Day 7: London & The Jack the Ripper Tour

We took a three-hour train ride from Leeds to London. During the train ride, I just watched a tv show and relaxed because I knew I would be walking even more in the coming days. We took two underground train rides to reach our hotel when we arrived in London. We left our things and took two more underground trains to go to Borough Market in London. There we learned that that market used to be a fish market before it was converted. We split up and ate lunch at Borough Market, I had the venison burger, and it was the worst thing I had ever eaten. After we met at the meeting location. We ran into the former president of Miami Dade College while he was on vacation which was a great coincidence. We also passed by the crossbones graveyard, where many of the “outcast dead” were buried. Outcasts were described to be immigrants, physically disabled people, sex workers, & many ordinary poor people. We saw the many ribbons left for the dead on the fences of the graveyard. It was truly a beautiful site. We then went and saw Shakespeare’s globe from the outside and even entered the gift shop they had. I bought many gifts for myself there, including a tote bag similar to one that Becky had. When we got back to the hotel many of the other students stayed behind because of exhaustion and a small group of girls went along with Becky on the Jack the Ripper Tour. We learned a lot about the killings of Jack the Ripper and his victims and even suspected victims. We also discussed who was the most likely suspect over the years since Jack the Ripper was never caught. One of the victims that interested me the most was Mary Jane Kelly, who was the fifth and final victim that we know of. He had his time with her, so her death was the most gruesome and the only death to be photographed. After our Jack the Ripper tour Becky asked us if we would like to take a boat back to our hotel and we all said yes. Our boat ride was a lovely experience taking us near the House of Parliament and big ben, as well as the London Eye and an Egyptian statue of Cleopatra. It was truly a nice way to finish off the day.