ten minutes later, during a scene change, the lights on stage went down, and stayed down. They were dancing in the dark. I thought, well, this is all very avant-garde, but it's kind of stupid, because nobody up here can see anything. Then the house lights came back up, and they announced technical difficulties.
Immediately, all sorts of high-altitude patrons start climbing down to get better seats. Okay. Monica insists we do the same, and we descend all the way to row D. Hey! You can actually see the people on the stage! Much improved.
The ballet was great - definitely one of the best that I've seen. I'm not sure whether most of it was Puccini's music or not, but they did have "One Fine Day", which is so incredible, and the dancing was excellent. At times, it was interspersed with Japanese music, which worked surprisingly well. Very near the end, the whole stage goes dark and Butterly is dancing with the sword in a brilliant red spotlight, while a woman was singing mournfully in Japanese. It was very very effective. :'-( And then she stabs herself and dies. (It's based on an opera - what did you expect? They always die at the end.)
Afterwards, we hurried outside because we'd booked tickets on an express bus that would go by three tube stations - it was a double-decker, and I wanted to sit on top. After ploughing through the crowd and knocking over an old lady or two, we got our seats up top and right in front. Whee! Now that was fun! It's like being in a monster truck that could drive over anything. And the way they drive in London, they almost do. Watch out for the cyclist! Don't crush that car! We can't fit through there - there's no room! Watch out for the tree! (He actually did get too close to the trees and hit some branches.) We were excited to see The Old Vic, although I think it must be the New Old Vic, because it doesn't look that old.
The bus did go to Farringdon station, but we were having too much fun and stayed on until Waterloo, where we could catch the good old reliable Jubilee Line and go straight home. By that time, there were no people on the tracks, so everything was good!
Oh - you want to know what I wore to the ballet? A green shirt from Superstore, some black exercise pants from Mountain Equipment Co-op, and my new Aussie workboots, topped with a be-au-ti-ful pleather jacket. Groovy, baby, YEAH!
:-)
So, like Eponine, I am "on my own..." Oh wait, that was France. Maybe not so applicable after all. Never mind.
(When we were in Piccadilly Circus last week, there were many posters for musicals and plays being performed. I saw one for Les Miserables, and said, "Hey, look-" Monica immediately cuts me off: "You saw that twice already. We're not going again." Tyrant.)
What's a Canadian girl to do, all alone in London? Well, you know I can't stay out of trouble for long - it's probably no surprise that I ended up being dragged away to the Tower of London. (Or walking there of my own free will, which is a more accurate, but less picturesque description of the day.)
Yes, Jackie told me it was expensive, and Monica said she wouldn't go for the same reason, but I can't help it. It's a medieval fortress! How can you resist that? So I paid my £15 pounds to get in, and actually tagged along with the Beefeater tour guide. He was quite good with quite a theatrical flair - alternately making amusing jokes or telling grisly tales about the history of the Tower.
The White Tower dates back to 1078 (William the Conqueror), and was built on the site of an ancient Roman fortress (see? Rome built things to last!) that Julius Caesar had supposedly founded. Later rulers added onto the Tower, so now the White Tower is in the middle of a whole lot of towers and walls. We saw Traitor's Gate, the waterside entry to the fortress (and one of the shops was called "Traders Gate" - ha ha, punny!). Traitor's Gate is where most of the prisoners were brought into the fortress. I guess if you came in there, you were presumed guilty until proven innocent. Which didn't happen often.
There was a picturesque cottage-like row of houses, which were called "The Queen's House". Henry VIII had them built for Anne Boleyn (in addition to being fortress and prison, it was also a royal residence by that time). Ironically, by the time the cottages were completed, Henry had tired of Anne, and she was kept there for two weeks before she was beheaded. :'-( Henry's an @$$.
The Tower Green is just outside of the Queen's House, which is where the high-ranking nobility and royals were executed. It's more private, away from the rabble, whereas other prisoners were brought out for the crowds to watch. There's a plaque marking the site. I think he said that 9 people were executed on the Tower Green, of which only one was a man (I think he said it was Essex - Elizabeth I was fond of him, and so had him executed there instead of in public. Makes you wonder what she was like when she WASN'T fond of you).
