Tower of London
The next morning we had a traditional English Breakfast - Beans, Hammy bacon, eggs over easy and toast at a local sandwich shop named Jumbo's. It was a great little place that was packed with locals. Breakfast cost only 6 pounds and might have weighed more than it cost. I love British bacon. It's more like slightly fatty ham that is fried crispy.
After breakfast we went to the Tower of London. If you ever go, the only way to see the tower properly is by taking a tour with one of the Yeoman Guards. The guards are actual military servicemen and live in the tower with their families. Our guard had a great act worked out. He described all the gruesome deaths that occured, interjecting angry shouts whenever he described something especially gross. My favorite detail from the tour is that condemned inmates bribed executioners to get a swift, painless death. So you would commonly see a condemned man hand a bag of gold to the executioner right before he was killed. One of the inmates who didn't bribe the executioner took 4 whacks of the axe before he died.
We wandered through the fusiliers museum, which wasn't that interesting, except for the story about the troop that took a pet duck named Donald with them throughout their campaign in WWII.
The crown jewels truly encompass the bling of yesteryear. My favorite piece was a 20 gallon golden wine bowl with a giant golden ladel in the shape of a sea shell. The ladel itself is big enough that if your royal feast is interrupted by a castle storming you could raise the mighty ladel and brain the raiding barbarians.
The armory museum was my favorite part of the tour. You can see for yourself just how redickulous Henry VIII's armor is.
They also had a jousting lance, which is so huge, I could only catch it on video. Among the typical diablo style weapons you expect to see (brandistocks, pikes, flamberges, javelins, spears, etc) there were also some experimental weapons of the day that didn't work out. My favorite were the gun shields. They patched in some guns to allow people to be safe and shoot the enemy at the same time. The shields were too small and the patching in of the guns weakened them as well so they didn't really function well as shields. They were also difficult to hold steady because of their odd shape and bulk so they didn't work well as guns.
On our way out of the tower, I collected a lot of cobble shots to use as textures in Cinema 4D.
We tried to get some tickets to Billy Elliot the musical, but the theater was closed on Sundays so we went to the British Library instead.
After the library, we went to Gutshot to play some poker. It wasn't a bad table and we were up a little bit because we were able to single out a few loose callers and play only against them.
We then went to Dinner at the Lowlander where we tried a sampler of every belgian beer they had on tap. Their kriek was delicious. For dinner we had double dutch fries with mayo (holland style), Chicken and Waffles (though not like they come in the states). And of course I had another Rodenbach. I'm so happy they're still making it. The new adds show pictures of saints being tortured while they're drinking rodenbach and the tag line is "You love it or you Hate it". Preach on.
After breakfast we went to the Tower of London. If you ever go, the only way to see the tower properly is by taking a tour with one of the Yeoman Guards. The guards are actual military servicemen and live in the tower with their families. Our guard had a great act worked out. He described all the gruesome deaths that occured, interjecting angry shouts whenever he described something especially gross. My favorite detail from the tour is that condemned inmates bribed executioners to get a swift, painless death. So you would commonly see a condemned man hand a bag of gold to the executioner right before he was killed. One of the inmates who didn't bribe the executioner took 4 whacks of the axe before he died.
We wandered through the fusiliers museum, which wasn't that interesting, except for the story about the troop that took a pet duck named Donald with them throughout their campaign in WWII.
The crown jewels truly encompass the bling of yesteryear. My favorite piece was a 20 gallon golden wine bowl with a giant golden ladel in the shape of a sea shell. The ladel itself is big enough that if your royal feast is interrupted by a castle storming you could raise the mighty ladel and brain the raiding barbarians.
The armory museum was my favorite part of the tour. You can see for yourself just how redickulous Henry VIII's armor is.
They also had a jousting lance, which is so huge, I could only catch it on video. Among the typical diablo style weapons you expect to see (brandistocks, pikes, flamberges, javelins, spears, etc) there were also some experimental weapons of the day that didn't work out. My favorite were the gun shields. They patched in some guns to allow people to be safe and shoot the enemy at the same time. The shields were too small and the patching in of the guns weakened them as well so they didn't really function well as shields. They were also difficult to hold steady because of their odd shape and bulk so they didn't work well as guns.
On our way out of the tower, I collected a lot of cobble shots to use as textures in Cinema 4D.
We tried to get some tickets to Billy Elliot the musical, but the theater was closed on Sundays so we went to the British Library instead.
After the library, we went to Gutshot to play some poker. It wasn't a bad table and we were up a little bit because we were able to single out a few loose callers and play only against them.
We then went to Dinner at the Lowlander where we tried a sampler of every belgian beer they had on tap. Their kriek was delicious. For dinner we had double dutch fries with mayo (holland style), Chicken and Waffles (though not like they come in the states). And of course I had another Rodenbach. I'm so happy they're still making it. The new adds show pictures of saints being tortured while they're drinking rodenbach and the tag line is "You love it or you Hate it". Preach on.
posted by sfphotoblogger at 3:07 AM
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