dramaturgy (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
dramaturgy) wrote2007-03-14 11:49 am
dramaturgy) wrote2007-03-14 11:49 am
Sunday/Monday - Buckingham Palace, Tower of London, and The Dumb Waiter
So Sunday I got up pretty early (x_x) to go with Allison and Parissa and their visiting friends. We went to Trafalgar Square and they climbed up on the lions with some great difficulty that was quite schadenfreudistic to watch, if I may make up a word. We hightailed it to Buckingham Palace, then for the changing of the guard.
The view towards Buckingham Palace, still a bit of aways down the Mall.
A little bit closer! The flag was up, which meant that the queen was in residence (if not necessarily there, somewhere in London, but I think if I were the queen, I'd be sleeping in... wait, I sleep in anyway. :D).
The Victoria statue that stands there out front.
Wide shot of the palace itself.
A gate to some kind of garden. I'll be frank and say I have no idea what it was for.
The next ZOMG I had was that the Buckingham guards were in BLUE. I have never, ever in my life before seen a Buckingham palace guard in blue. Then again, I have never seen one in person until Sunday, so maybe the red is just a stereotypical thing that's so iconic they reserve it for movies. I really don't know.
My next thought was, "I have NO idea how I'm going to explain this to my grandmother." So I'm not even going to try.
So as you can see, we weren't really close enough to see the ceremony per se, but we could hear the music (Theme from Bridge Over the River Kwai That Probably Has A Real Name? The Marriage of Figaro? Star Wars? I kid you not, they played the Darth Vader music).
But then we got a bunch of people walking past us, which was cool. :)
When a certain person showed up, I made my graceful exit (I swear, I have one nerve left and she dances on it). I walked to Victoria station and took the tube to London Bridge tube station, across the Thames, and then I walked down to the Tower Bridge and across the river again. It was kind of a long way to get to the Tower of London, but since the District and Circle lines were closed, I didn't really have a choice. I was really excited to get to go into the Tower of London. The lady didn't even hassle me because Coe is stupid and doesn't put a date on our student IDs!
Since I am always looking, HOUSE. They also have ads for Grey's Anatomy which I guess is just starting to play on TV over here. There's a huge one of McDreamy in the Piccadilly Circus tube stop and it makes me a happy Liz.
I can only assume this is left over from the Blitz. Awesome though. :D
Tower Bridge, facing north.
Traitor's Gate, from the outside!
That very, very green expanse that you see used to be the moat. And fifteen feet deeper. It was filled in in the 1830s because by that time, it had become a disgusting cesspit.
The Yeomen Warders do guided tours. Yay! This was mine (rather, I should say ours). He was a very nice gentleman, very funny, and quite knowledgeable. Yeoman Warder used to be a position that you had to buy, but then Wellington reorganized it in the 1830's. Go Wellington!
I was standing right underneath the bell tower. :P I think he said it's the oldest curfew bell in England, and it still rings every night at 5:30.
I'm pretty sure that I was walking when I took this picture, so that'd account for blurriness. That might be the... Wakefield tower? :x
The view of Tower Bridge from the courtyard.
The White Tower! The original fortress built by William the Conquerer (by then William I) in the 1070's because he needed a safer place to live.
The crown on top of the standard on the weather vane means that it used to be a place of royal residence. And indeed, it was a royal palace until not all that long ago.
The Chapel of St. Peter ad Vincula. When people were beheaded on Tower Hill (or indeed, in private on this little courtyard), their heads were put on pikes and paraded through town and then put on London Bridge as a warning, while the bodies were taken in a wheelbarrow from the hill back to this chapel, where they were buried underneath the floor wiith no ceremony whatsoever. In the Victorian era renovation was done on the chapel, and they identified as many of the bodies as possible, and gave them proper Christian burials. Anne Boleyn, Catherine Howard, and Lady Jane Grey are all buried in the floor, along with Sir Thomas More, Guilford Dudley, and Simon Lord Lovat (who, I believe, has the dubious honor of being the last person in the UK to be beheaded).
At this point the guided tour ended and I wandered.
A memorial. Kind of a nice touch.
The Jewel House, where the crown jewels are kept. I went in - this was one of the few places you can't take pictures in the tower, for obvious reasons - well, what is there to say? There was a lot of gold and a lot of jewels.
View from the entrance to the White Tower, where the armoury exhibits are kept.
Lots of guns.
Horse model things of the kings. :\ Lots of stuff!
This cracked me up. It probably shouldn't have. Like, O RLY A FIREPLACE? NO WAI!!!
These had really long, creepy names, but I wouldn't want to get on the business end of one of those.
