Torture and More Tea

It is late and my computer is not cooperating, so hopefully this works!

 

We woke bright and early this morning to get to the Tower of  London when it opened at 10.  This turned out to be an excellent plan because we were at the Tower from 10 until 5:30 when it closed and we left feeling like we could have seen a few more things.

 

Here is a nice shot of the White Tower, started by William the Conqueror in the 1070s.  It is magnificent:

 

 

We had a great history lesson on what went into the moat (GROSS) by the Yoeman Warder:

 

 

The moat is a grassy lawn now, but it was NOT so in the early years.

 

Ellie learned how heavy standard armor is:

 

 

The girls helped keep the Tower safe from intruders during this reenactment of three significant attempts to breach the tower (of which, only the Peasant Revolt of 1381 was successful):

 

 

 

We went inside the White Tower where Marit was skeptical of Henry VIII's codpiece.  Delusional or intentional psychological warfare???  Either way, that thing is ridiculous!

 

Ellie measured the thickness of the exterior wall of the White Tower -- it's big!

 

The Yoeman Warders are excellent guides and have so much knowledge about the Tower and its history:

 

 

We were going to go home OR have Indian food for dinner, but a bathroom emergency prompted us to choose Wagamama instead.  Ramen!  It was terrific!

 

 

 

 

 

At the end of a long day, the best solution is a quick tube ride home:

 

 

 

And finally, the marvel that is the non-US hot apple pie from McDonald's.  You may remember in the 1980s, McDonald's had delish deep fried hot apple pies in the US.  Alas, they discontinued them and replaced these gems with gross mushy baked pies.  Not Europe!  You can still get the burn-your-face-off-deep-fried-hot-apple-pie at any McDonalds here:

 

 

And with that, Goodnight!

PS - I realized after I finished this post that I named it Torture and More Tea but failed to mention that we toured the Torture at the Tower exhibit (thumbs up from everyone) and we had Tea (well, I had a cider, but it WAS tea time).  Thus the name of the blog post for today.