Day one in London

Yesterday was a fun day.  I was going to say it was chilly with the wind in the Tower of London, but I found out that back home it is -7 degrees Fahrenheit with a windchill of -20 something, so I am not going to say anything at all.  Here is a picture of Jane in front of our apartment building.  She's not wearing a hat, so you know it isn't that cold.

Yesterday began with a breakfast of crumpets, which I have not had before. I liked them (any warm bread substance with butter, I will like), but I think I need to figure out how to toast them better.

We all met in the morning to go to the Original Tour bus stop.  We have tickets for 48 hours but took the bus for a partial tour and as a way to get to The Tower of London.

Yes, it is chilly in London, but I am glad we went in January.  Look at the short lines at the Tower of London!!!  This line will be all the way out to the gift shop later in the year. All the people in the picture below are people in our group.

Here we are inside the outer gate waiting (in the wrong spot) for the tour.  We did eventually find the correct place, but it wasn't as if there wasn't anything to look at in the meantime.

Look at how happy everyone is.  Oh, the first day!

We took a tour with A Beefeater, who was hilarious and then the group broke up and walked around. We agreed to meet outside in front of the gift shop after lunch.  I went to look at the Crown Jewels (http://www.hrp.org.uk/TowerOfLondon/stories/crownjewels) and then went through the White Tower (http://www.hrp.org.uk/TowerOfLondon/stories/WhiteTower) which is the oldest part of the Tower itself.

I could have easily spent more time in this place.  As is was, Jane and I felt like were practically running through the last bit and trying to find a way out so we would not be late.

I thought it was pretty cool to walk along a rampart and be able to look at the cottages of some of the Yeoman and their families.  I wonder if it is as fun as I imagine to grow up as a kid in the Tower of London?

After we met up, we walked from the Tower of London to Eastcheap to find the Boars Head Tavern marker (shout out to Dr. Crouch--good thing Jane looked this up before hand because we would have never found it without the picture and knowing what to look for).  The tavern is featured in some of Shakespeare's plays, but the original building was destroyed, In 1868, a building was built near the original site with a marker on it referring to the Boar's Head Tavern, so this what what we needed to find.

This is fairly high up, so we were all walking along the road looking at buildings.  I know the Londoners were all wondering what the silly tourists were trying to find!

Next, we took the tube to the East End to go to the Ragged School Museum.  I'll try to write more about this on the next post because it was a small but really interesting place.

Yup, we are even happy on the tube!

The school is located right next to Mile End Park and right next to the towline on the Regents Canal, so we walked along the canal to get to it it.  For some reason, some of my students thought I was going to do away with them in the canal! It's only the first day; we can't hate each other yet.:)

Here is a picture Jane took of the students in the exhibit classroom at the museum:

Afterwards, we split up.  Some of the group went to the prime meridian, some went on the on/off bus, and Jane and I visited Queen Mary University and paid a surprise visit to some of Jane's friends in their Study Abroad office.  I am now on a mission to get some our students to study abroad here!  The Study Abroad people were great, and students do not have to spend much more here than at FSU.

Above is a picture of one of their dorm buildings.  These also have a great view of the canal.

I wonder how much it would cost to live on one of these canal barges?