DAY TWO

That’s the Monument to the Great Fire of London, designed by Christopher Wren.  It’s taller than it looks of course, there’s much more to it that just what’s in that picture.   I include that as my cover picture, because everything connected to Day 2 had something to do with the Fire.

Went on a walking tour at 2 pm, but my little cadre was late because of work on the Circle Line.  For  all of you whipping out your tube maps, or even looking at the borders of the blog screen, that’s the yellow one.  The walking tour was of the City of London, not to be confused with London, the really big place, but the “Square Mile” from the Thames to the old Roman walls that made up o.g. London.

Our guide was named Warren…something.  He’s a writer and an official alderman of London or something.  It was a very interesting tour.  We’re going on a second tour with him tomorrow and he’s bringing some copies of his books to try and sell to us.  Cheeky.  I’ll still buy one anyway, because they’re full of very interesting pictures.  Let’s see, what all did he show us?

Well, we visited the place where the Great Fire started, which was a baker’s where the proprietor forgot to douse his ovens.  He was hanged later.  Who keeps a bakery right next to a warehouse filled with tar and alcohol.  Why would you keep those two things together?  Darwinism at work.

From there we saw London Bridge, from the celebrated poem, and it’s newer than you think it is.  This particular one was built in the 60s, I believe, and it’s the fifth one.  It’s not falling down anytime soon.  Our tour guide said that they opened Tower Bridge to divert traffic off of this bridge, because they like London Bridge better.  I couldn’t hear the last part of his sentence because a double-decker bus whooshed by just then.  Irony.

We saw a bunch of places where the all of the old mongers used to work and trade.  Fishmongers, ironmongers, shoemongers.  I think there were some mongermongers, but they were called Aldermans or something.  All of the streets are still named after what used to be sold on them, so we have Fish Street, Milk Street, Threadneedle Street, etc.

Warren showed us Diagon Alley, which didn’t look much like it did in the Harry Potter movie, but I suppose they changed it up a bit.  For instance, I didn’t see one owl.  What a gyp that was.

How does this all fit in with the Great Fire, you say?  Well, just about everything he pointed to had been burned up in the Fire.  Later, a smaller group of us decided to go to the London Museum (not to be confused with the British Museum) and we saw this whole floor having to do with the Fire.  Tried on a Renaissance fireman’s hat.  No idea there even was such a thing.

Later, at the pub, they started playing Sean Kingston’s “911.”  Fire burning on the dancefloor.  Conceptual.

Right.  Today we have class, which no one knows what in the world to expect.  Have to come up with four interesting facts about Parliament.  But as my flatmate said, “There’s only so much you can know about a building.”  What an ignoramus.  Then off to a play in the evening.  The Cherry Orchard by Chekov.  Well, we can’t all win all the time I suppose.  Grin and bear it.

Cheers to electric ovens and fire alarms!

— Henry