Tales from the CRYPT

SOOO this morning, we got up early to go to St. Paul's Cathedral here in London, which is an Anglican Church straight up from the Millenium bridge off the Thames. It was the location of Winston Churchill's state funeral and the marriage of Prince Charles to Diana Spencer. One of the most popular things to do there is climb to the very tip top of the cathedral, which is a full 528 steps. A small group of us wanted to make the climb, going down the crypts first to get a bottle of water and stretch. After the first 257 steps, we made it to the whispering gallery, about 100 feet above the cathedral floor. It looks out onto the front altar area. After that, you climb another 100 some steps to the very lower base of the dome, where we walked on the balcony outside and got a better view of London than you could ever get from the London eye. All is well at this point... THEN we go through the doorway to climb the remaining 100-some steps to the uppder dome. There's a sign at the ground level that rambled on about how it is very easy to get scared and clausterphobic at this point, and there is no way to turn back or be let down if you can't make it from here. Turns out THEY WEREN'T KIDDING. I consider myself fairly unafraid of heights and falling, etc etc. But I was whispering Hail Mary's the ENTIRE time I was goingup these next set of steps. They were spiral.... steep.... had holes in the bottom so you could see the 160 foot plummit to the bottom of the cathedral.... and they swayed. I'm telling you I have never been this scared in my life, and I have done some SCARY SHI... things. I was petrified. And there were about 8 sets of these spiral staircases, no lie. Imagine the scariest, eeriest, creepiest, jumbliest set of balck iron spiral staircases in an old creepy -probably totally haunted- white stone cathedral.... thats what I climbed today. Exaggeration has no place here. I thought it would never end, and when it finally did, we had to climb a stone staircase that was about 4.5 feet tall and 3 feet wide. If I wasn't clausterphobic before, I am now. [Funny anecdote: We all left our bags and coats and things with the people who didn't want to make the climb. We each wore our special walking shoes today for the occassion, took a bottle of water and a camera, and did a few stretches before we took off. One of the two boys on this trip, Nathan (he's a professional drag queen), wore heels, took a gigantic purse full of junk with him, blared Britney Spears on his iPod loud enough for the rest of us to hear, and danced the entire way up, also holding a juicebox. He made it in much better shape than the rest of us, too. At the very top, he proved that all you really need in life is the right song and a fabulous pair of heels.] The view and exhilaration of making the climb was well worth it though, and I would do it again in a heartbeat. Its stuff like that that keeps you really alive. There was an older man working the doorway at the very top of the dome, and he climbs that entire thing 3 times a week. I swear he is going to live forever.

After that, we saw a nice collection of Picasso's, Rousseau's, Degas's and Manet's at the Courtauld Collection at the Somerset house nearby. It was brilliant of course, but I'm pretty sure there exists no piece of brilliant art in London that we haven't seen yet. SO tomorrow morning we board a bus to take us to the Channel Tunnel at 6:30 a.m. Neat. Finding an inernet cafe might be difficult tomorrow, so sorry in advance if I take a day off :) Cheerio!