5/26: I hate writing blogs with no internet.

The London of Tower was a beautiful sight, filled with amazing history and some of the most alluring architecture I have ever seen. Before I go too deep, I must make it clear that the Tower of London isn’t a tower, it’s a small, medieval village with a couple of towers within its walls. Nevertheless, it was definitely one of the most interesting pieces of old architecture that I have had the opportunity to see. I learned a lot about British culture and history through the myriad of information that was being thrown my way. The most interesting of it all had to be the concept of ravens being an omen, or sign of prosperity. It was said that, if all the ravens were to leave the tower, then the white tower itself would completely fall. In order to prevent this they locked the ravens in a cage for all eternity. A sad choice, but a necessary one. There was also a lot about all the strange “royal” beasts that had lived within the tower walls over the past centuries, and all of it was crazy cool to me. They had a polar bear at one point, which would be tied to a leash and allowed to go fishing; and they even had an Ostrich which was unfortunately fed a nail and killed (people in the 1800s thought ostriches ate iron). Another thing that tickled my fancy was the prisons and the list of well known figures that have been imprisoned over the years. I want to talk about a less famous individual, but I do think he has a really funny name. This man is Guy Fawkes; he was a member of a group of provincial English Catholics involved in the failed Gunpowder Plot of 1605. This plot was an assassination attempt on the Protestant King James that, unsurprisingly, failed and caused Guy to be sentenced to prison at the Tower of London. He faced days and days of torture, but his defiance prevailed and he never spoke a word. This was not enough to prevent his fate, on January 31, 1606, Guy and three of his accomplices were sentenced to be hanged. Whether it is good or bad luck can be debated, but Guy’s rope was hung poorly so his neck snapped immediately causing him to die without suffering. A weird history of a weird place.

P.S.

His name sounds like guys f**k, which I think is funny.