The Wacky World of a Lazy Pig (AKA Simon)

Eurotrip Day 3 - Why can't we play with the Royal Guards? I used 1GB of memory already?

First off, I am happy that Roger is getting better with the trip now, there is definitely more feedback and more jokes from him again. YAY!!! Anyway, after my late night post yesterday (finished at 12:00am) I was left with only 7.5 hours of sleep. My mom would have said that it is still more than she sleeps, hehe.

Today we had two plans, either we go to watch the Changing of the guard ceremony at Buckinham palace and explore the Eastern end of London, or we go to the British Library and Museum. The key factor in the decision was of course weather. Before the day started, I thought it was going to rain because of the rain like clouds London had the previous night. Good thing I am not working as a meteorologist, because I was dead wrong. Yesterday was a wonderful day for outdoor activities. It was nice and sunny with little clouds but a very cool breeze. The whole day was never hot nor too cold.

We got up at our regular times and got our cheap breakfast at the local cornerstore (cheese bread and a bun). Roger grabbed Lunch for the team this time, I did it yesterday. We couldn't get onto the Tube right away because it was still during rush hour, which also means higher tickey prices. We decided to wait by walking over to the nearby Reagent's Park. It was gorgeous. It had nice open grass patches all over and flowers that have just bloomed. I got some pictures. After walking around, we found a bench to sit on an eat our breakfast. Our breakfast was quickly interrupted by pigeons. You see, pigeons in Canada are usually quite shy and don't really apprach humans. The ones here are totally different, they just love to get close to you while you are eating. The worst part is that one atracts another. We also had a chipmunk (I think that was what it was) just sneak up on us as well under the bench trying to get our food. Very aggressive I would say. Anyway, I made a video of me chasing a chipmunk up a tree, we were really bored while waiting for rush hour to be over (9:30am)

We got to Buckingham Palace at around 10:00am. We took the tube to the Victoria station and walked from there. The Palace property is really big and had a very beautiful entrance. A huge monument/statue was in the center of the road as well. I have a few pictures of me climbing the bottom part of the tall statue. Now the main reason for going to Buckingham Palace was to watch the Changing of the Guard ceremony. For those who don't know, the guards are the ones with the tall black hats that aren't supposed to move, laugh or make noises while on guard. The unfortunate thing was that we couldn't reach them. They were very far away from the gates. The two guards on duty were almost always still until (I think) they got tired of standing still and starting watching back and forth. To me, it seemed more like an opportunity for them to stretch out without looking dumb.

The actual ceremony was at 11:30am. We had arrived and took almost all the pictures we wanted and it was still 10:30. There wasn't a lot of people when we arrived, but a crowd started to form at the gates. I quickly rushed there to try to reserve a good spot for watching and taking pictures. The next 30 minutes was soooooo boring for me. I just sat there almost falling asleep waiting for the ceremony to start. The actual ceremony is very hard to describe on paper. The only things I can say are that the actual "changing of the guards" is done in the shadows while other guards (which appear during the ceremony) play a series of band songs. The ceremony was really good. I don't have it on video, just bits a pieces. The music was great, especially because they played the following songs which I recorded:

• The Phanton of the Opera Theme
• Star Trek: Voyager Theme
• Star Trek: The Next Generation Theme

I was amazed that they played those songs since they didn't all seem to be royal to me. But it was great. The entire ceremony I would say attracted over 1500 people. And to think, when we arrived at 10:00, there were only at most 100 people around.

With the ceremony over at 12:30, we rushed onto the tube station to go from the west end of London to the east end. Surprisingly, we got to the Tower of London in just 10-15 minutes. The day was still great. Following a quick lunch (just bread and Salami), we headed into the Tower of London. We were able to get student discounted tickets (woohoo!). Roger also suggested that we take a guided tour. And my thanks to Roger, because the that tour was AMAZING. The guide was very very funny and spoke very clearly the entire time.

The Tower of London looks small from the outside, but the second you step in, you know you were seriously wrong. It used to be a fortress and also the residence of the royal family (LONG LONG LONG ag0). It is also a prison and torture facility. The guide kept making very funny jokes about the tower and the audience. Close to the beginning of the tour, we were introduced to the "Traitors Gate", basically a water gate that only lets captured Traitors through. The Guide asked "how many of you are from ______. ______" where the first blank was the name of the country like Canada, US, Australia, China, Japan, etc. If someone raised their hand, he would say the second blank, which is "hello" in their native language. The funniest of all were the Australians. When asked who was from Australia, he answered ga'day mates, welcome home, pointing and gesturing at the Traitors gate at the same time. BURN!!!!!

