Because our night before had been somewhat early and not very exhausting, we somehow managed to be up early and at the Tube station a full 5 minutes before we could get the off-peak passes. Once that was acquired, we headed off to the Tower of London, one of three destinations we had on our docket for Friday.<\/p>\n
At the Tower we acquired tickets, paused to look at the church where John Quincy Adams was married, and then headed inside with the Beefeater tour. Somehow it struck me as shorter than I remembered it from 10 years ago, but I can’t quite put my finger on why or what was missing. In any case, as it turned out, I apparently remember very little from my first visit, because the grounds and most of the rooms seemed completely new to me. <\/p>\n
We wandered around in the various sections of the Tower, saw the Crown Jewels and the suits of armor and the weapons and the various interesting rooms and informational plaques. At some point I managed to lose Bob, and had to wait for him to reappear. The models of the Kings’ horses and the wooden heads of kings were among the last things in the White Tower that we saw, and thus are one of the things I now recall best. <\/p>\n
And then it was time for a bathroom break, which I would not normally mention except that this was really the most poorly designed W.C. I went into during the whole trip. The thing was long and skinny and it was extremely difficult to get in and out, plus the stalls were really hard to maneuver in. So ladies, take a restroom break before the Tower of London, or hold it.<\/p>\n
After a quick pause in the Tower’s cafe for a meal (mmm, potato and leek soup), we trudged off to the British Library to look around. It was starting to get fairly late in the day by this point, as we spent quite a long time at the Tower (as it deserved.) So I was a bit concerned that the Library would close while we were still trying to look at things. As it was, I needn’t have worried: we did have plenty of time, just not an abundance.<\/p>\n
The Tube stop for the Library is King’s Cross, which naturally piqued my interest. We came up into the train station on our way out, as that’s the ground level, and we looked around at the various platforms. But neither platform 9 nor 10 was visible anywhere, so we just took some pictures of the other signs and went to find the library. As we were walking there, I noticed a sign pointing to 9 and 10 — they were around the back, currently hard to reach due to massive construction that was going on in the area. I made a mental note of it, but we didn’t stop right then to investigate.<\/p>\n
The library was well worth the trip. Though we didn’t have a chance to look at one of the things I wanted to look at (some old newspapers articles written by Dorothy Sayers), we did spend a solid chunk of time touring around their displayed literary treasures. Among the very cool things were:<\/p>\n
By this point and even during looking at the library stuff, both Bob and I were suffering from severe dead feet. Walking for days was starting to catch up to us, and it was painful (though necessary) to continue.<\/p>\n
After a stop at the Library’s gift shop (where I narrowly narrowly<\/i> stopped myself from spending several hundred dollars on books), we shuffled back to King’s Cross. In spite of our aching feet, I was determined to see what there was to be seen at Platforms 9 and 10 of the station, so we went back there. And lo, there is an actual brick wall between the two platforms, though due to Harry Potter’s popularity, that wall has been marked clearly Platform 9 3\/4ths and there’s even a luggage cart stuck as if it’s halfway through the wall.<\/p>\n
We next made our way to the British Museum, parts of which were to be open late — until 8pm. The walk wasn’t long after coming out from the underground, but it felt that way to our feet. We collapsed at a table just inside of the door and sat there for a while, drinking from bottles of water and hoping that our feet would recover enough to keep moving.<\/p>\n
After a while, we decided to try and do a little exploring, so we went through a number of the rooms that were still open. The Rosetta Stone is a must see, of course, and we stopped to look at that (and get a picture). And then on to the Parthenon sculptures and freizes. Accompanying the latter was a short documentary on constant replay, explaining how these things had come to England and trying very hard to defend what had happened without actually flat out saying ‘it was for Greece’s own good that we took the stuff, and we’re not sorry, ha ha!’<\/p>\n
We sat and recovered a bit more, but then we went and walked up and down the Nimrud display. Why? Because, as I mentioned yesterday, I am a huge Agatha Christie fan and she and her husband (Sir Max Mallowan) were involved in the dig at that location. She might have helped clean up some of the very stuff that was on display!<\/p>\n
And then we left, unable to stand the thought of walking any more in a fashion that wasn’t taking us toward the hotel or another place wher we could collapse for a significant amount of time. As we headed back to the Tube station, we passed an interesting looking Chinese restaurant, and so stopped there for dinner. Full of duck potstickers, dumplings and pineapple rice, we managed to get back to the hotel and off of our feet for SLEEP.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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