Well, I have finished my last official bit as a tourist in the completion of my double-decker bus tour this afternoon. I saw many sights at various speeds with hordes of people trying to capture photos. It was a bit hectic, and, in the end, not really worth it. Sure there are more sights to see and things to do, but no more of the typical London sights that are to be seen and checked off as if all of life is a list of things to see and do. I have a bit of time to relax and enjoy things at a more normal pace, if ever there was one. I am looking forward to doing the things that I really want to do: a Beatles walking tour, Shakespeare's Globe, and perhaps a London show.
On that note...Today I ate at the original Hard Rock Cafe. Lunch was good and I enjoyed a variety of music: Billy Idol, Phil Collins, The White Stripes, The Cranberries, U2 and Bruce Springsteen. After lunch, I enjoyed a tour to The Vault: a former bank vault that now houses rock memorabilia. I got to hold the world's most expensive guitar, whose owner and designer happened to be Jimi Hendrix. Not only that, but I got to wear the hat Bob Dylan wore in the album cover of Nashville Skyline.
Before the Hard Rock, I properly toured Westminster Abbey. Many people are buried there: queens, kings, vicars, soldiers and poets alike. Many are memorialized there, especially the poets,who, with their last word, leave us still with words both beautiful and real. Here are two such words:
W.H. Auden: "In the prison of his days, teach the free man how to praise."
Dylan Thomas: "Time held me green and dying though I sang in my chains like the sea."
Comments