A "Wicked Ole Time"

Today is the day we kick it into high gear. Ready to see the sights, experience London, and live life we leave our hostel with only a map and each other.
First, the gruesome and bloody Tower of London. Known as the site of famous executions of prominent men and women such as Sir Thomas More and Queen Elizabeth I, the Tower is one of many Royal castles around Britain. We took a guided tour throughout the castle walls listening to tales of old London during the times of the Tower, happy and tragic.

Following our time at the Tower, we grabbed a sandwich down by the river. It turned out to be on bread with an outside texture of a rock, but turned out to be delicious.

We followed a tip given by our tour guide to check out an evening walking tour just north of the Tower of London about Jack the Ripper, the notorious 1888 London serial killer. This was a creepy, but awesome tour along the sites in White Chapel, London of all the murders. It was given by a friend our previous guide for seven pounds for two and a half hours! At first we were hesitant but afterwards we are convinced that it was a seven pound story.

Alright, here are some of the hidden things we stumbled upon during our day.

1. A THOUSAND cocktail parties, It seems that part of the culture here is to get off work and while still wearing your suit head to a pub on the way home and "have a pint" as they say here. It's incredible still being in a nation very similar to our own and being shocked by little things like this normal day in the life of a Londoner. Maybe it is just a midwest thing but we either look incredibly like Americans (most likely in our polos/tshirts/shorts/tennis shoes) or it is just the nature of large cities to always dress up. Brett says every girl looks like they could be on the top fashion magazine "because with their clothes, every girl is trying to make a fashion statement."

2. Harry Potter fans eat your heart out! While walking the streets of London just north of the Thames river we found the filming site of Diagon Alley, where Harry Potter bought his first wand!

3. Just beyond the set of Harry Potter we walked by the secret meeting place where Marx and Engels met to write Das Capital and other famous anti-capitalist works! Ok, John is probably the only one who cared about this at all (silly political science majors).

4. After the sun set we figured out the London Underground system and traveled to the South Bank of London to the London Eye. It was a bummer though because the Eye was closed. The good news is that we have great pictures of the Houses of Parliament at night.

The South Bank area turned out to be pretty hip so we hung around for a while. Tomorrow we will go back but today we decided to walk down to the pier. If you have not caught on yet, we probably walked about 37 miles today so on that note, we are off the "Chill Room" at our hostel to relax and meet people from around the world. After all, we are just Three Men on One Summer Abroad.