I stayed near the back of the tour group, sometimes wandering off to take pictures and coming back again. Fortunately, I did rejoin in time to tour the church, since it is only accessible of the Beefeater tours. It's the Chapel Royal of St Peter ad Vincula, and the people executed at the Tower were buried beneath the church. In the 1800s, Queen Victoria had them excavate the church, identify as many bodies as they could, and give them all proper burials. There were 1500 bodies under the church (!!!), of which they were able to identify only 35. Anne Boleyn, Catherine Howard, Jane Grey and her husband are all buried at the front of the church.
Catherine Howard, one of Henry's later wives, was executed for adultery with Thomas Culpepper. Right before being executed, she said, "I die the Queen of England. But I would rather die as Thomas Culpepper's wife." Hah! Translation: "Up yours, Fat Henry."
Some of the other towers had "graffiti" carved into the walls by the prisoners who stayed there. That's the most elaborate, painstaking graffiti I've ever seen.
One of the other interesting things I learned on the tour was that the moat around the Tower was supposed to fill when the Thames rose, and then drain when it receded - except that they dug it 15 feet deeper than the Thames. So the water came in, and it stayed, forever and ever. And all the sewage draining from the fortress would just settle in the moat and percolate. When the Thames rose, it only made things worse by stirring it up. The stench would be unbearable. As the Beefeater put it, "Imagine the heat of summer, the biggest cesspool in all of England, and it's right over there." Eek! It wasn't until the 1800s, when the Duke of Wellington finally had it drained and filled it in with earth.
There are ravens. I didn't see any up close, but I did see one sitting on top of the White Tower, and I could hear them croaking every now and again.
There were also displays on weaponry, another on Guy Fawkes. I saw several "changing of the guard"s. And, of course, there are the Crown Jewels. Holy crap. They're really unbelievably large - it's hard to believe that they're actually real. And some of the sceptres are massive - they must be incredibly heavy. You have to stand on moving sidewalks that take you past go this exhibit, otherwise people would stand there forever. And when you leave, there are these huge steel doors, like the ones they have in bank vaults.
So, after I'd wandered through all the towers, and along all the walls, and seen the jewels and displays, I decided it was such a lovely sunny day that maybe I'd walk along the Embankment side of the river on my way to the London Aquarium. It's not as nice as the West End - more modern glass and steel buildings, and a million business men all outside on coffee breaks. (A lot of businessmen in London wear pink shirts or pink ties. I don't know why. I just noticed it, that's all.)
Too bad I hadn't headed toward Tower Bridge. They lifted the lower bridge to let a ship pass through - as it was, I could see it from a little ways off.
It was a lovely day to walk, but after a while, I began to bake in the sun. Hot. Very hot. Walking was a really dumb idea. Haven't I walked for miles, every single day? By the time I reached Blackfriars Bridge, I decided to take the tube, as I knew there was a station there. Hop-skip-and-a-jump, and I'm back at Westminster. Walking across the Bridge on an incredibly crowded sidewalk. Everyone and their dog is out walking today. Large groups of people are standing there taking pictures of Big Ben (which is actually really impressive, but still... I'm walking here! I'm walking here!).
I get to the London Aquarium, eager to get out of the hot sun, and there's a lineup. Too many people inside already. Aargh. I go to the ice cream shop next door. £3, £4, or £5 for an ice cream? Yes, I'm a tourist, but I'm not THAT dumb. A return to the Salvador Dali museum next door? No. London Eye? Long lineup, and I might melt like a bug under a magnifying glass in those little glass bubbles. I give up - I'm heading back home. Back again, across the incredibly crowded Westminster Bridge.
I decide to get a hotdog and a Coke, and step around the corner into a shady spot to eat it. Several friendly pigeons approach. They seem friendly, but eventually I realize that their little eyeballs only focus on the food. I start tossing them pieces of bread and pigeons, as you know, can see food from 5 miles away. More and more start congregating. I look furtively around for the pigeon police, but apparently it's okay in Westminster to feed the pigeons, although a passing Londoner does warn me, "They're going to attack you." Don't be silly. They're pigeons! And besides, I got a great photo out of it - a pigeon standing next to my Coke, with the London Eye in the background. Now, THAT's art.
