The Tower.

Sunday, July 15th, 2007
London, England

Typing on an American PC is almost pure bliss. Anyway, I started off this morning on a nice run in St. James' Park, and I went longer than I have any other day before, so that was good. I came back, showered, made a sandwich, and then met the other scholars to head off to tour the Tower of London, for real this time.

We got to the Tower of London a bit after one, took a tour with a Yeoman Warder, looked at the Crown Jewels (including the world's largest known diamond--530 karats), and then it started pouring (there has been surprisingly little rain so far while I have been in London). We looked at the White Tower and the Royal Armouries' Collestion, the ravens outside of the White Tower, the Medieval Palace where Walter Raleigh was held captive for years and years, the Bloody Tower where two young princes mysteriously disappeared several centuries ago (it was some big conspiracy that Shakespeare wrote Henry V about), went inside the Lower Wakefield Tower where we saw a bunch of medieval torture tools, saw the prisoner graffiti in the Beauchamp Tower, Traitor's Gate, and the Scaffold Site where a number of Henry VIII's wives were beheaded.

It was really interesting, and something that I would definitely recommend to anyone visiting London. We spent several hours there.

After coming back, I made some pasta and got another Cadbury McFlurry before the time came to go meet other students at a pub evening put on by the University. I met several students, mostly from the U.S. but some from England and Germany as well. it was a great time.

I came back, and crashed, since we needed to be at the University this morning for orientation.