London

Here are some pictures from London, the final stop on our trip. We spent three days here, in perhaps the dumpiest "hotel" either of us have ever been in (and we've both spent some time in really cheap hostels). Even Joe, Mr. I've-stayed-in-hostels-with-giant-centipedes said "This place is a dump" when we walked in. Our first night we spent shivering in our very utilitarian bed listening to the traffic whiz by our permanently open window.

But London improved after that night. We took the Original Big Red Bus tour, toured the Tower of London, and attended an Evensong worship at Westminster Abbey. We also went to the British Museum and the British Library. The last three things were free, and probably my favorite of our time in London, though I really enjoyed the Tower of London, too. The British Museum has some incredible artifacts that the Brits ripped off from the parts of the world they colonized. Obviously, I felt a little bad seeing so much of the Parthenon in London, but it is an incredible collection, no matter how they got it. The British Library has a collection of old original documents, like the first publication of Shakespeare's works, James Joyce's composition notes, handwritten copies of works by Jane Austen and the Brontes, and Beatles lyrics scribbled on napkins. They even had an original Magna Carta document. So that was definitely cool to see. And while we attended the Evensong worship at Westminster Abbey mostly so we could see the inside without paying the admission fee (London is ungodly expensive, people), I was pleasantly reminded that they have a fantastic boys' choir, and the entire service was performed by them. I should have remembered this from my music history, of course. I did know the worship was going to have lots of music (the title Evensong kinda gives that away), but I'd forgotten most of what I ever knew about the service. It was incredible to hear that choir in that place. We couldn't actually see the choir, because by the time we got there all the good seats were taken and we were around the corner, but it was still worth it. We also saw Darwin and Newton's graves while we were exiting the abbey.