Hi Blavellers!
So we had our second day of sightseeing in London yesterday. We started the day by catching the underground to Green Park and we walked to Hyde Park for lunch. It's a really nice area around there (well, I suppose it has to be seeing as it's so close to Buckingham Palace!) and Hyde Park is gorgeous! Being the greenie that I am (no pun intended) I'm still amazed at what grows so freely and haparzdly here! Every garden I walk past I think, if only I could just snip a few of those branches off I could make a gorgeous flower arrangement... but anyway, I'm digressing. So Hyde Park was cool... literally. Oh my goodness! I know it's not winter yet but how cold was it yesterday! I had stockings under my jeans, 2 long sleeves shirts, a warm jacket, a scarve and a hat and I was still cold! I can't wait to be earning those pounds and then hit the markets. I've already seen dozens of jackets I want to buy and countless boots etc.
After Hyde Park we visited the Tower of London. On the way we took a 'gander' at Buckingham Palace which was kinda not really that impressive (and we later found out, the Queen is only there 2 days a week and that'll change to 1 day soon). From Buckingham Palace we walked to Westminister tube station and caught the train to Tower Hill Station for the Tower of London.
I really wasn't clued up on what the Tower of London was until we went on the tour so I feel a bit silly now considering it was the residance of Kings and Queens for the best part of Englands history! Even then I kinda expected it to be a lot bigger than it was (I've got to stop watching Hollywood movies!) but having said that, how cool was it! There's an outside wall and an inside wall (all still standing and intact) and inside the area is a chapel, homes for the Yeoman Warder's (they still actually live there) the 'White Tower' and numerous other towers and bits and bobs. Of course the Crown Jewels are kept there and they are truly amazing!
I'm getting ahead of myself though. We started off by walking around with the rest of the 'herd' on a 45 minute tour by one the Yeoman Warders. He was an absolute crack up! He'd be telling a story and have us all sooo enthralled and then he'd yell at the top of his voice 'MURDER'! It literally made everyone jump! Man, the things that went on in that place! We've just recently seen the movie 'The Boleyn Sisters' so part of what the Yeoman Warder was telling us about Anne Boleyn and her inprisonment was really interesting! He was telling us this bit of history while we were sitting in the Chapel and her body actually lies underneath the altar near where we were sitting! In fact, when Queen Victoria ordered a refurb of the Chapel they found over 1000 bodies underneath the floor! Of those 1000 at least 3 were wives of Henry the 8th. What a nice man!
Anyway, there are heaps of other stories about famous prisoners that had been kept in the Tower of London and the last execution was as recent as 1941! You can even see a lot of the writing on the walls left by prisoners. It's so interesting. I was a bit disappointed at the lack of ghosts however! It wasn't spooky at all however, this could have something to do with the fact that there were about 2 million peolpe sightseeing with us!
What else? Well, as I said, the Crown Jewels are amazing. To think that there is so much money spent on a sceptre or a crown just to wear a couple of times throughout their reign is ludicrous! There's also heaps of weapons on display in the White Tower.
After the Tower we walked accross Tower Bridge.. interesting fact, Tower Bridge is the old cool looking one whereas 'London Brige' is just a modern normal looking one... a bit confusing. Isn't there a song about London Bridge falling down? Anyway, you couldn't go up Tower Bridge or even go to it's information centre for some reason so we just walked accross it and caught a train home again from London Bridge Station.
A few people have asked me how I'm finding London like,the people, the clothes etc... I think London is great. It's very busy alghough, even when we're in a business district there's really not many suits walking around and it definitley doesn't have that same feel when you're walking down Queen St at 5pm in Brisbane. Londoners definitely don't like people holding them up at Tube stations however, and I suppose you've just got to accept that they'll push you onto the train, and not care if they cut you off and everything. I don't think Johnnie has a problem with this but I'm pretty claustrophobic at the best of times and find the crowds really hard to handle sometimes! Most of the trains are really small too and if you find yourself in a corner then you have to bend right over as the ceiling is too short!
I find the fashion totally not what I expected either! It's really not that much different from little old Brissie! There's some nicely dressed people but for the most part, it's not very noteworthy at all. I do have to say however, I love the jackets!
The food is ok too. I think we definitley found that for our money we had nicer food in Tokyo but it's not too bad here. We're not finding it all that expensive and the food is pretty good. We had a meal at a Turkish (I think) place last night and it was fantastic! We ordered Mousakka and a lamb dish but we also got complimentary bread and dip twice(!) a side salad and some sort of onion side dish thingy. The meals themselves were big anyway!
So that's about it. Today we're off to Docklands and then to Greenwich to walk this really old tunnel that goes under the Thames! Hopefully I don't panic!
See ya, x S and J
