London

Despite being one of the most travelled cities in the world, London holds a special intrigue. Its origins date back to Julius Caesar and some of the most important figures of history have spent extended time within its city walls, like Wiliam Shakespeare. I just read Bryson’s biography on him and wow, I had no idea so little can actually be known about him. Anyways, this isn’t Wikipedia, so I’ll move right to closesineurope.

After a disappointing and unusually slow double decker tour we finally arrived at the Tower of London. The tower is a thousand years old, built by order of William the Conqueror. One of its main functions was to house prisoners, especially those treasonous wretches in opposition to the crown. Anne Boleyn, one of Henry VIII’s wives lost her head there, as did Catherine and many others. A fancy plaque marks the exact spot. Lovely. My favorite part of the tower was the inscriptions on the walls. They were from 15th and 16th century prisoners. There is plexiglass over the carvings to prevent “clever” tourists from adding to the inscriptions, which happens way too often believe it or not. Beside each inscription is a typed message of what was originally carved. I felt modern chills as I read their medieval words and imagined what they must have felt.

After the tower we ran to catch another bus, the story of our life, because our play was due to start in 15minutes. We somehow arrived in time and spent the next 3 hours as groundlings. (Wikipedia will help you out here if you’re scratching your head). The play was Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream and it was exhilarating. The acting was top notch and further confirmed what I already knew to be true; the best actors are NOT in Hollywood. We had already listened to and read the play as a family so we were able to follow right along despite the old language. That being said, the kids eventually tired from the standing, groundlings stand, and at times they had difficulty seeing but they lasted despite it being 3 hours (we had no idea the length, I had guessed 1hr?, ha. I now know that Shakespeare was notoriously longwinded, Hamlet is his longest at 5 hours.) But seriously, the play was amazing and it’s probably the best live entertainment I’ve seen anywhere, ever, besides my annual grad video of course. Next time you come to London you gotta go to the Globe. Do it.

John