One of the main advantages not spending money to do tours of the attractions is you spend less time at each attraction giving you more time to see more attractions. I have mastered the art of flying through a city and seeing all the sites. I spend enough time at each one to soak it up and starting to get that tingle of boredom that nudges me to move on. Art museums are the worst, I can only see so many pictures of Jesus painted in the same style before I start to envy him knowing that in that painting, his end is coming soon and I still have about 100 rooms of similar paintings to see. Don't get me wrong, I love Jesus, but I can only see so many depressing paintings of him hanging on a cross before I lose my appreciation for Renaissance painters.
But I digress. Today is my last full day in London and I still have quite a few things to see. I start my morning with a lovely English breakfast. That is baked beans, ham, cereal, yogurt and toast. That is quite literally the famous English breakfast and my hostel has it for free every morning from 7am-11am (awesome).
After my tasty breakfast I decide to go to see the Tower of London first. I go to the metro (called the "tubes" in the UK), buy my day pass for 6 pounds and make my way there. The ticket to enter is about $20, which isn't too bad since it comes with a free tour from a Beefeater. Beefeaters are the guards of the Tower of London. They have silly looking outfits and usually have a halberd as their weapon of choice (imagine a spear with an axe added into it). Yes, the Gin, Beefeater, is named after them.
We go on start the tour and right away I can tell my guide is great at his job. Good wit, great joke timing and has a way of seeing when the crowd is growing restless and shaking things up to get their attention back.
He tells us the history behind this bloody fortress/castle. My favorite moment is when he notices a little kid staring out a window a few stories up. It looks very erie because the window is kind of foggy and makes the kid look ghost like this. I had noticed this too. Taking advantage quickly, he tells the story of a ghost in these parts and says, "he takes the form of a 12-year-old boy and can sometimes be seen looking out that window." (pointing to the window of the boy). People look up, some gasp, some jump, a few mildly scream with fright and others laugh. The kid just stares at us 50+ people not staring at him and he waves. His father (I assume) walks up tells him to come on and then looks out and sees all of us staring at him. He awkwardly steps back out of view. It was great and you could tell by the guides chuckle the timing was perfect and it was all impromptu.
He goes on doing a great job of entertaining and educating us. His favorite way to get our attention is to out of no where turn and scream at the person next to him mid-sentence. I saw one lady jump about 3 feet in the air and tuck into a ball fearing for her life. He finally takes us into the church they have there, gives us some more information and then answers questions...kind of. He reads our minds instead and answers those questions, which happen to be all the ones people wanted to ask....damn he is good.
Great facts:
- No one knows where the term Beefeater comes from. It got made up at some point and just stuck.
- Being a Beefeater is one of the greatest honors. You have to serve 20+ years in the Royal Army, Navy or Airforce to qualify. The benefits are great and leisurely. You are also part of the Queen's Royal Guard and occasionally, but rarely escort her places.
- You get a free bottle of Beefeater from the company every year on your birthday
After the tour I go and see the royal jewels, housed in the Tower. Let me say, OH MY GAWD! They are incredible. The Star of Africa (biggest cut diamond in the world) is amazing. I could stare at it for hours. I spent the entire time thinking how could I steal the crown jewels, in fact. You may not be a fan of jewels, but you need to see these if you are ever in London. The value of them would literally rival and exceed a great deal of smaller nations.
I then went through the armory. They have historical weapons, but also a display of modern ones and gifts over the last few hundreds of years from other countries. I even saw a hand gun coated in diamonds and saffaires. They even made a dragon out of weapons, which is the coolest dragon I have ever seen.
After getting my fill of Royal wealth I decide to leave the tower, wander through the city and eventually end up at the modern art museum. The building is as ugly as it gets. Think 1984 factory and you got the building. Maybe what they were going for, not sure, but if it was ugly, they nailed it.
I am not a huge fan of modern art, but they have some Van Gogh, Dali, Matese and Piccaso, so it is a must see. I don't spend a lot of time in there. I got yelled at by some high school trying to draw a Dali painting because I was looking at it. I spent half my visit thinking about how I should have told her off for how rude she was and that you can't expect people not to look at famous pieces of artwork because you want to sit 15 feet from it and draw it for 4 hours.
After the museum, I wander the city more. I find my way to the Occupy London protest area. They are camped out. I walk around and see how things are set up. It is pretty interesting. They have housing areas, a tent for food with supplies, a command tent where they get together to discuss various things. It is pretty well organized to be honest.
After this I make my way back to the British Museum. I only saw about 1/3 of the museum and wanted to see the rest or at least just more. When I finally leave the museum it is about 5pm, dark and pouring rain. I have to run to the metro station, which gets me completely soaked in the process. So soaked that when I got back to my hostel I had to use a towel to dry off.
With the rain going full speed I spent the rest of the night in the bar making new friends and in the lobby milling around on my iPad and watching cheesy British tv shows. Some of which are hilarious and I could see my self getting into if I had the time....oh wait, I do, but I am busy watching Community at this point.
After a long day of walking I hit the hay, knowing tomorrow I leave London and head first to Lavenham to visit where my Mom's side of the family is from and then to meet up with my Chris Stewart who is living just North of there. Going to be a good day I can tell.
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