London Part Four: I'm so Fancy?

So my very last stop in London was Buckingham Palace, the official London residence of the Royal Family. Because I'm fancy? Also it's not far from the bus station......

While I didn't get the chance to see the famous changing of the guard, I still got to creep on the Royal Family's sweet pad. 

Buckingham Palace is more than just a cool place to hoist a flag and throw awesome parties.. It's also where much of the administrative work of the monarchy takes place. Though how anyone gets any work done in a building with 775 rooms is a mystery to me. Games of hide and seek and wheely chair races in that place would be a full time job.  

They also have a ton of cool gates. I guess you don't want any schmo walking in off the street and ruining your massive game of hide and seek. How gauche. 

If you want to find out more about Buckingham Palace, you can check out the official website of the Royal Family: http://www.royal.gov.uk/theroyalresidences/buckinghampalace/buckinghampalace.aspx

If you want to find out more about the Royal Family's adorable little dogs (why wouldn't you?) you can check out this page: http://www.royal.gov.uk/TheRoyalHousehold/RoyalAnimals/Familypets.aspx

After this, the rest of my trip to London consisted of talking my way onto a later bus after I missed my bus (most of the time if you are nice to people in any big city, it confuses/scares them and they let you do what you want) and getting to the airport JUST in time to catch my plane. Score one for minimal planning and American determination!

Home Again

Well Dear Internet, in case you were wondering, I'm on my way back home- for good this time. My internship in the Netherlands has come to an end. However, not to fear, I still have a lot of adventures to record, pictures to post, and sass to give (I know you were worried). As you may have noticed, my posts have been- less than frequent the past couple months. Turns out working and adventuring and meeting totally awesome people takes up a lot of your sitting around time. Also eating. That takes up A LOT of my time.

I also spend a lot of time being a princess. Which is a tough life. 

Anyway, since airport WiFi sucks, I'll leave you with that gem, Internet. Look forward to more posts in the coming weeks. (Lucky you). 

London Part Three: In Which I am a Tourist, and Therefore Easily Amused

So, as I mentioned, I only had a couple days in London, so I didn't really have time to do much while I was there. But did that stop me from taking a bunch of pointless pictures of things? NOPE! Because I'm a tourist.

^A sad showing of bikes compared to The Netherlands

 

The super fancy British department store. I'm honestly surprised they let me in...

But I'm glad they did.

So funnily enough, I actually needed to use a payphone at this point. This one did not work. It also did not smell pleasant. 

The Museum of Natural History. Unfortunately I only had an hour there, but I highly recommend it as it is big and has a lot of different collections. I was also able to visit the Victoria and Albert Museum, which has a lot of British cultural items. 

 

ART.

Annnd, of course no touristy tourist trip to London would be complete without fish and chips (with mushy peas of course). 

Stay tuned for one more installment of London, in which I will continue to be a tourist and easily amused, but maybe I'll take pictures of something more famous than my lunch?

London Part Two: OFF WITH HER HEAD!!

So yeah, I went to the Tower of London. I only had two and a half days in one of the busiest cities in the entire world and I went to a place associated with chopping people's heads off.....Why you may ask? Because I'm a HUGE history nerd and apparently a little morbid.....?

Actually, the Tower isn't an entirely morbid historical place. It was originally built by William the Conqeror starting in the 1070's to be a royal fortress, Not really a main home, but you know somewhere you might retreat to if you started freaking out that everyone was trying to kill you. You know, like a typical Wednesday.  

 Anyway....after our boy William got the ball rolling, various king guys kept building onto the Tower to make it better and cooler. It once housed a royal menagerie, with tons of cool animals.Some kings used it for parties and tournaments and raves. Just kidding, tournaments WERE the raves of Medieval England.

 

 At some point, the kings started using part of the Tower as a prison. It is rumored that the first prisoner to be held there escaped..... oops.
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  This water  entrance gate was added in the early 13th century, by Edward I. It is famously known as the "Traitor's Gate". It was said that prisoners could see the heads of executed prisoners displayed on pikes as they were brought up the Thames River by boat.

The Tower was actually a place for important prisoners, so the apartments were supposedly a pretty nice place to live. You know, if you don't mind not knowing if you're going to get out alive...


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A lot of famous prisoners left messages and images carved into the stone walls in some parts of the place. 

 

Some of the notable prisoners in the Tower's history were:

The Princes in the Tower- the two sons of Edward IV who were placed in the tower by their uncle for "safekeeping." The boys disappeared, and their uncle became Richard III. It is rumored that the boys were murdered by their uncle so that he could gain the throne. Two sets of small human remains were found a couple centuries later, but it was never verified if they were the princes. 

Queen Anne Bolelyn- The second wife of Henry VIII. Henry broke with the Catholic Church because he wanted a divorce from his first wife in order to marry Anne Boleyn. She was later accused of witchcraft and treason and executed. 

Lady Jane Grey- The cousin of Henry VIII's son, Edward VI. Edward VI tried to name her as his heir shortly before is death. She only reigned for nine days before Edward's older sister, Mary, was proclaimed Queen. Jane was imprisoned in the Tower. She was later executed at Tower Hill for treason. She was probably around 17 or 18.

Queen Elizabeth I- The daughter of Anne Boleyn and Henry VIII, Elizabeth was held in the Tower around the same time that Jane Grey was executed, during the reign of Elizabeth's sister, Queen Mary. Her sister eventually released her, and Elizabeth went on to inherit the throne after her sister's death.  

 

Guy Fawkes- He was part of the infamous Gunpowder Plot to blow up Parliament. He was caught before the plan could be completed and he was tortured at the Tower. 

 This marks the spot where many of the executions in the Tower took place.....


Now before you all start thinking I'm TOO morbid, there was an entire exhibit on the torture that took place in the Tower. There were so many people waiting to see it that it was about a 20 minute wait in line. I declined to see it. Because torture is icky. And also, I hate lines. If I'm going to wait in line for 20 minutes, there better be something I can eat, drink, or pet at the end.









Anyway, that was my trip to the Tower. And I even managed to get out alive.....this time....

                   

Here's a link if you want to read about some of the history stuff I mentioned, but you know, in a much more serious and historical way.....

http://www.hrp.org.uk/TowerOfLohttp://www.hrp.org.uk/TowerOfLondon/ndon/