Zac and I have heard this phrase so many times this week that it has become a running joke. Whenever one of us messes up, the other one says, "Mind the gap." We hear the expression at least 100 times a day while riding the tube. Sometimes the train station platform is not completely level with the train itself, leaving a high step, or a gap of several inches. For those of you following along in "American," the warning means to watch your step. We have found that the phrase applies nicely to all sorts of situations with which we are intimately familiar: spilling drinks, dropping coins (which happens a lot because I have to stare intently at every coin to determine its value), to actually making a misstep. Yesterday while staring intently at a landmark, I failed to "mind the gap," stepping off a curb and nearly falling.
But that was yesterday.
Today we began at Tower Hill, looking out at the infamous Tower of London.
The sky was uncooperative and a bit foreboding, the perfect backdrop for this location.
The tower has been standing for nearly 1000 years, but it was not the oldest brick structure that we saw today. Adjacent to the tower is the remaining section of the original wall around the city of London. When the Romans invaded present-day England (approximately 15 years after the resurrection of Christ), they quickly built bridges across the Thames in order to control the flow of river traffic and to make money from tolls. Then they enclosed 2 miles with a wall. Here stands the remaining vestige of that nearly 2000-year old wall.
The Romans left 450 years later, but the wall remained intact. 300 years later, the Vikings attacked and were able to conquer most of the rest of England, but never London.
Even after William of Normandy defeated the English king, Harold Godwinson, in the famous Battle of Hastings in 1066, William never attempted to take London because he considered it virtually impregnable. In fact, when he marched up to the city in 1066, he famously threw his sword on the ground and made a deal with the Londoners: William would not fight against London, nor would he kill any of the people, but in return, the Londoners had to proclaim that William was the King of England.
King William built the Tower of London as his way of being able to look over the walls and observe London. Although William lived in the Tower, it was not intended to be his Royal residence.
The manner in which the people of the city of London flex their muscles against the monarchy will be repeated before the story is over.
When people refer to London today, they are referring to the world's largest city, spread over hundreds of sqare miles. The original city of London can be distinguished today by these markers. Whenever you pass one of these markers you know that you're in the old city.
The sword in the upper left quadrant represents William's sword.
After leaving the tower, we walked past All Hallows Church. The church was erected in 675 A.D. and has had many famous attendees. Sir Thomas Moore attended this church before he was beheaded by Henry VIII in 1535. In 1645, William Penn, the founder of Pennsylvania, was baptized here. In 1666, William Pepys, the father of the British Navy, stood in the belltower and watched the fire of London. Our sixth president, John Quincy Adams, was married here in 1797. In the 20th century, Albert Schweitzer made musical recordings in this church.
I mentioned that Samuel Pepys attended this church. Directly across the street is an area where criminals were hung and their bodies mutilated. Notice the quote on the plaque.
From church we went to Monument Hill, the area where London remembers the great fire of 1666. One reason that the fire was so distructive is because some of the politicians underestimated the extent of the blaze.
Pardon my language, but I must share a quote. When the Lord Mayor was asked what he was going to do to try to contain the fire, he said (on the record), "The fire is so small a woman could piss it out."
Apparently the Lord Mayor could never find that woman, because the fire burned 80% of London.
(Note: bad language isn't bad if it's historical.)
Christopher Wren, the mathematician/architect who designed so many structures, also designed the monument that commemorates the fire. The huge monument, 102 feet tall, has an area where Wren has inscribed in Latin that nobody should be blamed for setting the fire. Then in the last line he says that the Pope and Catholics are responsible. That last line has been chiseled off.
I did not have a good angle to get a picture of it, so I included this Google pic:
After leaving the monument, we encountered three "oldests."
Here is London's oldest tea and coffee shop, "Jamaica Wine House." And would you believe that King Charles II tried to close down this coffee shop because he said that coffee was making the British women too "excitable and hedonistic."
Almost next-door to the Jamaica was London's oldest men's suit making shop: "Cad and the Dandy." Our tour guide said that it is not uncommon to walk past and see parliamentarians standing inside in their underwear ("dressed down to their knickers"), being fitted for suits. Sad.
The last "oldest" was the oldest restaurant: Simpsons.
We walked through several of Old London's narrow streets
until we came to the dome of Saint Paul's Cathedral.
I could not stand far enough away from the church in an unobstructed area where I could get the entire church in a single picture. I have never seen anything like it.
I did see a couple of interesting signs today.
I'm not exactly sure what constitutes a good vehicle, but driving one seems a distinct advantage in England.
And then there was the 30 pence restroom.
I want to note out a couple of literary points, too. If you have read Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities, you may remember the name of this pub. It was a pub frequented by Charles Dickens.
At the very end of the tour, I found this statue of Samuel Johnson, a man who painstakingly compiled a dictionary.
Johnson is described by the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography as "arguably the most distinguished man of letters in English history."
Johnson struggled against tremendous odds. As a baby, Johnson did not cry, prompting his aunt to observe that young Samuel was such an odd child that she would not have even picked him up in the street. He was extremely eccentric and had few friends. At 26, he married a widow 20 years older than himself. They lived in extreme poverty. Johnson was accepted into Oxford, and succeeded brilliantly as a student, but never had enough money to finish his degree. That lack of a degree kept him out of many jobs.
That Johnson was unique, nobody disputes. One biographer notes that children and adults would gather around Dr. Johnson and laugh in derision at his words and gestures. In fact, researchers suspect that he had Tourette's syndrome far before the condition was ever labeled.
But Johnson persevered. He spent years writing definitions on little scraps of paper and organized them into the first great English dictionary. In fact, before the Oxford English Dictionary was published, Dr. Johnson's dictionary was the greatest in the English language.
One of the finest biographies ever written was by James Boswell. It is titled, Life of Samuel Johnson.
And then there was a "that was cool" moment today. Zac, a huge guitar fan, sponges up any information about the guitar industry. Case in point: today in a guitar shop, we looked at a case with at least 30 guitar pedals. Zac told me the city in which each of those guitar pedals is manufactured.
On a whim, Zach asked if we could go down to Guildford to visit a guitar shop called Anderton's Music Co. The shop had several guitars that were very expensive, and Zac wanted to play them. He has followed the website of this guitar shop for a long time, and watches videos made by a guy connected to the shop -- a guy called Captain.
Captain walked in while we were there.
Royal
I conclude with a short story and three pictures.
The first picture is of a massive structure called the Royal Courts of Justice, dreamed up and designed by Queen Victoria. I could not get the entire building into a single picture.
Queen Victoria dreamed of having that building inside the old city of London; however, the Londoners did not want monarchal influence in their city in the 1800's any more than they had wanted King William's Tower 700 years earlier.
The queen relented. As a sign of goodwill, the City of London asked if they could create a statue of the queen. Loving both goodwill (the sentiment, not the second-hand store) and self portraits, Queen Victoria agreed to the idea.
Here is the sculpture of Victoria, the queen.
And then the Londoners added a bit more:
Look again at the top figure -- a dragon.
With this statue the city was saying, "The monarchy will NEVER be in a position of authority over London."
And so ends our last evening in London. I just got off the phone with Seth, and he asked me if London was all that I had dreamed it would be.
I told him, "Yes, and so much more."
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