Good Things Come to Those Who Scavenge

Last night, I consented to go on the Jack the Ripper tour with Jessie and Erin since, excepting homework, I hadn't much else to do. Our enthusiasm - we had much too much anyway - fizzled as we waited for a Circle train that would never come, switched our plans and hopped aboard the Central and ran through the station, up several broken escalators and through long corridors, desperately clinging to the hope that we would not, in fact, be late. Alas, we arrived at the start of the tour just short of 20 minutes late and had to admit that all of our exhaustion was pretty much wasted. (I apologize if you thought this would be a good story.)

But, not to let a little thing like missing our main event deter us, we embarked on a walk about London. Being right outside the Tower of London, we walked around it towards the South Bank, hoping a brilliant idea would strike us. The two of them had just been on a tour of the Tower with a class earlier in the day, allowing them to share with me a wealth of information. The most important of which being that people live in the Tower!! Now, I don't know how many people knew that, but I certainly didn't, and boy did that keep me entertained for pretty much the entirety of the evening. I stared into the distant brightly lit windows to get just a glimpse of the lucky ones living within, and while it may seem futile, I beg to differ. As we were rounding the building, a runner went up to the Tower's guard, showed an ID, and was admitted to run in across the little bridge! This was simply astonishing and, from that moment forth, I suspected every runner we passed of living in the Tower. On the Thames side of the Tower, several windows were lit up, a series of which looked quite nice on the inside from my position on the walk, and I even saw someone's head moving in the window!

(A little more on the Tower, but just a little.) My new dream-come-true moment is to actually be one of the residents of the Tower of London, or at the very least, to befriend someone who lives inside. From what Jessie and Erin told me, they have their own pub and tennis courts and I'm pretty excited about the whole thing. People live in the Tower of London!

After all the excitement that was the Tower, we wandered over the Tower Bridge to the South Bank and to a pub near the Tate Modern that Jessie wanted to check out, Young's Founders Arms. We stepped inside, ordered some rather interesting drinks - a Waggledance for Erin, and a Double Chocolate Stout each for Jessie and I - and stared at St. Paul's Cathedral as we finished our drinks and talked. In hearing that the Globe is opening shortly before our departure to the States with a production of Othello I got rather excited, as it's the only Shakespeare play I completely enjoy. Being in the company of two Shakespeare-lovers, I agreed to try some more of him and perhaps accompany them to a few plays before May. We crossed the Millennium Bridge and made our way back home for the evening.

We're trying for Jack the Ripper tonight, leaving extra early just in case and bringing Meg along. We're prepared this time.

One of the other great things about London (besides the fact, of course, that people live in the Tower!), is that often, the ICLC will hold various competitions and quizzes of sorts - all of which yield cash prizes to the winners. Always useful in such an expensive city. Earlier in the term, Paddy and I set off to win a few of them and succeeded in winning two! Our first task was to get a library card from two different library systems (i.e. the one near school and the one near our flat); the second was to find all ten items in a scavenger hunt. The majority of the scavenger hunt wasn't too difficult, but the pub plaque we were required to find (stating that US Servicemen broke some of the pub's windows while playing baseball in WWII and that American drinkers were required to pay the outstanding bill) took the longest and came as a bit of luck. During today's coffee talk, we were awarded our prizes - £10 to Sainsbury's each. Just a bit of incentive to try for the next contest...