Mar 3, 2012

London: Tower of London

Can you believe that I've been in London for two months and I still haven't been to the Tower of London, Hyde Park, or Notting Hill? On Thursday Hayley and I finally crossed the Tower off of our collective bucket list!

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In the morning Hayley and I took the tube to St. Paul's and then walked the rest of the way to the Tower along the bank of the Thames. We even got to walk out onto the river bank (tide was low)!

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At the Tower we bought our tickets (16 pounds; yikes!) and walked around the building before heading inside to join a (hysterical) guided tour of the grounds by one of the Tower Guards, aka "beef eaters". 

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After our tour we picnicked in the walls of the tower, saw the crown jewels (I took two sneaky pictures... shh, don't tell!), and walked around the grounds for hours.

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There were a few really cool military exhibits; it was crazy to see the knight's armor juxtaposed against things from the World Wars (and no, I'm not tall enough to be in the Sportsman's Batallions)!

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Is it just me, or is this sign really, really funny?

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After the Tower, Hayley and I walked to the National Theater. The sun was going down, and the city looked beautiful!

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We met up with some friends outside of the theater to go to the filming of the Graham Norton Show! It's a UK talk show, and the host is really funny. Hayley was lucky enough to get tickets, and I was lucky enough to get invited along! We got to see Goldie Hawn (who might be the silliest, dimmest person alive) and John Cusack, and the UK based band Kasabian played their latest single, "Goodbye Kiss". I had a blast watching the filming process, and the interviews were really interesting!

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