England and Scotland -- July 11

July 11
8:15 PM GMT

Good day today. We saw The Tower of London, Tower Bridge, St. Paul’s Cathedral, Big Ben, Parliament and Westminster Abbey.

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Our friends the Traczeks were right – it’s very easy to figure out the Tube and get around here. We had one misunderstanding on a bus. We hopped on the Number 15 bus outside the Tower Hill Tube station to get to St. Paul’s Cathedral and asked the bus driver if our £4 fee was good for the trip back also, and he told us yes (maybe he didn’t understand our American accents). Later on, when we showed our tickets on the return bus, we were told they were not transferable and we would have to pay again. Luckily, we had a very nice lady conductor who let us take the ride back for free. She told us next time we come back, we should just invest in an all-day bus pass.

My favorite part of the day was the time we spent at the Tower of London, where I finally got to see places connected with all of the famous names of English history I’ve read so much about. I was most moved by the poignant monument on Tower Green, where Anne Boleyn, Catherine Howard, and Jane Grey (among others) were executed; the Chapel of St. Peter ad Vincula where most of them were buried under the flagstones of the floor (although there are no monuments or plaques for them); and the Beauchamp Tower, where the people who were imprisoned there and have been dead for so long left traces of themselves behind in the carvings (some quite elaborate) in the stone walls.


I asked one of the Beefeaters (Yeoman Warders) if we could visit the Bell Tower where Elizabeth I was imprisoned before she became queen. He said that unfortunately they don’t allow visitors there anymore because the only way into the Bell Tower is right through the Tower Governor’s House (which still has a resident Governor in it, who I guess didn’t appreciate having tourists traipsing through his house).


The Beefeater also told me an interesting story about the Bell Tower – it was the place the Brits were going to hold Adolf Hitler if they ever captured him. So during the last days of World War II, when Germany was falling, the Yeoman Warders were told to prepare the Bell Tower for Hitler. They weren’t quite sure what that involved. (Think about it: how do you prepare a room for HITLER? You would want it to be nice, but not too nice, after all.) They decided they should at least put in a better lavatory system than the medieval guarderobes, which are basically just holes in the rock with a chute leading outside. So there is now a modern flushing toilet in the downstairs section of the Bell Tower.

The Tower is also where the British Crown Jewels are kept, although they don't allow any pictures (I guess to keep people from being tempted to steal them). Everything's behind glass, of course, and they even have a moving walkway that takes you past the case where the crowns are kept. The Crown Jewels are what most people come to the Tower to see, but to me the history of the place is the most interesting part, not the "bling."


Later on, we climbed all 527 stairs up to the Whispering Gallery in St. Paul’s Cathedral, then all the way up to the outdoor Stone Gallery and the Gold Dome. There are great views of London from up there (a lot of cranes and new construction going on for a city that supposedly has a depressed economy – just like Chicago.)

St. Paul’s is also a functioning house of worship as well as a tourist attraction. It actually felt kind of disrespectful to me to be walking around looking at everything, but then again, they were charging us money to do exactly that. We did stop twice to join in when an Anglican priest took the pulpit and asked everyone to say “The Lord’s Prayer.”

Then it was on to Parliament (where protestors against the Iraq War had set up their signs directly across the street) and Westminster Abbey. It’s amazing to see such historic buildings in the middle of a modern, bustling city.




Later, at a bar in Westminster (The Red Lion), Gary and I talked about how you don’t really get a sense here in the city of how the ordinary people live. For that, you have to visit and talk to people outside of the city, and listen to the media. The things Britons currently seem to be worried about, judging from the TV and radio news shows we’ve listened to, are: the epidemic of recent murders which has led to talk of “knife control” laws (just like we Americans want gun control laws); the tax on cars the government wants to pass, supposedly for “environmental uses;” the 2 French students who were murdered late last month (by stabbing, of course; it’s the favorite murder weapon here since they don’t have guns); and the amount of rain they’ve been having this month (which I gather is unusual even by British standards).

On the whole, we’ve been lucky with the weather while we’ve been here (except for that one day at the Grand Prix). It’s rained every day we’ve been here, but it usually doesn’t last long. You’re fine as long as you bring your umbrella everywhere you go. It always clears up eventually, the sun comes out, and it’s very pleasant . . .