London Dungeon (14.06.2015)
Last trip in England? That sounds about right, and it was something I wanted to visit the whole year I’ve been there - The London Dungeon. That place was just amazing, something exactly made for me.
Okay, so we set up on our journey on Sunday the 14th, heading by train to London (we missed the train to London and because it was Sunday, another one was on in one hour, so great). In London we didn’t waste much of our time and go directly to the Winchester part of the London.
We already had our tickets, so we queued in a dark corridor. Zoe was already trembling as hell, like she was actually going to one. :D We entered as a large group, passing through restrooms and then waiting in front of another door. There was a historical clown standing there, giving us a warm meeting. Then he said the poem about the 5th of November, and let us pass through the door. We rushed down the stairs, and there was a guy waiting on us. He told us about the treason we are about to do - the conspiracy against the parliament. He gave us a letter we were supposed to bring to Guy Fawkes, our beloved cospirator. Until the time we came to him, he was found by a police, settin up barrels with explosives. They caught him, tortured him and then finally killed him, as his ghost dared to tell us. There was one guard guarding the head of Guy’s, and he was trying to persuade us about their truth. Then Guy made him to set the knot on fire and the barrels ‘exploded’. Then we were let to another room.
Another room consisted of an aisle leading through the victorian London during the plague. They made it smell by dead, rotten bodies so some people might get sick beacuse of it. We ended up going up the stairs in one house, a woman lead us to the house of a plague doctor. We waited in front of the entrance, and then she disappeared back on the streets, claiming she is needed. Suddenly coffins leaning on the wall have opened and not-dead plague patients started to talk with us. Basically they were plastic bodies with a projection faces on their heads - quite a clever idea how to pay less for actors.
When they finished, the plague doctor (as we realised later just his apprentice) lead us to his ‘ordinary’. We sat on long benches, looking at his place. There was a dead body of the official plague doctor, and this guy, his apprentice, started to get through all his guts and showing us one after another. Then he took a jar with leaches from the shelf and he realised they are none of them inside. Suddenly something under our linning on the benches moved like the leaches were crawling there and it was the weirdest thing ever. He chose one of the guys in our group and set him to a chair. He took a sheet of fabric haning down from the roof, and hide him and his ‘patient’ behind it. He started to beat his head (not really) and then the light went off and we all got covered by water, which represented blood. Then the lights went on and we were allowed to leave the room (even the ‘dead guy’ behind the curtain). :D
We went first this time and Zoe was extremely scared to turn behind a corner, so she let us go first. We came to the end and a woman approached us. She is the wife (or whoever) of Sweeny Todd. She led us to her bakery, and showed us some of her bakings. Behind her back were cupboards, which could be opened to reveal a slide. At one moment, something slided down and the cupboard opened with a dead body. She was trying to persuade us that it was nothing at all, and she let us go further to the barber Sweeny Todd. We sat on chairs in his ‘office’, waiting for our new haircuts. They turned the light off again and we could see a silhuette to appear behind a window. In the meanwhile, a man was talking thorugh a speaker on us. They made the sounds so realistic, so when the played footsteps, you could actually have the feeling of someone present in the room. The chairs have some features that at instant moments somethign moved at back of your neck or something, so it felt like someone was cutting your hair. Unfortunately, I’ve been on a chair where it wasn’t feel-able, so only some of us get scared of having our hair cut off.
In another room we approached one of the most famous legends ever. And who does this legend concern? No one else than Jack the Ripper.
The woman was waiting on us on a victorian street. She was standing in front of brothel, where were posters of her friends glued on the wall. She told us about the person who had been murdering prostitutes in London for few days. No one has ever seen him, and his victims were always ripped off with their necks sliced. One internal organ was missing in each one as well. Everybody was scared, London fall into traps of the fear and doubt. Who was this guy? Why was he doing what he was doing? As we later find out, they have never solved these cases.
She rushed us to continue, because the streets weren’t safe that time. We entered a little pub, where a waitresse told us to sit. We kind of didn’t listen to her (our luck) and we leaned on the wall. She started to tell us about the murders by Jack the Ripper and how he suddenly stopped. That was weird for everyone, and a lot of theories came up - he died, he basically finished or he moved to another country. The pub appeared to be in a middle of a thunder storm. Behind the window were wild flashes, and you could hear the thunder. At every tensed moment of her speech the light went off and the flash cut through the room - she was standing in front of one of the tables, grinning dangerously on the sitting people. In the meanwhile, a cup fell on the floor and the oil-lamp moved on the sink. Zoe was completely scared and while the flashes were on in the dark room, she was pushing us to the side by her arms. :D After the third tensed moment in her speech, the room fell into a darkness and she dissapeared. The flash continued right afterwards, but this time there was Jack the Ripper itself in the middle of the room, and the flashes were lighting his body. He wanted to kill people at the first table and he cut with the knife down. The lighting caused his movements were kind of not continuous, so it was like in movies. Genuinely. The feeling of the situation, amazing. This was my favouritte moment in the whole thing, because thee cinematography of this place was just amazing.
Right after this, we entered our last part. There was a guy waiting on us in front of the doors to a court - he told us about getting puished during Victorian times. Basically everyone got sentenced to die, there was almost no exception. We entered the room with judges and they chose few peopl to stand for their sins. As I wrote before, they all got sentenced to death.
Last attraction was a free-10-metres-fall, a simulation how you would get struggled by a rope. We didn’ have ropes around our necks, obviously (just checking because some people could think we have all become zombies). They got us seated and then they let us fall two times and that was all.
There was a shop, where I bought a Jack the Ripper keyring. Afterwards we walked down the Southbank, right next to Thames, and we visited also the St. Peter’s Cathedral. Beautiful place, it was first time I was inside.
So right, this was my last trip with my host family (and ever for this exchange year). I enjoyed it a lot, my last dream has come true and it was a great way how to spend the last weekend in England.
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