England Days 3 and 4

I meant to preface my first blog post about England by saying that I had a really good time there.  I might make fun of the Brits a little bit, but nothing I say should be interpreted as me being anti-British.  I'm anti-royalty and anti-British spelling and I think the United States is the greatest country in the world, but I'm not anti-British.  Britain is America's most important ally, so I do appreciate them very much.  With that out of the way, let's get to my third and fourth days in England.

Pete's bachelor party was on Tuesday night, so I had the day to myself and then the night was devoted to that.  I had three things I wanted to do.  The first thing I wanted to do was find Notre Dame in London.  There wasn't anything to do there, but I wanted to see it.  It was just a building that blended in with the rest of the city, but I found it.

Seeing this put a smile on my face.

Then I wanted to go to the world's most famous prison, the Tower of London.  I took a tour guided by a Yeoman Warder.  I don't remember what you have to do to be a Yeoman Warder, but I think one of the qualifications was serving 22 years in the military.  They do wear ridiculous outfits, but the tour guide I had was very funny.  The tour strengthened my opposition to British royalty.  Henry VIII might have been the worst of all.  Thomas More was imprisoned at the Tower of London before being put to death.  Two of Henry VIII's wives (Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard) were imprisoned there before being executed.  And the tour guide told the story of how there was a cardinal who was speaking out against Henry VIII.  Henry couldn't get his hands on the cardinal, so he had the cardinal's mother executed.    And then there's George III.  Why do people care about the royal family?  I get that if you're British, you just grow up with it and there's no escaping it.  But why does anybody else care?  I'm no fan of the French, but at least they figured out that having a monarch is really really silly.

This guy might have been wearing a ridiculous outfit, but he was funny.

Anyway, after the tour, you can walk around and see lots of stuff at the tower.  Everybody wants to see the crown jewels.  Although I'm opposed to the monarchy, I would have seen them just to say that I saw them.  But there was a long line.  And I wasn't waiting on a long line to see something associated with British royalty.

I didn't fully appreciate just how terrible Henry VIII was until I visited the Tower of London.

After that, I wanted to go to Benjamin Franklin's house.  I went and found out that it wasn't open to the public on Tuesdays.  I think I had seen that on the website, but I just wasn't thinking about days of the week (I've really lost track of days of the week this summer).  So I ended up just walking around for a little bit.  I came across this really cool Battle of Britain memorial:

The world owes the British for winning this battle.

"Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few."

Pete's bachelor party was at night.  It was part 2 of his bachelor party.  The first part was just him and a few friends in Germany for a couple of nights.  He had just gotten back from Germany and he was still recovering, so this party was fairly laid back.  But it was a good time eating and drinking.  One of my favorite parts was one of Pete's British friends saying, "You know what the best thing about America is?  The best thing about America is freedom!"  I liked that guy.

Pete and me at a pub in London.

After Pete's bachelor party, I had no interest in waking up early the next day.  I didn't set an alarm and I stayed in bed until about noon.  That day was going to be my second attempt at seeing Benjamin Franklin's house.  They have actors there and put on little shows at different times.  So while I was waiting for one to start at 3:15, I took a walk to Buckingham Palace.

I already used this joke on Facebook, but it's pretty cool that they built this palace and named it after Deandre Cole's best friend.

I probably should have saved Benjamin Franklin's house for the Fourth of July (the following day), but I had a feeling it was going to be crowded that day.  So I went there on July 3.  Franklin lived in that house for 16 years before the Revolution.  He lived there until 1775.  It's crazy to think he was living there so close to the Revolution.  The house was essentially the first American embassy in London.  It's the only house in the world that Franklin lived in that's still standing.  Most of the stuff from when Franklin lived there doesn't exist anymore and they didn't replace it, so it's pretty empty.  But it was a cool experience.  And I didn't know much about Franklin's time in London, so it was cool to learn about that.

36 Craven Street

Franklin pretty much lived in two rooms and this was one of the few pieces of furniture in those rooms.

Following Franklin's house, I went to the Science Museum on the recommendation of Pete's British friend who loved America.  It was free and there was some cool stuff on space.  I didn't stay too long because it was closing at 6:30.  I actually ended up going back the next day.

USA! USA! USA!

I finished up the day by watching some Wimbledon and having dinner at a pub near my hotel.  I usually bought sandwiches at a place near my hotel to save money (they were pretty good and much cheaper than going out to eat), but I was in the mood for a legit London pub meal and some cask ale.  Cask ales are served at room temperature.  I only had one pint (I didn't want to drink too much after Pete's bachelor party the night before), but I enjoyed it more than I thought I would.  Good, but it was no Sam Adams Summer Ale.

I only had one more day in London and that was the Fourth of July, my favorite American holiday.  More on that later.