Day 2 - Boat Rides and Shakespeare

The London Eye as seen from the boat

Passing St. Paul's Cathedral. Stupid cranes were everywhere!

Going underneath the pedestrian-only Millennium Bridge

We thought this building looked way cool

Our first glimpse of the Tower of London.
Notice the bricked-up entrance to the Traitor's Gate.

Kelli doing her impersonation of the letter 'Y'

Just inside the main entrance to the fortress

The Tower of London is pretty massive in size. In addition to the White Tower located within, there are thirteen towers situated along the huge curtain wall surrounding it. It took some time to tour the entire fortress, which meant a lot of walking and climbing stairs.

Still looking pretty good for being over 700 years old

The Jewel House, which contains the Crown Jewels of England

Kelli and the Beefeater Bear

Kelli posing with a real Beefeater (i.e. a Yeoman Warder).
The "E II R" stands for Elizabeth II Regina.

Nice hat, Kelli! Heh heh heh.

After all that hard work touring the London Towers, it was time to get back on the boat and continue our journey up the Thames to Greenwich. But first we needed to refuel. It was about a half-hour ride to Greenwich, so we figured we might as well grab some food and eat it on the boat. There were some small food shacks right outside the Tower, so I decided to make my visit to London "official" by ordering that England classic – Fish and Chips. I forget what Kelli ordered to eat. We hopped on the boat and I started munching on my fried codfish. Oh, sweet bliss! Was it ever good!

Even though it looks like a McDonald's hash brown,
it's really a delicious meal of Fish & Chips.

We arrived at Greenwich, got off the boat, and immediately got lost in the city. I took a wrong turn and we wound up in the heart of the Royal Naval College. Not where I wanted to be, but I still snapped a picture of Kelli in front of the main campus.

Kelli wondering how we wound up at the Royal Naval College

We eventually got our bearings and started our long journey to the Royal Observatory. Along the way, we saw many signs warning us to beware of a rare animal known as the Humped Zebra. Sadly, no such animals were seen during our trek upward.

Hmmm. Perhaps some strange crossbreed between a camel and zebra?

Okay, I was joking, of course. A "humped zebra crossing" is a UK term for a giant speed bump with a striped crosswalk painted on top of it. Still, it makes for an amusing sign. Sort of like "Slow Children Playing", another of Kelli's favorites. Anyway, as you may recall, due to my navigation error early on, we had a bit of a hike to get to the Royal Observatory. Little did I realize just how far it was! And not just far, but steep!! We probably had to walk a mile to get there, and all of it uphill! At practically a 30 degree incline! Apparently they offer free shuttles to the top, but only during the summer. We missed it by a few weeks. Kelli was not amused, needless to say. She kept falling more and more behind.

"Come on, Kelli! We're almost there! I promise!"

These steps were brutal! And we were still only halfway there!

"I climbed all the way here just for this!?

Biggest... hula hoop... ever.

The main reason I wanted to climb all that way was not to see the Royal Observatory, but to stand on the Prime Meridian – the official 0° longitude line. That's the silver band that Kelli and I are standing on. I thought it'd be cool to stand on the line from which all time on Earth is measured. Kelli, however, was not as impressed. We walked around some more, and visited some of the rooms of the Royal Observatory. They had a planetarium show but we didn't have enough time left to see it. We needed to return to the boat, ride back (against the tide) to Westminster Pier, and head back to our hotel to get cleaned up for our dinner and Shakespeare play.

The Prospect of Whitby, an old riverside pub

Heading towards the Tower Bridge

Boating under London Bridge... and no, it was not falling down

Shakespeare's Globe Theatre, which we would be attending that evening

The day's activities have taken their toll on Kelli

We made it back to our hotel, freshened up, and headed off to the theatre. I told Kelli we could take a taxi either to the restaurant or back to the hotel from it, but not both. She decided the former, so we hailed a cab and he eventually dropped us off at the theatre (although he got a little lost). I had made dinner reservations two months earlier at a very nice restaurant called The Swan at the Globe, which was located right next to the theatre. We had a wonderful corner table for two, with a splendid window view of the Thames and St. Paul's Cathedral. I believe we split an entrée of baked salmon with potatoes. We made sure to save enough room for chocolate mousse as a dessert. It was at this point that I decided to make a mental readjustment regarding the insanely high overseas prices. During our trip, the British Pound was worth about twice the America dollar – which meant that something costing £1 was really costing me $2 U.S. The chocolate mousse we ordered cost £5 each, which meant I just spent twenty bucks on dessert the size of a pudding cup! So I knew the only way I was going to safely enjoy the rest of our trip was to shut the fiscally motivated part of my brain off. It still reared its ugly head up occasionally over the next eight days, but I managed to keep it in check most of the time.

Waiting for our meal at the Swan at the Globe

Kelli about to see what a £5 chocolate mousse tastes like.
(the answer is... delicious!)

After our excellent meal, we headed to Shakespeare's Globe to see Kelli's favorite play by the Bard — A Midsummer Night's Dream. I had also bought tickets for this play month's earlier, so I knew we had good seats. We were on the front row of the top balcony, with an excellent view of the entire stage. This was important, since the actors perform the play just as it was back in Shakespeare's time – without microphones. The theatre was as close a reconstruction to the original Globe as possible, which meant wooden benches as seats. I paid an extra £1 for a fluffy cushion that Kelli could sit on. The play was great, the weather perfect, and the actors were all fantastic. Turns out I actually recognized one of the actors (Michael Jibson, playing Puck), because I had recently seen him in the movie The Bank Job. Anyway, seeing a Shakespeare comedy at the Globe was one of the highlights of the trip. Sadly, photography was not allowed during the presentation, but I did sneak two photos off right before it started.

Two drummers announcing that the show is starting

A view of the theatre from our balcony seats.
(I pitied the poor "groundlings" who had to stand for the entire three hour show)

Once the play was over, we had to hoof it back to the nearest tube to get back to our hotel. We decided to take Blackfrier's Station, which meant crossing the Millennium Bridge across the Thames and hanging a left. We did get a great view of St. Paul's Cathedral lit up at night. Needless to say, we were pretty tired once we got back to our room. Since we'd be touring the Tate Museum of Modern Art tomorrow, we decided we could afford to sleep in a little.