The English have a certain fascination with twins

I have often remarked to Laura that we are celebrities wherever we go (as long as we go together, of course!). Random "fans" come up to us and ask "Are you twins?" or the more original, but getting old, "Are you related?" One time, we walked into Wal-mart and a girl said to her mom, "Look mom, a set of twins! A real set of twins!" (as opposed to a fake set?). Another time in a movie theater, a little boy asked "Are you twins?" When we responded in the affirmative (simultaneously) his reaction was: "Wow. oh wow!"

The English are no different than Americans in their curiosity about twins. Today we visited Chatham (pronounced Chat-'em) and Dickens World, which is a kind of amusement park with a Charles Dickens theme. It was really cool, not a lot of stuff to do, but still cool.


The moment we stepped into the square, one of the staff (dressed in a very Dickensian outfit) came up to us and starting talking to us. I don't remember what she said, but Laura and I answered together. She got such a kick out of that. As we walked away I could hear her telling other members of the staff about "the twins that spoke at the same time."

The English don't scream on roller coaster rides. They had one ride in Dickens World - Great Expectations boat ride, during which, your boat turns around and goes down a waterfall backwards. Well, like good Americans, we screamed on our way down - all in good fun of course. When we got off our boat, one of the staff asked us TWICE if we were ok. Weird. Sometime later, we watched other people on the same ride and they didn't scream.

To cut this story short, by the time we left, the entire staff knew who we were. We jumped rope with some of them and chatted about London. And then we couldn't find the exit. Most exits, as you know, are carefully marked with flashing red lights and such. This had sort of a back door, hidden exit. I think they don't want people to leave.

Alright, you've been promised a London post, so here it is. We had a very quick tour of London via our coach (which caused later problems). They dropped us off at St. Paul's Cathedral (pronounced S'int Pauls) and we climbed to the top of the dome. Pardon my pun, but it doesn't hold a candle to St. Peter's :)


Pretty, but plain. After that, we had free time. The only problem was there isn't anything to see around St. Paul's other than St. Paul's. (ok, so if you want to go to the Tate Modern, you can.) Laura and I wandered around a bit along the Thames and came across this cool alley:

We decided to go into the Clink Prison museum...which was VERY cool and creepy. When I went to buy tickets, I got scared by the guy at the counter because he was dressed like an inmate with creepy make-up. They had all kinds of torture instruments you could touch and wax figures in different scenes. There was one person screaming behind a locked door. I almost couldn't read the museums signs it was so distracting.




This is London Bridge, by the way.
It was quite a full weekend. Now I really need to write on my paper(s).

Cheers!
--Mary