If I were to give you any advice today, it would be to NOT lose your debit card while traveling. That is, if you are like me and use your debit card for cash while you travel so you don't have to carry cash, definitely don't lose your debit card. If you do, make sure you are traveling with someone who hasn't lost her debit card and has made sure she has not only enough money to her trip stuff but also money for emergencies. That way, you can BE her emergency.
Thank god for my friend Athena. She is paying for everything with the absolute faith I will pay her back. Honestly, is this what it feels like a kept woman?
Being a kept woman for ME means I really pay attention, even more than usual, to every penny Robin is paying on my behalf. Like the fare on the Tube from the nearest tube station to the Tower of London. Like lunch, dinner and even the water we bought to help us with all the walking we were doing. You really need a lot of water to flush those tired muscles when you walk all over London.
London is such a walkable city. Robin added up the kilometers on the map and figured we probably walked about 6 miles yesterday. My legs and feet attest to the fact that we walked on hard concrete (not that scrumptious, forgiving dirt we usually are walking on) for at least that many kilometers. I am actually relieved because I have had no had time to train for the backpack in Morocco's High Atlas Mountains that comes next. Now I feel just a little bit ready.
Today, we learned a bit about the London tube. It operates much like other underground subway routes whether in Paris, DC or possibly New York. London's tube stations were quite tidy and well organized and the blend of diversity on individual cars was absolutely astounding. All of Europe and much of the Commonwealth lives in or around London. The wonderful cacophony of accents and languages from all over the Globe is a symphony. Mostly, everyone looks like they are happy to be there and if they are helping you or serving you,they seem genuinely happy that you are too.
Yesterday, we spent a good portion of the day at Kensington Park, not unusual since we are both tomboys even at our ages. Today I spent the early morning retrieving my passports (one of which was already replaced), my canceled credit cards (not replaced but alternative arrangements made) and most importantly, my business card holder that I use to carry my driver's license (still there!), my health card, my insurance cards and that I would truly miss because I bought it at Coach and I love its expensive, leathery smell.
Anyway, the rest of the afternoon we spent touring the Tower of London. I think both of us thought the Tower might be toured in an hour or so but the 'Tower' is not really one tower where Bolyen was incarcerated and in the shadow of which she lost her head, but an enormous castle complex basically built between 1078 (no, that is not a typo) and 1399. The Tower has served England's succeeding kings and queens well (sometimes because they used the Tower with the phrase &Off with Her/His head&). The monarchy has lost some of its bloodthirstiness these days. I hear Charlie is even an organic vegetable farmer these days.
A couple interesting side notes. If you look at Henry VIII's armor displayed with other monarchs' armor, the codpiece juts out like there would have been something rather spectacular to protect there. Personally, I always wondered how five successive young women could be infertile while Henry obviously was not (because he was King you see). I will attempt to post my picture of said armor if it fits into the frame of this blog entry.
If you have a chance to visit the Tower, it is worth sufering the crowds for the Beefeater Tour. The Beefeaters, properly named the Yeomen Warders, are the oldest bodyguards of the British Monarchy, established in 1485 by Henry VII. They have to have retired from the British Army, Royal Marine or Air Force to serve at the Tower. I'm not sure whether they are picked for their senses of humor (oh yes, they are funny) or whether the chance to ham it up with impugnity is such a draw that they become humorous. Nevertheless, it is well worth joining the throng.
We had intended on visiting the Tate Modern this afternoon but realized we would have so little time, it might be better to wait for this treat until we swing back through London on our way home from Morocco. As we were walking back to the tube, I saw what looked like an extremely old church, pictures of which my son Dan might like being as he is studying to be a Minister. Robin is interested in old buildings, too, having renovated several herself (not old like, you know, London old but more old like the Colonies old.)
All Hallows by the Tower was originally founded by a bunch of nuns in 675 CE. Yes, that makes it nearly 1350 years old. That is REALLY REALLY REALLY old. It was first built by Catholic Saxons only to be turned into an Anglican church about 200 years later (possibly because of the Catholic Church's inflexibility on divorcing - or beheading - a supposed infertile quieen? ).
After using my mother of a minister-to-be superpower, a wonderfully informative docent showed Robin all the goodies the church had yet to deliver to us, including an exceedingly interesting history of the church's constant rebuilding after a succession of things like an ancient ammo magazine exploding and causing a massive fire and severe damage from things like World Wars. Parts of the walls date all the way back to its Saxon foundation while the 'newer' parts of the building were built with as much as the original structure left intact as possible. One thing the docent failed to tell us and that I found out in researching this blog entry was that John Quincy Adams, yes the US President Adams, was the only US President to marry on foreign soil and it was right there at All Hallows Church in 1797. It's all in the Marriage Register right on display in the Museum attached to the church.
By the time we got out of the church, Robin and I both had just enough energy to figure out how to get back in our neighborhood on the tube, get some delicious dinner at one of the numerous Lebanese restaurants on Edgware Road near the Marble Arch and walk back to our hotel.
It is clear to me that we do not have enough time to sample even 10% of what London has to offer. I really do need to remember to take more time in these short-stay cities, cities I pick because of cheap airplane tickets at the time I want to go somewhere like Morocco that you can't get to direct from the US. I'm such a sucker for lure of staying several nights in some city I've never been on my way to somewhere else and then wishing I had maybe stayed a little bit longer.
Well, London, tomorrow we leave you for even more exotic adventures but I think I'll break a tradition and come back to see you again. Like on my way back home actually. Robin promised we could go to the Tate Modern then.
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