London Part 4

Day four in London...this is a fun one. We woke up fairly early and made our way to the bus stop. Our plan was to see as much of the city as we could on the big red open air tour busses. We went down Fleet Street, across the Tower Bridge and by Saint Paul's Cathedral, among other things. By 10:15, however, it wasn't looking like we were going to make it to Buckingham Palace in time to see the Changing of the Guards, which I had really wanted to see. So we hopped off the bus and took a tube. The closest tube stop was still a bit of a walk away from the palace for security reasons. You had to walk through a park and then down a road.


London Eye


Fleet Street...


Barber shop on Fleet Street...get it?


Tower Bridge

It was about 10 minutes until the ceremony was supposed to start and we were still walking through the park. My mom told me to run ahead and that the rest of my family would catch up with me. I ran through the park and saw about 14 men in their guards uniforms riding horses. I had the perfect timing to follow them down to the left. I made it in just enough time to see the ceremony. It lasted about 30 minutes and I hadn't seen my parents yet. I waited and waited in the hot sun. This was the one day I decided to wear a tanktop, though I didn't have sunscreen on. I was too preoccupied with being lost to worry about preventing a bur. As a result, I got a pretty bad burn on my shoulders and chest, and a really sweet TOMS tan on my feet. I walked around for about 3 hours before deciding to walk back to the tube and heading back to the hotel. I was SO convince I was at Buckingham Palace but after three ad a half hours, I figured I should do something other than just stand there.


The horses at the ceremony I went to


The Royal Mews, which I was convinced was an unimpressive Buckingham Palace


One of the guards and I

I was pretty freaked out because I was in London by myself with no cell phone and nobody who I could contact. About halfway into the park, I heard somebody yell "There she is!" I looked ahead and saw my family running towards me. They said that they had been looking for me that whole time and didn't see me. I told them I was at Buckingham Palace and they said they never saw me. I though that was odd because I thought I was standing in a pretty obvious position. I told my dad that and asked which direction had gone at the end of the park and I told him left. Wrong answer. As it turns out, I was actually down at the Royal Mews that whole time. I was pretty freaked out with the whole ordeal, but I had to keep moving since it was our last day in London.

Our next stop that day was Abbey Road, where we got pictures as crossed the street in front of traffic. Then we signed the wall. It was pretty neat because there were lots of people there to do the same exact thing as us. After that, we quickly mad our way back to the tube to catch another hour or so on the bus tour. My parents had a tour booked in Notting Hill, so they got off at that stop. Jen and I stayed on until we reached the Paddington Station, where there was a nice selection of places to eat.


The famous crosswalk in front of Abbey Road Studios


Signing the wall


My signature


With the statue of Paddington Bear at Paddington Station

We then took a tube over to Camden, where Jen had planned a cocktail night with some of her friends. We went to this awesome bar that was totally my scene. There were concert posters up all over the place. We each had a couple of cocktails as it was 2-4-1. Then we walked around outside a bit. It was pretty funny because I was acting like my normal crazy self and Jen's friends made a comment about giving the 19 year old alcohol and that I was tipsy or something. I'm not quite sure they believed us when Jen and I told them that that was how I always acted. haha


Cocktail time!


Jen's friends


Camden

Jen heard some people doing an acoustic concert on the balcony of one of the buildings and liked it, so we all went up to the balcony. Somebody asked a guy who was watching them who they were and he told us. He turned out to be the band's videographer. It was an indie band, nothing major. Somehow, word got out that three of the six of us were broadcast journalists and all of the sudden, Jen and her friend Hannah (who is a grade below Jen in the journalism program) ended up doing an interview with the band on Jen's FlipCam. It was all pretty random.

We ended up talking to the videographer guy for a while. He tried hitting on because he liked my accent or something like that. I shut him down when he asked for my facebook info. haha So then we made our way back to the tube station. It took forever to get home as one of the lines was down for maintenance. We did finally make it home quite tired. Jen and I also both got sunburnt as the sun was beating down on us while I was lost. Luckily, I had brought some aloe vera gel, just in case.

Oh, and after all of that, I never got to see Buckingham. Next trip!

Katie