Q: Why couldn't Anne Boleyn ever get A's in school?

A: Because she was B-headed!
Bahahaha... ok, ok. Maybe I should just stick to my 7 joke books instead of trying to make up my own jokes. ;) But if that wasn't a good hook for a post about the Tower of London, I don't know what is! ;)
Yes, we did in fact visit the Tower of London today. :) Similar to yesterday, I felt like a tourist again. I guess I should get used to that. We pretty much had another free day, since the only thing on the schedule was a concert tonight, so we decided to spend the day at the famous Tower of London! It took a while to get there, but it was worth it. We started off with a short (one hour) guided tour, with a Yeomen soldier. He was extremely entertaining, I think it would be so much fun to be a tour guide! You just crack jokes, make people laugh, and teach people history! The tourists don't even know if you're just making it up... ;) Anyway, after the tour we just walked around, went through lots of exhibits, and learned a lot of history! The place is HUGE. Its built right next to the Thames River and used to have a moat around it, which is now a beautiful lawn. haha. I'm really trying to finish blogging by midnight so I'll be leaving out a bunch of stuff fyi.
The coolest part by far was the Crown Jewels. HOLY SMOKES I have NEVER seen ANYTHING like that! We just stood there and gawked at them for a long time. The amount of wealth on those crowns is RIDICULOUS!!! One of the sceptres has this diamond thats 314 carats!! And the Imperial Crown has 2,868 DIAMONDS, 273 pearls, 17 sapphires, and oodles of other gorgeous stones. It was CRAZY! And there were quite a few crowns displayed! One of them weighed 5 pounds! Could you imagine wearing that? Ugh! So if you come to London, go to the Tower of London and see the crown jewels! Incredible.
We saw the place where people get beheaded, along with the torturing equipment which I just could not read about. I tried to start, but my family knows how queasy I get... I had to walk out. Haha. We also saw tons of armor and weaponry. I wish I could keep talking about it but I must go on! To sum things up, we spend 5 hours there and I definitely could've spent longer. There is SO much to see and take in. Go earlier in the day and stay until it closes! Its definitely worth it.
By the time we got home we just had enough time to make dinner, change, and then head over to the concert. O wait! Pictures of the Tower of London (which isn't just one tower. Its like this huge castle).





Ok so those should consist of some of the buildings, and then my friend Josh and I competing in one of the games in one of the exhibits. It was definitely for the little kiddos but we all ended up doing it. It was like "knight training" or something, we had to hit the targets with our swords at certain times... super fun. ;)
Here are a couple more. The Tower Bridge is right next to the Tower of London (I wonder where it got its name...) so thats that. Then there should be me in front of the whole dealio. The picture with Caitlin and I by the wall is super cool because this wall is from like 200 A.D.!! And we were matching today so we had to take a picture. :)



Ah this is so frustrating!! Its already 12:05 and I have SO much more I want to write! It really will have to wait though because I need to get more sleep. I've been running myself around trying to see everything I possibly can and get all that I can out of this experience, but I'm afraid my body needs a break.
So to finish up quickly, we attended a concert tonight at Cadogan Hall (where we heard the Tallis Scholars last week). It was just a community choir/orchestra so it wasn't at the professional level, but still very enjoyable. I really enjoyed the musical selection and would love to write about it, so expect some about it tomorrow. :) Even though this performance wasn't exceptionally clean or well done, I enjoyed seeing these older people perform in this community choir. Its important to have other lesser choirs so people can go on with their obligations and occupations, but still have (really great) music in their lives. They performed Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven by the way- more tomorrow.
Well thats about it! AFterwards we went stopped at McDonald's for some ice crea. :) A vanilla cone is only 54 pence! Most single ice cream cones around here are like 2 pounds, and really small. So not only is McDonald's great because they are a reliable place to find a bathroom (or "toilet" here), but because they have cheap ice cream. :) Just by the way, England doesn't believe in 3 things. Public bathrooms (aka toilets), trash cans (aka "bins" or "rubbish bins"), and public drinking fountains. Its ridiculous. I saw a drinking fountain today at the Tower of London, and it was the second one I've seen since I got here over 2 weeks ago! Ridiculous. As for the bins, they are rarely to be found, which I find amazing because the streets are always clean! Anyway, I must go to bed, unfortunately. I wish I could go on about the culture and the music... but I will tomorrow! Hopefully...
Thanks for reading everybody! I love you all! :)