Countback to Cambridge -- Wednesday. Tower of London.

Tower of London

A brief look at Thursday --

I had my Shakespeare class, in which we spoke about Tuesday night's Romeo and Juliet (more on that to come later) and afterwards, I dropped off a postcard. I'm thinking that I might start a tradition of dropping at least one postcard in the mail every Thursday. Could call it Post-week Postcard. ;)
I spent the rest of the day just relaxing.

Wednesday.

Wednesday saw me with my history class at the tower of London.

Stepping inside was pretty eerie, even though our history prof explained that actually, the tower of London had been a royal residence for 500 years and that most of the prisoners were executed on Tower Hill, not inside the tower of London. There were exceptions, of course, like the queens of England who were killed (Catherine Howard, Lady Jane Grey, and Anne Boleyn) but it was not the vast majority. To be killed inside was a twisted honor. You had to have been close to the king. Still, so many were falsely imprisoned . . . I can't imagine living at such a time. Still, despite the feeling of darkness -- particularly in the prison that had been turned into a gift shop -- it was surprisingly pretty.

And yet, there were the subtle reminders everywhere.

Where Anne -- and others -- were beheaded. 

We went on a mini tour though, and saw the chapel, as well as the darker areas . . . Here is our tour guide, known as a beef-eater. They themselves have no idea where the name comes from, but all I can ever think of is Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, where Sir Andrew states that he is a great eater of beef and he thinks that does his wit harm . . . Being a beef-eater however, is no easy job. One most have many many years of military service and a good many other things. It is a difficult job to get, since originally, these men served as guards to the royal family.

Our Guide.

The Crown Jewels

This was one of my favorite parts of the day. I am not a fan of anything grisly, so seeing the tower, inspite of the historical importance, was a bit unnerving. The crown jewels though, I could get into that. It was like seeing all the stuff in Hazurite, or at least getting sense of what it would have been like. They were absolutely beautiful. They were so shiny and gorgeous. . . It is easy to see why people would fight over these things . . . it was like they caught the sun and let it shimmer within itself. They were just beautiful.

Museums

From there there were a bunch of museums. So many so that it felt like this huge overload. They must have had material on every possible subject, but I particularly noticed the ones on weapons, which were interesting. I liked this best though:

For more photos stay tuned. I will probably update to facebook eventually. We also saw the old sleeping chambers of some of the kings (below) and where they kept the torture instruments. I didn't take photos there, because, as I mentioned before, I really try to stay away from that kind of stuff. I truly believe in walking in the light and such things hold no interest to me. 

King's Chambers

Well, that's all for now. See you next time when I write about the two plays I've seen recently -- View from the Bridge, by Arthur Miller, and Romeo and Juliet, by Shakespeare, of course.

As always, wishing you all the best,

~ Emery