Our afternoon tea was good, but really small and really pricey. I think we calculated it was 3 dollars a bite. The Orangery is also really close to the BYU London Centre, so after our tea, we walked there so that I could take a little trip down memory lane.
The caretaker let us in and we were able explore a bit because the spring group hadn't arrived yet. I got to see my old room. It was so fun to be back there. The London study abroad program was definitely my favorite thing that I did during college. Afterward, we went back to the hotel and got settled in. Our hotel was in a pretty great location, right next to the London Eye and Big Ben.
Here is the view out our window at night...pretty magical.
I called Jeremy over to the window that night to ask if he could see Peter Pan flying around Big Ben. I think he wondered what they put in my tea at the Orangery...On Thursday morning, we went to the Tower of London. Here we are on the way to the tower.
I think the Tower is my favorite place in London, there is so much history there.
When we first got there, we went on a Beefeater tour. The Beefeaters are the ceremonial guards at the Tower of London.
They give you a really colorful tour of the highlights of the tower. They take you to the place where Anne Boleyn and Lady Jane Grey were beheaded, the "traitor's gate," where Queen Elizabeth and so many others entered the tower. My favorite thing that our beefeater said was, "After this tour, you all need to go visit the crown jewels. Ladies, take a look at the jewels, then take a look at your left hand, then take a look at the man standing next to you, then punch him. You deserve better."
Jeremy and I reenacted this. The crown jewels were amazing. It was hard to believe they are real. Here is a picture of Carter and Jeremy with tower bridge.
In the background, you can see a cage of ravens in the courtyard. The legend is, that if the ravens ever leave the tower, England's monarchy will fall, so they keep six ravens there at all times, plus two spares. One of the most interesting exhibits that they had going on while were were there was one about all of the animals that were kept at the Tower of London. It used to be really fashionable for kings to give each other gifts of exotic animals. Whenever a monarch received an animal, they would bring it to the tower. At one time, they had lions, baboons, an elephant, and a polar bear.
They tied a rope to the polar bear and let it go fishing in the Thames river. It made me sad learning about all of the animals that had to live there. Here are a couple of pictures of us at the Tower. I actually really love the candid one that accidentally got taken, it captures our trip better than most!
That night, Jeremy, Heather, my dad and I went to see The Tempest at Shakespeare's Globe.
It is a pretty close replica to the theater that existed during Shakespeare's time. The play was awesome. Caliban's character was great. During the play, he stole one of the "groundling's" beer, drank it, belched, then spit it on the audience. On Friday, we toured Westminster Abbey in the morning.
In the afternoon, Jeremy, Carter and I went to the British museum.
I love looking at all of the Greek statues. Carter enjoyed them as well.
That night we met up with the rest of the family at Harrods for dinner. They seriously have EVERYTHING there. Jeremy told me he would give me five dollars to act like I was going to breastfeed Carter on one of the 25,000 Fendi couches. It was a pretty tempting offer, but in the end I decided against it...even though I did end up nursing Carter in some pretty odd places by the end of the trip. The toy department at Harrods was really fun. They have a little nursery of baby dolls.
As I was holding Carter near the dolls, a women walked by, did a double take, and then said, "Oh look, a real one!" In the chocolate department at Harrods, I got some salted caramels and a chocolate macaron. They were divine. Jeremy got some chocolate covered pistachios.
On Saturday, all of us took the train out to Hampton Court, the palace of King Henry VIII. It was really fascinating to learn more about King Henry and all of his wives.
The next morning, we had to take a little time out to do laundry. Jeremy loaded up all of the dirty clothes into the bottom of the stroller and walked to the laundromat. Since the beginning of the trip, Jeremy had stopped shaving, and by this time, he had some pretty good scruff going. The combination of the beard and stroller made him look extremely homeless. This was one of my favorite moments from the trip.
When he tried to come back in the hotel, the doormen asked him, "Sir, can we help you with something?" hahaha. Later that day, Jeremy and I went on a walk to Trafalgar Square and the National Gallery.
I love this picture of me, Carter, and the random photobomber in the background. You can also really faintly see Big Ben. Here is Jer in Trafalgar Square.
After the National Gallery, we went to Evensong at St. Paul's Cathedral.
Carter wasn't a huge fan of Evensong, so we hung out outside and sang songs from Mary Poppins until it was over. It was so great to be back in London!
No comments:
Post a Comment