this trip's overview

Gran Canaria portion

First Day Back

Man-made Finery

Queen's Life Guard

Covent Garden Markets

London's Transport Museum I

Marks & Spencers

Natural History Museum

Science Museum

High Street Kensington

Bus Karma I

The Strand

Simpsons-in-the-Strand

Tower of London

Science Museum II

Worst Food Ever

Where the shops are

Neal's Yard Dairy

Seven Dials

Bus Karma II

returning home

Monday 3 February 2003, continued

Back on the Tube, much to Isaac's delight, we travel to the Tower Hill stop. The last time we visited the Tower of London it was summertime, and we feed Isaac his first banannas in a jar. Today it's much, much colder. We won't be doing the tours, just looking around and perhaps walking the Tower Bridge. It's always a pleasure to see the Union Jack flying over the castle.

Rose likes the quality of the light upon us, in the castle's moat, so she asks me to pose.

Here's a panorama of the Tower Bridge (not the London Bridge, as most folks think of it). It looks hazy beause one of Her Majesty's ships was belching all sorts of grey schmutz at a dock just up the Thames. Rose was wondering whether the ship would be going to the Mid-East. I told her I didn't think it could make it to Greenwich.

We tried the pose-before-the-landmark photo, but the sun was at the wrong angle, and kept bedeviling the camera. Perhaps we'll return in the afternoon. Isaac declines to walk across the bridge in the cold, biting wind, asking that we return to our subterranean haunts and visit another few Tube stops.

Oh, by the way, we've heard about the latest Space Shuttle accident. It seems very strange to us, here in a foreign land, unplugged as we are from the news culture of home. I'm very, very sorry to hear about the destruction of the crew and craft.

With somber hearts we head on to the museums in South Kensington.

previous

next