Day 8 VCUK-16 June 2019

I woke up early and did nothing all morning. I facetimed dad and ate breakfast and hung out.

At 11amish this random lady let herself into our apartment and came and got the vacuum and some other cleaning supplies (she was a house cleaner). But it was still weird and annoying. She didn't knock and it's not cleaning day for a building. Also she propped our apartment door open for about an hour and talked on the phone to someone loudly which was really annoying.

Emma and I sent a vaguely annoyed email about it to the staff lady. We also emailed maintenance cause we can't get our stove or oven to work. They came later and said the oven works fine and the stove needs to use a lighter with it to get it to work which is super sketchy and I'm not about.

I took a shower and wore my Gryffindor sweater today! It's so nice out today actually. It's windy but beautiful out. I went to Waitrose but stopped in the bookstore below it first to check it out. It's all used books and pretty big and super cute. I got wine, gnocchi, two rice meals, strawberries, Nutella, milk, cereal (chocolate rice Krispies but British), goat cheese, and pesto at Waitrose.

Then I went back to the flat and unpacked and facetimed dad to say Happy Father's day.

Then I took the tube to the Tower of London which I had previously confused as the Tower Bridge and also thought was the London Bridge. Tower of London was pretty cool. I wish I had had more time there cause I was a bit rushed.

I got there just in time for Yeoman tour which was cool. The Yeoman is the workers at the palace and they wear navy and red outfits with a cool hat. He gave a 4 stop tour outside the buildings about different gory things that happened. The tour group was hugeee cause it was a free tour. It was interesting but he got a little sexist at the end which pissed me off but besides that it was funny and interesting.

It has two large walls and used to have a moat and the king that built it built it on a roman fort area and then moved the thames to make the moat. Apparently it used to be a zoo at one point.

He showed us the traitors gate where the traitors were shipped in and brought directly to the jail. The one tower he said they once trapped 191 people women children and men and left them there til they all died which took 22 days.

Only one person was actually murdered there in the square it was Anne Boelyn. Everyone else was beheaded on Tower Hill across the street. It would've been a festival and there would've been jesters and after the person was beheaded the head would be put on a stick paraded down every street and then put on the gate and the body would be put in the cemetery.

The Yeoman told us about how one beheading didn't go well because the executioner was a a butcher and drunkard and part time executioner and he took 5 swings of the ax and missed so he instead grabbed the man by the hair and sawed the head off at the throat. Then afterward they had to stitch the head back on because he was a king-only for 9 days- and every British ruler gets a portrait no matter what so they had a painter come in and paint a portrait of his corpse.

After the tour I only and an hour so I grabbed the audio guide and went into the White Keep cause the line for Crown Jewels was ridiculous. It went through the whole queue and then down the side of the building. White Keep was eh. The Yeoman hyped it up way too much. It's the armory and stores all the weapons and armor. They have a lot of armor from one of the Henry's which is very elaborate and interesting. There was also a really cool "giant's" and "dwarf's"armor next to each other which was really crazy. The giant was 6' 1" and it was ginormous. It reminded me of the Mountain in GoT.

Then I went to the Crown Jewels cause the line wasn't too long. It moved really fast. The queue was really fast but pretty long and had a bunch of random rooms with pictures of the crown jewels which was lame. Then it finally went to the jewels!

The crowns were sooo pretty and it had the largest diamond in the world. Every coronation there's the crown, the orb (represents the queen protecting the world), a staff with a dove on it (peace), a staff with a cross on it (religion). The orb is actually hollow and has three compartments for unknown reasons.

Then I went quickly through the wall rooms. There's a king's bedroom, tiny chapel where he was stabbed 13 times, and a throne room. Then I ran into a guy who said it was closed and he let me out and I left.

When I got back to the flat I watched the end of the USA v Chile Women's World cup game (we won 3-0) and had dinner (bag of rice stir fry).

Then I worked on the JWT brief and then Krista and I met and chatted about it. I was a bit miffed because she hadn't thought about it yet but we came up with 4ish ideas and split them up and then we're each going to work on them and we have to present our progress so far on Tuesday.

Then I watched a new Black Mirror episode and then Krista and I watched Hwarang together. She really likes it and it's funny. I finished posting all my photos so far on facebook. Then I went to bed.