London - Day 7

My legs and feet no longer ache from all the walking. I think the pain receptors wore out, or maybe I'm just building muscles (ha, like that would ever happen) in my legs.
Regardless, I walked a lot and climbed many stairs today, and it was all worth it.
I first went to St Paul's Cathedral. I had originally planned on going with the London Walks tour group because they are usually pretty awesome, but after checking out St Paul's website, and seeing that a tour was included at no extra cost, I decided to forego the Walks group and head there on my own. There are no pictures allowed in the cathedral, so I sadly can post any here. The tour guide was named Celia and she was very knowledgeable and very nice to listen too. She took us in some otherwise non-accessible place for the public, like the floor level of the Geometric Stair. That spiral stone staircase up the large tower was impressive, both visually and architecturally - but then, so is all of St Paul's! I learned quite a bit, and since I was on my own, I could go at my own pace after the tour ended. I walked'climbed up to the "whisper gallery," which is the indoor circle at the base of the dome, and from there climbed higher and higher to get to the very top of St Paul's dome. The architecture is amazing, and the history of it is too!

This is the view from the lower outside circle. T!hat's the Globe Theater on the left.

The very top!

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Under this tower is the Geometric Stair (If I remember right...).

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After St Paul's, I went back to the college for lunch (which is way more crowded than breakfast and dinner), and then left for the only matinee of my trip, "The Mousetrap." I'd never seen it before, nor really knew anything about it. It was a murder mystery, and it was fun to compare what I was watching to "Ronald Knots' rules of detective fiction," which I read at the British Library the other day. The show was fun and old-fashioned, which was perfect for a rainy day like the whole day was. I won't reveal who the killer was though, because that would break the tradition that the play has held! The cast asked the audience to please keep the answer to the mystery locked in our hearts, so that's what I'll do.

I went back to the college for dinner with no plan for the evening, but in a moment of get-out-and-do-something-or-stay-home-and-do-nothing, I chose to accompany a friend and do the Jack The Ripper walk. It was rainy, so I was a total tourist and bought a cheap umbrella with a Union Jack design, but at least I stayed dry throughout the night of rain!

This time, the Ripper Tour was a bit better than the first time I went a few years ago. The group was still big, but not as huge as I remember, and the lady/guide had pictures to show us of how the streets used to look, as well as horribly gruesome morgue pictures too. I don't ever want to be murdered.

After all that, I got back to my room and started writing this but fell asleep before I finished, so I finished the next day. Better late than never!