The London Dungeon

Wednesday's adventure was a trip to the London Dungeon. I figured out that, if you book your ticket online, you can choose an 'off-peak' time at a cheaper rate.  So... armed with our discount tickets for the 5pm showing, off we went.  We decided to take a different route downtown this time.  We walked from our place, down the Highroad to Tallyho Corner (yes... that is its real name.... I still can't say it without a giggle), and took the 134 bus, which links North Finchley to the centre of town.  We managed to get the front seats on the top of the double-decker, and enjoyed ourselves from the precarious upperdeck, where you feel more of the sway of the bus.  As Duncan put it, it feels a bit like you are flying.  :-)  

We hopped off at Camden, so I could run them through a bit of the Camden market, which is apparently one of the top 4 most popular visitor attractions in London.  Alex is not quite sure what his Uncle Glen loves about it:  it is pretty much crowded with people and stuff.   Maybe that is exactly it?   Or maybe Glen can explain himself?  :-)  Alex seems to share his mother's aversion for shopping.  Odd.  And still, there was plenty there to be seen.  Both boys were intrigued by the t-shirts that seem to have some computerchip/neon stuff in them, so they flash in time with music.  I told them, "no purchases today"... we have a year of wandering through the market ahead of us.  This was just the sampler plate!

So, we hopped back on the Tube at Camden Station (both boys now the possessors of their own oyster cards, and being quite expert at using them), which took us to the London Bridge stop, where we happily joined the "priority queue" for our trip into the London Dungeons. Click here for a link to the website). Duncan had already read the tourist visitor pamphlet enough times to know that we should expect: crypts, plague, surgery, torture, firest, belam and more!

It was all we were led to expect and more.  One of the attendants let us touch the rats (let the rats walk over our hands and arms.  There were hands reaching out to grab us in the dark, disgusting plague and bloodied corpses, horrific implements of torture, and more.  The three of us were in a constant struggle to see who could be 'in the middle' (as being either first or last in the lineup left you at risk of greater shocks!).  After seeing heads on spikes, people being disemboweled, or boiled alive, or burned at the stake, Alex concluded that the Britons were a particularly inhumane lot of people.  :-)   The Jack the Ripper exhibit was particularly nasty.  The Judge was particularly funny.  Sitting in the dark in the chair of Sweeney Todd was particularly scary.  The "Extremis Drop of Doom" (where were were 'hanged' for being heretics and criminals) was a shocker.  It didn't look like much as we were being strapped in.  Indeed, as we were being lifted up, Alex said, "This is pathetic, it won't be scary at all".  ....au contraire!   It is one of those rides where, unbeknownst to you, they take a photo.  Ours tells the truth of our terror.  It was so great that we bought it.  but Alex refuses to have it posted on the web.  if you want to see our terrifed faces, you will have to skype us!  :-)