Anyway, finished my hotdog and caught the Jubilee line back to West Hampstead. The trains have been running slow on hot days - one of the companies contracted to do maintenance on the tracks didn't heat-proof the rails, or something like that, and the trains have had to reduce speed during hot days. Needless to say, the lawyers are fighting it out.
Monica had agreed to meet me back at home at 5 p.m. as we were heading to Sadler's Wells for the "Madame Butterfly" ballet in the evening.
She arrived home a bit late, and flustered. She'd had a few misadventures of her own. When she's going to the British Library, she takes the Thameslink trains which are faster and have less stops than the tube, but are not as user-friendly - they don't announce the stops, and it's sometimes hard to see the platforms, so you really need to know where you're going. When she was leaving the Library, she was pleasantly surprised to see that there weren't very many people on the train, even though it was rush hour (should have been the first clue). She was unpleasantly surprised when the train roared past West Hampstead, and on and on, out into the countryside. Literally out of London and into the countryside, with green fields on both sides. When the train finally stopped in St. Albans, she got out in a panic, telling the conductor she'd got on the wrong train, and how much did she have to pay to get back? (You can get hefty fines for travelling outside of your zone.) He didn't want to hear her long sob-story, but just ordered her to "Get on this train!" and sent her back to London post-haste.
Anyway, we headed out to Sadler's Wells a bit early, since there are no tube stops really close to it, and we didn't know exactly where it was. After we'd got off the Jubilee line and were transferring, we heard an announcement that the northbound Jubilee line was suspended since there was someone on the tracks (???). Crazy. We hoped they'd get him off the tracks by the time we were ready to go home, but at least we'd got out before this person decided to take their tube-walk.
Since Neil had said we shouldn't go to the Angel station (a bit "dodgy"), we got off at Farringdon and walked for about 15 minutes. The Sadler's Wells is in a modern glass and steel building. Oh look, one of the floors is closed off for a private function. We've noticed that a lot in London - it seems you can't go to a gallery or a museum or a ballet without someone having a "private function" in a roped off area.
We'd bought cheaper tickets (cause, hello! we're cheap!), so our seats were on the 2nd level in row N. When I got to my seat, my nose started bleeding - the air was very thin up there. I think the rows went up to Q, but I wasn't sure if I could climb that high to see. On the positive side, the rows are very steeply placed, so nobody's head is in your way.
Eventually, way way far away, the ballet began... and about ten minutes later, during a scene change, the lights on stage went down, and stayed down. They were dancing in the dark. I thought, well, this is all very avant-garde, but it's kind of stupid, because nobody up here can see anything. Then the house lights came back up, and they announced technical difficulties.
Immediately, all sorts of high-altitude patrons start climbing down to get better seats. Okay. Monica insists we do the same, and we descend all the way to row D. Hey! You can actually see the people on the stage! Much improved.
The ballet was great - definitely one of the best that I've seen. I'm not sure whether most of it was Puccini's music or not, but they did have "One Fine Day", which is so incredible, and the dancing was excellent. At times, it was interspersed with Japanese music, which worked surprisingly well. Very near the end, the whole stage goes dark and Butterly is dancing with the sword in a brilliant red spotlight, while a woman was singing mournfully in Japanese. It was very very effective. :'-( And then she stabs herself and dies. (It's based on an opera - what did you expect? They always die at the end.)
Afterwards, we hurried outside because we'd booked tickets on an express bus that would go by three tube stations - it was a double-decker, and I wanted to sit on top. After ploughing through the crowd and knocking over an old lady or two, we got our seats up top and right in front. Whee! Now that was fun! It's like being in a monster truck that could drive over anything. And the way they drive in London, they almost do. Watch out for the cyclist! Don't crush that car! We can't fit through there - there's no room! Watch out for the tree! (He actually did get too close to the trees and hit some branches.) We were excited to see The Old Vic, although I think it must be the New Old Vic, because it doesn't look that old.
The bus did go to Farringdon station, but we were having too much fun and stayed on until Waterloo, where we could catch the good old reliable Jubilee Line and go straight home. By that time, there were no people on the tracks, so everything was good!
Oh - you want to know what I wore to the ballet? A green shirt from Superstore, some black exercise pants from Mountain Equipment Co-op, and my new Aussie workboots, topped with a be-au-ti-ful pleather jacket. Groovy, baby, YEAH!
:-)
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