We woke up this morning and hauled our butts to Paddington station to catch the Hampton Court express. Since I'm a huge Henry VIII fan/buff, we had to make a stop here. The castle was actually lived in by Henry but was updated and built on by William III. It was neat to see little bits of each queen somewhere in the palace. There was a stone crest for Anne Boleyn, a crested ceiling for Jane Seymour, etc. Supposedly, one of the hallways we walked through is haunted by Katherine Howard, though we didn't encounter any ghosts. We thought the audio tour here was painful, eventually ditching it and just zipping through. The castle was missing most of its furniture, and the furniture there was there for us to sit, so I knew that none of it was old. This made me sad. They also had men dressed up as Henry and Brandon. It felt like a cheesy theme park in a way. We saw the Tudor kitchens and it made us want pasties.
Henry VIII was pretty rude to his wives, having this painted during his marriage to Catherine Parr. It's of Jane Seymour and Prince Edward. I love the whole story of how he believed Jane to be his true love since she was the only one to give him a son. After Hampton Court, we came back to London and went to the Old Operating Theater Museum. When I first read about the place, I thought it was an old working theater. Oh no, it was an OPERATING station. A place for amputations and the lot. It was pretty nauseating yet interesting. They had forceps for both the vagina and the anus. There was a station where you could learn how to make pills. We saw a picture of a broken shin bone which was reason enough for an amputation in the early days. This was all before anesthetic and ether mind you.
You would not want to be sitting on that operating table 100 years ago. They had pictures (illustrations) of people being amputated on whilst being restrained. However, they were restrained by other people. How scary!
Going to London is not complete without checking out King's Cross station and trying to go to Hogwarts. Aaron didn't want to pose, so I did it myself. It was a quick photo op and nothing more. After Hogwarts, we went to the British Library, home to the Magna Carta and other old pieces of literature. We saw a manuscript for Harry Potter and a copy of Sweeney Todd from 1850. I also saw Bernard Shaw's handwriting on a copy of Pygmalion. The particular page was when Eliza first asks for lessons and starts crying because "I haven't got 60 pounds! " Another piece of work there was the original Jekyll and Hyde. Oh, and the start of the lyrics for "All My Life" by John Lennon. It was amazing to see the lyrics while hearing the song and knowing that someone had to create that piece of work.
We finished off the night by doing the Jack the Ripper walking tour. It was interesting for me, not as much for Aaron. We didn't really see that much because much of London from 1888 was bombed and changed. It was raining and my shoes and pants were soaked by the end, but I'm glad we did it. The guide was very enthusiastic and treated the victims like victims, not referring to them as hookers, but rather mothers, sisters, etc. An interesting take on the unsolved crime.
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