This was armor made for a child, possibly Edward VI. Nobody knows. :x
Some Henry VIII armour. A rather portly man, if you will.
The glare sort of hides it, but a boy I didn't know and I literally stood there for maybe thirty seconds looking at the codpiece alone. I've concluded that it probably wasn't necessary to conceal what was there, if you get my meaning. Not that you can ever say that to the king. The king gets whatever size of a codpiece he wants.
I am about 90% sure that this was armour of James I. Perhaps James II. He was a rather diminuitive man, whichever James he was.
Wait, maybe this is the James I armour... YEAH I do remember this one, because it was made by the Japanese and given to James. Go figure.
Again, something that probably shouldn't have cracked me up but did. This entire exhibit treated the Gunpowder Plot like it was a modern day terrorist attack. I mean, not to cheapen the idea of putting gunpowder under the floor of parliament and plotting to blow it up, but. I'm just too damn American to take it seriously anymore. We treat everything like it's the Apocalypse for the sake of feeling okay when the world DOESN'T end. </soapbox>
The web of conspirators in the plot. I mostly just found this interesting.
It's a well! This well has been here forever or something. There's still water in it. o_O
This is back outside (obviously) by the courtyard where that memorial was. This building was the one where Lady Jane Grey stayed whilst being incarcerated in the tower. The tour guide kept adding "ands" and so I thought he was going to say, "AND some nights you can still see her face in the window! :O" but he never did. Boo.
This house was built by Henry VIII for Anne Boleyn. The only time she got to stay there was before she was executed. :D
Portcullis of the Bloody Tower.
The view from the Bloody Tower - the room where Edward V and Richard were kept. :O
It was kind of great. They had a scene from Richard III playing in projection on the wall, and they had panels giving evidence for Richard having murdered them, Henry Tudor murdering them, and them disappearing but not being murdered. Then they had a place where you could vote. Surprisingly... Richard and Henry were pretty well tied. XD I voted for Richard because while they both had motive, Richard's motive is more solid and immediate, and he was closer and had the means.
The window that I just showed you the view from.
Traitor's Gate from the inside. OH NOES.
Next was the torture exhibit. I'm not going to lie, I was a little disappointed. Maybe it was a reduced collection because they were doing renovation on the roof of the Bloody Tower and so they had a different entrance than usual, but meh. :\ I still wouldn't want to be around.
Okay, so if you've always wondered what a rack is, this is a rack:
Your feet go in one end, your arms in the other, and then you are stretched. Until you tell them what they want to hear and/or your limbs come off, I suspect. Alternatively, see what happens to Gonzo in Muppet Treasure Island.
This one doesn't look like any fun either:
This is called the Scavenger's Daughter, and basically you are stuck like that until they let you out. It is an iron band clasped around you, all folded up like that. Basically, it is the opposite of the rack.
More White Tower!
Daffodils growing by the White Tower = pretty.
In Beauchamp Tower, there was... this Winnie the Pooh thing on a window sill. I have no idea what it was doing there. The incongruity struck me as hilarious, though.
Me being Dwight in Beauchamp's Tower. Dad. :P
Now. OLD GRAFFITI!
This guy had a lot of time on his hands.
They believe one of these may be Guilford Dudley. Number 75, I think, "G.D."
This one guard, this is all he did. I sat and watched him for about fifteen minutes to rest my feet. I would be so bored.
White Tower again. Get over it. :P
To change locations COMPLETELY, once I left the Tower I took a bus further uptown to find a place to eat and went to Charing Cross, where this replica of the Eleanor Cross now stands. It's a replica, because the original was destroyed on the orders of Oliver Cromwell. This is a Victorian replica from drawings of the original.
W00t! So Monday night we got to see Jason Isaacs and Lee Evans in The Dumb Waiter, by Harold Pinter. It was a pretty intense experience with a twist ending. I saw the twist coming, but not so soon that I was like, "Blah, I am smarter than you." I saw it at just the right time. That's all I'll say about that. :) Parissa and I stage doored, of course. I thought it was going to be awkward for a minute because I brought a Harry Potter book for Jason Isaacs to sign (*dork*) (Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, FYI), but didn't have anything for the other guy to sign. AWKWARD. Because he was great. But then I had him sign my ticket and all was well. :)
I felt sort of bad waiting for Jason Isaacs' signature, because his mobile phone kept ringing (All You Need Is Love if you must know :D) and there was an autograph hound sort of person - who'll sell it on eBay and come on, what fun is that? I don't blame Jason Isaacs for not wanting to be part of that. But he signed my book - when I handed it over he said, "You know, I'm not in this one." I said first of all, it was the one they had at the used book market, and two, he sort of is because Draco gets Lucius involved in the whole hippogriff business. Then he said, "You are one of the big fans."