The other very excellent part of the tour was the royal chapel. They would hold Royal weddings here. The chapel itself held the body of St. Thomas More and several other Queens that were executed. The guide also said that only members of the Royal Family and the family of the wardens of the Tower of London are permitted to use the chapel for weddings or funerals. All the tour guides were in atual fact Wardens themselves. They are given the responsibility to take care of the Tower of London and also live in the fortress itself. As a joke, the guide tried to convince an 11 year old Canadian girl in the audience to marry his 6 year old grandson. He said that they would be given the privilege to marry in the Royal chapel. It was really funny, because he tried to persuade her that his grandson was handsome, smart and loving. hehe, very very cute and funny.

After the hour long tour, it was around 2:30pm. We immediately headed out and went to the building that housed the Crown Jewels (The Crown, Ring, Scepter, Globe, etc.). The building also gave some history of the evolution of the crown jewels and videos of Queen Elizabeth II's coronation. What I didn't know was that the scepter held onto the world's largest diamond. It was really really nice. No pictures were allowed and there was no way for me to sneak a shot this time. The exhibition also had other roayl goods that weren't part of the crown jewels. They were ceremonial objects made of pure gold. The most memorable was a gigantic punch bowl with the volume size of 2/3 of a bath tub. It came with a really big serving ladle. The spoon portion of the ladle was in the shape of an gigantic conch (very beautiful). There was also an area of the exhibit that had ever single ceremonial sword or staff used since the first coronations. I wanted to buy a souvenir crown for Christine, but didn't think she deserved it :b. just kidding, I couldn't find the Crown Jewels Gift shop.

We learned more about the Fusiliers of the English Army. They are basically like the riflemen and later soldiers in war. They have been in all historic battles with the English in it. This exhibit came at an extra cost of £1, but it was cheap so we went for it.

With that portion of the tower of London done, we only had 4/5 of the place left to visit AHHH!!!. The main tower (where the kings stayed) also called the white tower, was decorated with a lot of weapons, armor and other armaments all layd out in a very artistic fashion. Read through a lot of the things but now that I try to think of it, I don't remember the actual tet anymore, just what I saw. They showed the custom armours of each king and prince as well as the evolution of weapons as the years went by. There was so much to see, I think we were in the white tower for atleast 1 hour.

We went to many many other towers, especially to the one where some criminals, traitors and queens (the bad ones) were imprisoned. This specific tower is memorable because of the insane amount of history in it. For example, a queen was imprisoned in the tower for a long period of time. During that time, she carved letters, words and pictures onto the stone walls. There were tons of entries throughout the tower room. Some small places in the Tower of London also had stone carvings of letters and pictures. Most of the messages were meant to plead for mercy or identify the faults of the king and law. To have all this history kept in almost original condition, it was hard not to look into detail.

The torture room was a small room in the Tower of London but had the original torutre machines like the rack. I took a picture of another torture machine that did the exact opposite of the rack. All the other towers were very very interesting. Each telling a history of a special person like St. Thomas More, King Edward, King Richard and so on. We also got to see the original crowns of previous kings and queens whose crowns have been stripped of their jewels. Those were really nice as well. The entire visit to Tower of London took more time than had been allocated. We finished just when they closed up at around 5:30pm.

From there, we were within 2 minutes of the Tower Bridge. We walked across it and took a lot of pictures of it. The night was arriving and I wanted to see one more thing before we retired for the night. We walked all the way from the Tower Bridge to Shakespeare's Globe Theater. The crappy part was that it was closed and there would have been no way for us to see the actual inside and stage. But atleast I got to see the outside upclose.

We ended the day off by walking on the Millenium bridge, a bridge built specifically for only pedestrians. It is a new bridge. A funny history point is that within 3 hours of the bridge's first opening to the public a few years ago, they had to close it. Why? Because when so many people stood on it, it started swaying side to side. Some people got sick and almost fell over the bridge and into the water.

By this point, Roger and Steve were all tired out and found it hard to walk. We had walked for about 10 hours straight. I could tell that Roger wasn't happy with all the walking as it was uncomfortable and painful. I too was experiencing the same thing. After dinner at a Vegetarian Buffet (which we oiginally though was non-vegetarian) we headed out to Parliament again. Why? Didn't I already say we were done for the day? Yes I did, but I really wanted to get a picture of Parliament at night time and the london eye at night time. So we headed out. I wanted to walk out further to take a shot of the entire Parliam from across the river, but it would have been too much for Steve and Roger.

Today was very good but SUPER tiresome. Tower of London was much more worth it than we originally anticipated. We spent so much time there because there was just so much stuff. Hopefully the last full day won't be like this.

Labels: eurotrip

posted by lazypig @ 11:06 AM