Tower of London

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We had planned to meet up with Dan and girlfriend Michelle at the Tower of London at noon. However things got a little bit hectic. First, Christina and I overslept (until about 10:00), which was crappy because we missed breakfast. Instead I grabbed a Cadbury Brunch bar (simply awesome chocolate/fruit/nut candy bar) in the station to tide me over until we could find some real food. Turns out things were a little more hectic than we had imagined because Dan couldn't find Michelle at the airport as planned, so he was about an hour delayed. No worries as Christina and I found a nice pub caddy corner to the Tower to grab some lunch. I had a chicken pannini and Christina had a BLT baugette. Seeing as we were in a pub we had to grab some beers as well. I had a Fuller's London Pride, while Christina went for the tride and true Bud. After downing good English beer, I shook my head in shame at Christina for passing up such a tasty opportunity.
After lunch we called Dan to check up on him, but he had just arrived at Tower Hill Station and was going to drop his luggage at a friend's place there in the area. Basically right after I hung the phone up, Dan walked right in front of me. So we helped them carry their bags over a few streets and then waited for Dan's friend, Dre, to show up and unlock the security lock. About 15 minutes later we bought our Tower tickets and headed inside. At the gate, we met up with another law school buddy Chad, his wife Jenny, and Jenny's mom.
Things quickly progressed as a tour conducted by a Beefeater was just starting. The guy was pretty funny, told some of the morbid stories of the Tower Grounds and how executions were generally conducted. Turns out the pub we had just eaten at was right next to Trinity Green where they used to behead the publicly excucted prisoners. It was interesting to hear the fate of many such as Sir Walter Ralegh, seeing as how I lived in a town with his namesake for quite some time. Next we headed to the White Tower, the original Norman fortification on the site, built around 1000 years ago. The museum showed the different purposes of the fortifacation over the years and showed an impressive collection of weaponry and armor. Next we watched them change the gaurd outside the building housing the Crown Jewels, but this time the guys were armed with big machine guns, instead of the cutesy rifles. Funny how the jewels > queen. We then rode the little walkway by the jewels and ooohed and ahhhed at how much they sparkled. Dan and Michelle departed at this point because they were pretty tired after the airport debacle. So the rest of us checked out a few more exhibits and decided to hit the pub AGAIN.
We kind of did a family style supper sharing all sorts of British food, like the pies and the sausage which were all very delicious. After a long friendly dinner conversation, we decided to head back to Knightsbridge with Chad & Co. seeing as it isn't too terribly far away from High Street Kennsington. After talking to a lively receptionist at Chad's hotel, we picked out a decent pub to hang out with Chad and Jenny some more. However, the evening ended decently early because the poor souls had to be up early to leave for TUSCANY... sob, sob. haha
Christina and I headed back towards High St. Kennsington to get ready to wrap up the day, but we decided to get some dinner since we didn't really eat but a few bites at the pub on round 2. It was pretty late so we just wandered into some dive that seemed to be pretty popular called Soprano's. Chrissy got fish and chips, while I tried the lamb shank special with a prawn appitizer that was covered in something that resembled Thousand Island dressing. The fish and chips were really good from the few pieces that Christina let me nibble on, but I really didn't care for the lamb shank. The prawns however were pretty darn good.
After dinner we were bleary eye tired, so we returned to the hotel and flat out crashed.

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