He has no idea. :] A very pleasant man overall. I think it must take infinite patience to do that, because I know when I get done doing a show all I want to do is go back to my room and sit.
The view towards Buckingham Palace, still a bit of aways down the Mall.
A little bit closer! The flag was up, which meant that the queen was in residence (if not necessarily there, somewhere in London, but I think if I were the queen, I'd be sleeping in... wait, I sleep in anyway. :D).
The Victoria statue that stands there out front.
Wide shot of the palace itself.
A gate to some kind of garden. I'll be frank and say I have no idea what it was for.
The next ZOMG I had was that the Buckingham guards were in BLUE. I have never, ever in my life before seen a Buckingham palace guard in blue. Then again, I have never seen one in person until Sunday, so maybe the red is just a stereotypical thing that's so iconic they reserve it for movies. I really don't know.
My next thought was, "I have NO idea how I'm going to explain this to my grandmother." So I'm not even going to try.
So as you can see, we weren't really close enough to see the ceremony per se, but we could hear the music (Theme from Bridge Over the River Kwai That Probably Has A Real Name? The Marriage of Figaro? Star Wars? I kid you not, they played the Darth Vader music).
But then we got a bunch of people walking past us, which was cool. :)
When a certain person showed up, I made my graceful exit (I swear, I have one nerve left and she dances on it). I walked to Victoria station and took the tube to London Bridge tube station, across the Thames, and then I walked down to the Tower Bridge and across the river again. It was kind of a long way to get to the Tower of London, but since the District and Circle lines were closed, I didn't really have a choice. I was really excited to get to go into the Tower of London. The lady didn't even hassle me because Coe is stupid and doesn't put a date on our student IDs!
Since I am always looking, HOUSE. They also have ads for Grey's Anatomy which I guess is just starting to play on TV over here. There's a huge one of McDreamy in the Piccadilly Circus tube stop and it makes me a happy Liz.
I can only assume this is left over from the Blitz. Awesome though. :D
Tower Bridge, facing north.
Traitor's Gate, from the outside!
That very, very green expanse that you see used to be the moat. And fifteen feet deeper. It was filled in in the 1830s because by that time, it had become a disgusting cesspit.
The Yeomen Warders do guided tours. Yay! This was mine (rather, I should say ours). He was a very nice gentleman, very funny, and quite knowledgeable. Yeoman Warder used to be a position that you had to buy, but then Wellington reorganized it in the 1830's. Go Wellington!
I was standing right underneath the bell tower. :P I think he said it's the oldest curfew bell in England, and it still rings every night at 5:30.
I'm pretty sure that I was walking when I took this picture, so that'd account for blurriness. That might be the... Wakefield tower? :x
The view of Tower Bridge from the courtyard.
The White Tower! The original fortress built by William the Conquerer (by then William I) in the 1070's because he needed a safer place to live.
The crown on top of the standard on the weather vane means that it used to be a place of royal residence. And indeed, it was a royal palace until not all that long ago.
The Chapel of St. Peter ad Vincula. When people were beheaded on Tower Hill (or indeed, in private on this little courtyard), their heads were put on pikes and paraded through town and then put on London Bridge as a warning, while the bodies were taken in a wheelbarrow from the hill back to this chapel, where they were buried underneath the floor wiith no ceremony whatsoever. In the Victorian era renovation was done on the chapel, and they identified as many of the bodies as possible, and gave them proper Christian burials. Anne Boleyn, Catherine Howard, and Lady Jane Grey are all buried in the floor, along with Sir Thomas More, Guilford Dudley, and Simon Lord Lovat (who, I believe, has the dubious honor of being the last person in the UK to be beheaded).
At this point the guided tour ended and I wandered.
A memorial. Kind of a nice touch.
The Jewel House, where the crown jewels are kept. I went in - this was one of the few places you can't take pictures in the tower, for obvious reasons - well, what is there to say? There was a lot of gold and a lot of jewels.
View from the entrance to the White Tower, where the armoury exhibits are kept.
Lots of guns.
Horse model things of the kings. :\ Lots of stuff!
This cracked me up. It probably shouldn't have. Like, O RLY A FIREPLACE? NO WAI!!!
These had really long, creepy names, but I wouldn't want to get on the business end of one of those.
This was armor made for a child, possibly Edward VI. Nobody knows. :x
Some Henry VIII armour. A rather portly man, if you will.
The glare sort of hides it, but a boy I didn't know and I literally stood there for maybe thirty seconds looking at the codpiece alone. I've concluded that it probably wasn't necessary to conceal what was there, if you get my meaning. Not that you can ever say that to the king. The king gets whatever size of a codpiece he wants.
