On Saturday, we had a tour of Parliament. It was the coolest place ever. It was so beautiful inside, and it's so crazy to think that it's a place of work. Like, "Welcome to my office, please have a seat. Yes, my office is lined in rich murals and carved with gold. Oh no, don't have a seat there, that's where the Queen sits." We learned all about the traditions of government, as well as the history of the British kings and government. It was fascinating. Unfortunately, you can't take pictures inside, and while I was brave enough to break that rule at St. Paul's, I was NOT about to get tackled and wrestled for my camera by one of the numerous police officers all throughout the building.
Then, at night, I had a lovely dinner date with Steve. We were dressed nicely, made ourselves dinner, and met on Skype around 9:00 my time, 4:00 his time. We talked for five hours. It was amazing. I really miss just being able to talk to him all throughout the day as things happen. It's so much different to talk for an hour or two at a time and just catch up on everything, rather than just texting him as things happen. I miss him so much.
Today, we had our tour of the Tower of London and then did a Jack the Ripper walk. The Tower of London was morbidly interesting. That disturbed part in us all just loves learning about where the traitors were held, where people like Ann Boleyn were beheaded, and the various methods of torture they implemented. My favorite one was called "Scavenger's Daughter," where they fold you in thirds (shins against thighs, thighs against stomach) and put you in a box, and press the box in more and more until you just die. Lovely, right? We saw all the royal jewels, like the various crowns, the jewel encrusted swords, and what I call "The royal cheese and cracker plates" because of all the gold dishware. They had a gold punch bowl and ladle about the size of a bathtub... THAT'S what I need at my next party.
Then we had the Jack the Ripper walk, which would have been a tremendous amount more enjoyable if I wasn't so sure I was going to die from the cold. It was FREEZING. We were warm when we originally left this morning because we were in the sunlight, but all of the activities today were in the shade and we were not prepared. I was so chilled to the bone that it took me a few hours after coming back that I finally regained feeling. The tour was still really neat though. We learned all about the history of Jack the Ripper and the women that were killed (a lot of which I knew already from the fabulous Johnny Depp movie, "From Hell"), and saw different sites where they were last seen or found dead. Again, that morbid curiosity in me went wild.
We closed out the night with a very American trip to Chipotle. I don't care though. Say what you want as about 12 of us Americans come into Chipotle and monopolize the tables in the back, make fun of our country all you want in this moment, because once I dove face first and sunk my teeth into a burrito the size of my head, nothing else mattered.
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