Wednesday...

The Globe theater was built in London in 1599, and was used for 45 years before it was torn down by the Puritans. In the 1997, it was rebuilt close to the original site and is used today for many Shakespearean plays. There is an exhibition next to it that tells all about Shakespeare and the theater's history.
Tay really wishes he could dress like this!
Inside the theater, our tour guide told of the great acoustics of the theater. The actors still today do not use microphones.
There were actors on stage going through some rehearsals. It was interesting to watch them.

In Shakespeare's time, the floor surrounding the stage was for the commoners which cost a penny. When they say "standing room only" they really mean it because people stood for the entire play. They could fit up to 3000 people in the theater, mostly because so many people stood. Even today, there are no seats on the main level. People stand...through an entire Shakespeare play...SOUNDS AWFUL!

This is the Millennial Bridge. It is a neat foot bridge across the Thames. St Pauls Cathedral is right behind Tay's head.
The dome on the cathedral is the second largest on a cathedral after the Vatican. We got to climb the 528 steps to that very top viewing area. It was quite incredible.
It was built between 1675-1705 after Henry VIII took the control of the Church away from the Pope, and began the Anglican Church. We couldn't take pictures in the cathedral, but it really was one of mine and Danny's favorite places in London, so I took some photos off their website to post here.

This is what you see when you first walk in. In the middle of the cathedral, right under the dome, is the main alter. The feeling was so light and bright and really peaceful. They had afternoon eucharist going on while we were in there, and I listened a bit while they prayed, and it really was a spiritual experience for me.

This is the area behind the main alter. You can see the choir pews and there is a huge pipe organ that was playing for a while. The painting on the ceilings was accented with gold, so it looked like the pictures were glowing or lit up in some way.

This is the view from the first dome looking over some more modern parts of the city. Lots of the places we visited had audio guides that you could listen to along the way. This one had a really cool guide, and there was even one for children that was much more interesting for the kids to listen.

This is from the 528 steps up. We are looking down on the front part of the church.

There is one building behind Danny that Londoners call the "Gherkin" which is a type of cucumber. Can you tell which building it is?Another perk of our London Pass was discounts in different restaurants. We picked this absolutely divine little Italian place called Cafe Pasta.
After lunch, we had a little bit more time to use up our last day of the pass, and Danny said "I have seen enough old stuff, let's go to the zoo." So we hopped on the metro and used our pass to go to the zoo. By this point, it was almost 4:00 in the afternoon, we were all exhausted, and walking around a zoo might have not been the best idea. There were some cool things to see, but as you can see, we were too exhausted to even take many pictures at this point!
All in all, we are HUGE fans of the 3 day London Pass for 65 pounds. You know me, I like a deal. The last three days would have cost us 195 pounds! We definitely got our money's worth, and saw so many more things than we would have otherwise.