Sharron Matthews' "I AM GONNA Dominate the WORLD...ONE PERSON AT A TIME" BLOG.: London Sightseeing...the kindness of strangers..and the top of my head...

So, I woke up early...okay...I was tired...I woke at 10:00am and got my shit together!

One of my dear hosts, Rob, had written down a plan for me (based on the things I told him I wanted to see) and a way to execute it...I use the word execute lightly after the things I have seen today.

And Simon, one of my other dear hosts, drove me to the O2...a huge stadium...which also is near the pier for the Thames Clipper...a water bus...a very lovely, fast water bus...that you can drink on....not that I did.

The O2 seems a bit alien to me...

It has a number of quills sticking out of it...the thing I love about it? Musical comedians play there...solo artists....WHAT?!?! LOVES!!!

The Clipper is awesome...it stops everywhere you might wanna go!

And I sat beside a child who had honey on their hands and wanted to touch my hair....WHY DOES THAT HAPPEN TO ME ALL THE TIME?!?!?!

Anyhow...here is where it took off from...very London-ish, I thought!

That sculpture on the left was very interesting I thought...again...it was the beginning of the day...I was excited to take a picture of my croissant...which I deleted.

I was really excited.

I have never been to London before...as I said...and we all know...or some of you do...that I am a history buff and a castle whore...and this place is filled with both...and whores as well....

When this some into view over the bow...oh how my heart beat....

Holy freaking London Bridge...we sang, ad nauseum, when I was a kid about how it was falling down...I never knew why it was falling down...I wanted some answers.

It really is gorgeous. And all gold on top...I became obsessed about getting it in every picture...

Oh ya...this is a good place to tell you I had two themes for my SOLO ADVENTURE today....

1. Depend on the kindness of strangers...I would keep my map in my purse and ask people where everything was.

2. Take pictures of myself with everything...don't ask someone to do it for me...see if I can do it myself...as the yin to #1's yang.

It took me 8 tries to get this picture.

The London Bridge just happens to be beside my number one destination in London....ready...drum roll bitches....

The Tower of London...the imprisoning...the torturing...the executing...the Lion's in the moat ( I swear to god! In olden times the kings kept lions around the moat...oh ya, there was a freaking moat (which now has a skating rink in it...not very olden day-ie)...the CROWN JEWELS....I could never GET ENOUGH about it when I was young...I took picture books out of the Library about it...I studied it...yes, I was a strange child...are you surprised?

I was freaking out that I was actually here...this was my first view....

I was too fucking impatient to wait for the Beefeater/Yeoman Guard to come and give the tour so I bought a audio tour ( I got lost 4 times...it is really quite huge). First of all, let me say...there isn't just one tower...there are one million...

I went on the "Execution and Imprisonment" Tour first...surprised...here are some pictorial highlights.

Traitors Gate...where a barge could fit through the archway...and the Traitors were dragged up the stairs off of the barges...to their imprisonment or exectution.

This is Beauchamp (pronouced Beecham) tower...this is where many prisoners were kept...for years and years...there was one window...that looked over the courtyard where people got executed. There were very intricate carvings in the rooms where people were kept...I didn't get a picture of them...I was quite moved by the beauty of them...some people were kept there waiting daily...for years...for their execution. Rudolf hess even spent time in the Tower.

The courtyard they could see is below....

If you were lucky enough to have the honour of being executed in the courtyard and not out on Tower Hill, (outside of the Tower) where thousands of people would come to witness your death, your body would be taken to the Chapel right behind the tree....Anne Boleyn is buried there...among many others.

It is a gorgeous chapel.

I was moved by two stories...

The story of the two princes, sons of Edward lV, who went missing and were allegedly smothered to death...I remembered the story from when I saw Richard lll at Stratford.

In the early 1660's the bodies of two boys were found under the stairs in the White Tower.

Here.

The second was of Jane Grey...Queen for 9 days...her family made it happen...she was beheaded...she was 16 years old. She is not even recognized as a queen by the line.

There was a copy of this painting in the tower where she was kept...I loved it.

So, this is going on...but here are some of my other fave pics from the Tower of London...

THEN I quickly...SO quickly....because I spent A LOT of time at the SCARY tower...where I also saw the CROWN JEWELS!!! There were shiny...and a bit gaudy...a bit show-off-ie....

I ran to Big Ben....