Westminster Abbey, on the other hand, is worth the money, and you should take that advice seriously as it’s coming from someone who on principle will not pay an entrance fee to see a church. Kelly and I were second in line, and boy did it queue up quickly. Once inside, we discovered how much there really is to see there. We listened to pretty much everything on the audio guide and looked at everything we could absorb. There is a Richard Mead memorialized in the abbey though he’s buried elsewhere. He was, according to the Abbey’s website, an “eminent physician, born of an ancient Buckinghamshire family.” I wonder if we’re related.
What I as most interested in, of course, was Poet’s Corner where famous artists (actors and musicians, as well as writers) are buried or memorialized. Shakesy, of course, is memorialized there as well as C.S. Lewis, Longfellow, and Oscar Wilde, et. al. A few people who are actually buried there are Kipling, Tennyson, and Handel (which surprised me since he wasn’t English.)
After the Abbey, we headed to the Globe to see if we could get tickets to The Taming of the Shrew. I was really interested in the production as it is set in Ireland during the 1916 uprising. Alas, there were no tickets left to be had, of that or Macbeth, so we settled on a tour of the theater. In the end, that was probably better since I don’t think my feet could have taken standing for two and a half hours as a groundling. Most of what the tour guide told us, I already knew since, you know, I teach Shakespeare. But I had never heard of the “white geese” before, the prostitutes who tried to pick up clients at the shows, so called because they wore white aprons and waved white handkerchiefs to get attention.
Our third major stop was the Tower of London. More than just “a” tower, it’s a complex with several buildings and towers. It is here you can see the crown jewels after queing in a ridiculously long, though surprisingly fast moving, line. There is the White Tower, where you can see various pieces of weaponry, the Bloody Tower where Richard III imprisoned his nephews before having them killed, an exhibit displaying instruments of torture, and a monument marking the place where so many people were executed, including Anne Bolyen. English history is great.
By the end of the day, we were tired and our feet sore (you will notice this pattern throughout the trip. I intend to drop 20 pounds and gain a need for orthopedic shoes during these 3 weeks.) Dinner was purchased from the Tesco grocery store next to Kelly’s apartment and the evening spent discussing plans for the next day.