CHAPTER 3
This may sound lame, but our favorite thing to do in a new city, and in London in particular, is to ride the bus. What better way to get an upclose and intimate view of the everyday working of a bustling metropolis. Its cheap, its easy, and though it often takes longer than the tube or a taxi, you get to see so much more. And if you happen to be in London, as we were, and if you play you cards right, as we always do, you can snag a seat in the front row on the top level of one of the famous red double deckers- we are telling you now: Parliament, Westminster, Buckingham Palace, and… the bus. Its one of the best things you can do with your time. We loved it, and we’d do it again tomorrow if we had a chance.
So, as you might have guessed, on our second day of sightseeing, we took the bus- an hour long ride from Clapham Junction where J and J lived, all the way into downtown. We got off at the Tower of London, one of the oldest and most historic structures in England. Portions of the outer wall show layers of red brick, which were laid by the Romans in the 1st century, and the tower itself was constructed in the 11th century. They do an impressive job of giving you an idea of what it must have been like 1000 years ago, even going so far as add manikins of soldiers on the battlements, and big wire sculptures of exotic animals, like lions and bears, which used to be held at the Tower in a crude form of royal zoo- at one point in the 1200’s the king at the time even had a pet polar bear, who they would tether with a long chain and let swim out in the Thames to get exercise!
Besides the funny animal history of the tower, we were intrigued to see the dungeons, where Anne Boleyn was held- whom Henry VIII had wanted to marry, causing the rift between Catholicism and the Church of England. And the final stop for any visit to the Tower: the Crown Jewels, including the Koh-i-Noor diamond, which, before it was cut, was the largest diamond every found weighing in at 793 carats! All this glittering gold and jewels started to spark ideas of a grand heist, but Kacey seeing me look calculatingly at the pudgy guards while taking note of the scarcity of security cameras, had the good foresight to escort me out of the vault without incident. “But it would be so easy!” I explained under my breath. We later learned that most of the gemstones are actually crystal replicas, which explained the lax security. Even so, they still didn’t allow photos- jerks.
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