Current Location: London, England

I arrived in London yesterday evening and, immediately after unloading my stuff at the hotel I’d reserved, started wandering around to see what I could see. My top priority, of course, was locating an Internet café so that I could communicate with Jennifer and post these final journal entries. Then I wandered the streets for awhile to see what I could see until I got myself lost and flagged down a cab to take me back to the hotel.

One day is not enough to experience London, just as a month is not enough time to experience the British Isles. There’s far too much to do: Westminster Abbey, Big Ben, the House of Parliament, Buckinham Palace, the Natural History Museum… and that’s just in the city proper, not to mention Windsor Castle, the Cotswolds, and more.

And those are just the attractions to see during the day. There is also the dining, the theater, the night life, the art galleries, and, above all, the people.

Since I’ll be getting up very early tomorrow to meet the taxi that is taking me to Heathrow Airport, and because I’ve been fighting a cold for the past couple of days, I should probably just turn in early tonight and leave the night life of London for another trip in the future.

For today, I had to content myself with seeing parts of the two attractions that I’ve wanted to see in London for many years: the Tower of London, and the Natural History Museum. I’ve wanted to see the Tower of London ever since I was a kid and heard a ghost story about the "Bloody Tower" on the radio. Okay, yeah, there is a lot of history at the Tower of London and the Crown Jewels are there, too, but I was mostly intrigued with the idea of visiting one of the most haunted spots in England.

I saw no ghosts at the Tower of London, but I did see the famous ravens, and I saw the Crown Jewels, and the Armoury. I saw suits of armor that had been worn by King Henry VIII and the sword that he used in battle. My years of playing Dungeons and Dragons and working for the Renaissance Faire and hanging out with people who participate in the Society for Creative Anachronisms (and a life-long attraction to things medieval) have filled me with a desire to explore castles, marvel at weapons and armor of genuine antiquity, and walk streets that have been walked for thousands of years. And London, of all the places in the world, is just ripe for that sort of thing.

I also saw the crown that Elizabeth II wore at her coronation in 1952. Part of the Crown Jewels exhibit included a videotape of Elizabeth II’s coronation, and I have to say that it was an impressive, even moving ceremony. A presidential inauguration just doesn’t carry the kind of resonance that a royal inauguration does, even if the monarch in question has no real power anymore.

The other attraction I saw, the Museum of Natural History, has been on my wish list since biology classes I took in high school, when I heard about their impressive fossil collections and zoological displays. Again, I had to content myself with seeing only about half of the Museum; when wandering museums or tourist attractions, I have an incurable tendency to examine every item on display and read every explanatory plaque and track down related exhibits. I spent over nearly two hours in Hall’s Croft, the 17th century home owned by William Shakespeare’s son-in-law, fascinated by the accounts of 17th century middle class life and Renaissance medicine (John Hall was a physician), while other tourists wandered in, took a glance or two, and wandered out again. So in the Natural History Museum of London, I spent four hours exploring their fossils, their rocks, their dioramas, their insect collection. And I think I only hit about 75% of the museum.

I can’t believe I’m leaving for home tomorrow. I need more time to explore London. If I didn’t have a fiancee waiting for me at home that I love more than anything else and whom I need to see after a month of separation, I might just say screw my job and rearrange my flight for one week later…