I am about 90% sure that this was armour of James I. Perhaps James II. He was a rather diminuitive man, whichever James he was.
Wait, maybe this is the James I armour... YEAH I do remember this one, because it was made by the Japanese and given to James. Go figure.
Again, something that probably shouldn't have cracked me up but did. This entire exhibit treated the Gunpowder Plot like it was a modern day terrorist attack. I mean, not to cheapen the idea of putting gunpowder under the floor of parliament and plotting to blow it up, but. I'm just too damn American to take it seriously anymore. We treat everything like it's the Apocalypse for the sake of feeling okay when the world DOESN'T end. </soapbox>
The web of conspirators in the plot. I mostly just found this interesting.
It's a well! This well has been here forever or something. There's still water in it. o_O
This is back outside (obviously) by the courtyard where that memorial was. This building was the one where Lady Jane Grey stayed whilst being incarcerated in the tower. The tour guide kept adding "ands" and so I thought he was going to say, "AND some nights you can still see her face in the window! :O" but he never did. Boo.
This house was built by Henry VIII for Anne Boleyn. The only time she got to stay there was before she was executed. :D
Portcullis of the Bloody Tower.
The view from the Bloody Tower - the room where Edward V and Richard were kept. :O
It was kind of great. They had a scene from Richard III playing in projection on the wall, and they had panels giving evidence for Richard having murdered them, Henry Tudor murdering them, and them disappearing but not being murdered. Then they had a place where you could vote. Surprisingly... Richard and Henry were pretty well tied. XD I voted for Richard because while they both had motive, Richard's motive is more solid and immediate, and he was closer and had the means.
The window that I just showed you the view from.
Traitor's Gate from the inside. OH NOES.
Next was the torture exhibit. I'm not going to lie, I was a little disappointed. Maybe it was a reduced collection because they were doing renovation on the roof of the Bloody Tower and so they had a different entrance than usual, but meh. :\ I still wouldn't want to be around.
Okay, so if you've always wondered what a rack is, this is a rack:
Your feet go in one end, your arms in the other, and then you are stretched. Until you tell them what they want to hear and/or your limbs come off, I suspect. Alternatively, see what happens to Gonzo in Muppet Treasure Island.
This one doesn't look like any fun either:
This is called the Scavenger's Daughter, and basically you are stuck like that until they let you out. It is an iron band clasped around you, all folded up like that. Basically, it is the opposite of the rack.
More White Tower!
Daffodils growing by the White Tower = pretty.
In Beauchamp Tower, there was... this Winnie the Pooh thing on a window sill. I have no idea what it was doing there. The incongruity struck me as hilarious, though.
Me being Dwight in Beauchamp's Tower. Dad. :P
Now. OLD GRAFFITI!
This guy had a lot of time on his hands.
They believe one of these may be Guilford Dudley. Number 75, I think, "G.D."
This one guard, this is all he did. I sat and watched him for about fifteen minutes to rest my feet. I would be so bored.
White Tower again. Get over it. :P
To change locations COMPLETELY, once I left the Tower I took a bus further uptown to find a place to eat and went to Charing Cross, where this replica of the Eleanor Cross now stands. It's a replica, because the original was destroyed on the orders of Oliver Cromwell. This is a Victorian replica from drawings of the original.
W00t! So Monday night we got to see Jason Isaacs and Lee Evans in The Dumb Waiter, by Harold Pinter. It was a pretty intense experience with a twist ending. I saw the twist coming, but not so soon that I was like, "Blah, I am smarter than you." I saw it at just the right time. That's all I'll say about that. :) Parissa and I stage doored, of course. I thought it was going to be awkward for a minute because I brought a Harry Potter book for Jason Isaacs to sign (*dork*) (Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, FYI), but didn't have anything for the other guy to sign. AWKWARD. Because he was great. But then I had him sign my ticket and all was well. :)
I felt sort of bad waiting for Jason Isaacs' signature, because his mobile phone kept ringing (All You Need Is Love if you must know :D) and there was an autograph hound sort of person - who'll sell it on eBay and come on, what fun is that? I don't blame Jason Isaacs for not wanting to be part of that. But he signed my book - when I handed it over he said, "You know, I'm not in this one." I said first of all, it was the one they had at the used book market, and two, he sort of is because Draco gets Lucius involved in the whole hippogriff business. Then he said, "You are one of the big fans."
He has no idea. :] A very pleasant man overall. I think it must take infinite patience to do that, because I know when I get done doing a show all I want to do is go back to my room and sit.