DAY FOURTEEN – Terrorism, Huzzah!

Today I slept in until 1pm cause I don’t give a fuck. After some light Googling, and heavily influenced by its 15 minute walk from my hostel, I decided to check out the Tower of London. Later that night I also had a ticket to see the School of Rock at the New London Theatre – we’ll get to that eventually. Arriving at the Tower, I did a tour with one of the resident Beefeaters and he had all the cool stuff to say about the place. Mostly he talked about how people were tortured or beheaded or kidnapped there. Cheery place, that. Overall though he was a real cool dude, would chill with. Here’s a picture of him, if you give a shit. Don’t know why you would, but I googled his name and found him and there you go. He had a beard when I saw him though, really brought the picture together. And if you’re curious, I remember his name cause he made a joke about being Britain’s Trump, cause his name is John Donald. He even has good jokes! What a guy.

I’m gonna recount one of the most striking stories he told us, cause I like it.

A few hundred years ago, a local butcher lived in London. One day, this man, who also made his living as a part-time executioner, was tasked with beheading a prisoner for treason or war crimes or something. Well, turns out he was also a part-time drunk, and for this particular round of capital punishment, he decided to combine all three of his professions into one. Coming up to the chopping block with, undoubtedly, the smell of grog on his breath, he proceeded to swing the axe not one, not two, but five times at his victim’s neck. But, even after so many blows, he had not completed his duty. Throwing down his implement, he shouts his concession that he cannot complete the task. Promptly, a royal guardsman comes up and says to him “You’ll finish it, or you’ll be next.” With that, our newly resolved hero takes out his butcher’s knife and, well, I suppose you can surmise the rest. But that is not the end of the story, oh no! For the executed, being a Duke, needed an official portrait because I don’t know, the English like portraits. His body was exhumed, his head (or what was left of it) was stitched back on, and his painting was painted (I’d hate to be that artist). Thus, what would become known as the bloodiest execution at Tower Hill was finished, and damn does it make a good story.

MOVING ON

After that I saw the Crown Jewels, and holy shit are they sparkly. The way the light caught their million stones, oof. Pretty af fam. As an aside, goddamn are the Queen’s Guard intimidating. Even with the crazy fuzzy hats, their choreographed movements and yelling and stomping around made me poop just a little when I passed them. The SA80 assault rifles they carry certainly help with the effect, as well.

Having a light lunch (Dinner? Linner?) at the cafe within the confines of the Tower Hill walls, I found some precious Wi-Fi and got a message from my mom asking if I was dead. Nope, still alive (last I checked, at least). Turns out there was a terrorist attack three miles from me at the Westminster Bridge about an hour prior. You know the one, where the dude went crazy with the car. Google it if you’re not in the know. So that was some shit.

Around that time I decided to start walking to the theatre to catch THE SCHOOL OF COCK ROCK, which happened to be in the same direction as the Westminster Bridge. Oh joy.  The walk was cold and miserable, but not bad, which is odd, but okay. Once at the playhouse, I still had an hour to kill, so I derped around the place a bit, eventually settling down in a pub for a whiskey and coke. I tried to get a coffee at a cafe, but they closed at 6, and it was 5:57. What fucking coffee shop closes at 6? Fuck off with that. In the pub, the waitress asked me if I was a man who liked his whiskey, to which I emphatically replied in the affirmative, to which she emphatically suggested that I check out a particular whiskey bar near us. She goes on about how they play a bunch of good rock and grunge there and it’s got a great selection of booze and hey one sec I’m gonna write you down the address I’ll be right back.

I didn’t have the heart to tell her that I was leaving the country tomorrow morning.

She comes back and hands me the name and street number on a coaster and asks if I’ll be checking it out. I said I’ll keep it in mind, which made me feel like an absolute fool as she smiled and said she hopes to see me there sometime. Curse my autisms.

Getting into the theatre I found that my seat, being the cheapest I could get, was about three point two miles from the stage, but that was alright, it really wasn’t a bad view at all. I sat for a second admiring the set (fucking Marshall stacks on stage Jesus yes) and preshow lighting, and I overhear a couple girls in front of me saying “They have so many Source Fours!” (Source Fours are a common theatre lighting fixture) Like a fucking weirdo, I butt into their conversation about lighting and turns out they’re theatre majors in London. Neat, British theatre kids. We talked for a bit, but then were interrupted by seven billion small children being ushered into the seats all around us. Curses. Seems there were at least 4 schools brought there that night.

Preparing myself for a billion leg kicks from the kid behind me, this cool-ass old-ass man next to me turns around, and in the kindest, most awesome way possible, asks the kids to be quiet during the performance and to not squirm too much. Fucking role model right there, damn he was so pleasant to those kids. He also mistook me for a girl, but whatever that happens weekly.

The play was good, not amazing, but worth the money. The guy who played the main character, Dewey, was kind of a discount Jack Black, even down to his mannerisms and voice. Kind of disappointing that he didn’t make his own character and instead modeled it off the movie, but it was alright cause the girl who played Summer was fucking awesome. Top tier, she’s going places.

On the walk back to my hostel, I stopped at a Mickey D’s for some foods, and ran into a gaggle of honest-to-goodness, true British Lads. Six of them, there were. They were literally yelling at the top of their lungs in the middle of the place and no one gave a shit. After a few minutes of it I asked them to keep it down, and at that point they buckled down and went full douchebag. Insulting me for my accent, my hair, everything they could think of, they went hard. We had a decent banter going for a minute, but then I decided fuck these guys and went back to my meal, but they didn’t quit, lord no they didn’t. They were shouting AMERICA! FUCK YEAH! and giggling and shooting glances at me, and one of them just stared at me for a good half minute. Eventually I left and, dutifully, they continued their jabs as I walked out the door.

In conclusion, fuck those guys.