I traveled to the U.K. in June 2008 on a combination work/vacation trip. I posted about it on my old group blog Population Five. Now that I am writing more about traveling at Goth Panda, I am reposting these here for thematic unity, and also because reading them reminds me of the trip. I want to go back! Anyway, that explains some of the dated references.
Things I miss about England:
- Cider with ice
- Having a pub down the street
- Mars Planets candy
- Everyone being polite
- Cadbury chocolate bars (Can you get those here?)
- Trashy British celebrity news. Explanation: For the week we were there, the Daily Mirror was offering Doctor Who stickers every day in the paper. So we bought it, and sometimes I read it, and I became kind of fascinated with the crazy British celebrities that we never hear about over here. How will I find out what Peaches Geldof is up to? And what about Roo and Coleen’s wedding?
On Thursday morning, I took an informal poll of the group: what of the things on our list to do was the most important to them? The overwhelming consensus was the Tower of London.
Because it was expected to rain and because I was a little sick of lugging it around (I don’t mean that, baby, I love you!) I left my 20D at home, and contented myself with my little PowerShot for the day. We got to the Tower and had breakfast in a forgettable little diner place. Its most important quality was that it had seating. By this day, as I remember it, the pace was catching up to us. The periods of time that we could actively sightsee without resting were getting shorter and shorter.
As we were passing by, they had actors doing a comic historial re-enactment for the kids about a Scottish prisoner who escaped from the Tower dressed as a maid
A faux-CNN report on the Gunpowder Plot
Prisoners’ graffiti from the cells
Where the Crown Jewels (real or fake?) are kept
These schoolchildren in their oddly archaic uniforms — kneebreeches for the boys, skirts for the girls, covered with almost a cassock — were everywhere
This was a memorial on the execution site to the people who had died there
Spoiler alert! Now you know how the second season of The Tudors ends
I kept calling the White Tower White Castle, to which Mike responded, “Where are Harold and Kumar?” Inside the White Tower: guns and more guns
Part of the original Roman city wall
After the Tower, we went to Bloomsbury for lunch, and then the British Museum. On the way there, we got a little sidetracked, which will be explained when you see this:
Can Mike pass up a comic book store? No, he cannot
We did eventually make it to the British Museum.
The Rosetta Stone, people!
A piece of the Elgin Marbles