London, United Kingdom
Yesterday (Dec. 17), I woke up around 4:30 am, clearly still suffering from jet lag. Josh was able to sleep, minus a few interruptions from me being awake, until 8 or so. The night before we had stopped by a drug store and bought some hair mousse, since I couldn’t take any on the plane. As I was doing my hair, it kept getting bigger and bigger. I then realized that I had actually bought Extra Volume mousse, this will be very visible in all the picture from here on, I’m sure.
There is a little grocery store a few blocks from the hotel so we stopped in there and picked up breakfast (fruit and 2 “assorted pastries” for 4 pounds). After that we walked about 20 minutes to Hyde Park where we sat and ate our breakfast.
There happened to be another Christmas market just opening up near by (these markets are all over Europe, apparently). So we killed some time and walked around the market. We had signed up for a free walking tour of London, but that didn’t start until 11, so we decided to go into a little tourism office in Hyde Park to warm up until the tour started. Inside was a very nice and talkative British lady. Her accent was very thick, she was talking really fast and I had a head warmer covering my ears, so I was really having a hard time understanding her. I mostly just nodded and laughed and smiled while she talked (all tricks I learned from you, Pa). I heard her say something about America so I just laughed and nodded. Her face looked really funny and then I noticed Josh was giving me a dirty look. I was surprised when Josh jumped in and started talking to her, but when he said, “Yes, it was such a tragedy. Very sad,” I realized why (she was talking about the Sandy Hook shooting that had just happened). . . oops. . . I really need to listen more closely in the future.
After that we went on our tour, which was awesome.
Our tour guide, named John, was also an actor and super engaging. Unfortunately, our camera went dead right before the tour started so we have no pictures. But, we got to see the changing of the guards at Buckingham Palace, St. James Palace, Prince Charles’s house, Trafalgar Square, Lord Nelson’s Column, Victoria Arch, 10 Downing St – where the prime minister lives -, Westminster Abbey, the houses of parliament and lots of other things.
One story that the tour guide told us – that we both thought was really funny – was about a 1983 break-in at Buckingham Palace. Apparently, a homeless Irish man name Michael was drunk and sleeping in a park near the palace when he decided that it was unfair for the queen to have such a big home and him not to even have a bed and he was going to go spend the night in the palace. He somehow managed to climb over the gate without being spotted.
He spent several hours wondering around the palace gardens. Since no one had caught him yet, he decided to press his luck and actually try to go through with getting inside the palace. He broke a back window and climbed inside. Now, the palace had recently got a new security system that was a motion sensor detector. It was supposed to show the security guards every step an intruder made.
However, Michael was so drunk that he was stumbling all over the place and sporadically setting off the detectors. The security guard assumed that no burglar would be that careless and that the new system had malfunctioned. He then restarted the system.
This gave Michael several more house of free reign over the palace. He went into as many rooms as he could – looking at paintings, sitting on the throne, going through the fridge. He finally got tired around 2:30 am and decided to find a bedroom and go to sleep.
Out of all the bedrooms in the giant palace, he just happened to choose the Queen’s personal bedroom. He went into her room and sat at the bottom of her bed. The queen quickly pushed her panic button, but the system was down so no one came.
Thinking on her feet, Queen Elizabeth engaged Michael in conversation. When he asked for a cigarette, the Queen – who doesn’t smoke – saw her chance.
She told Michel that she would have to call her butler for a smoke, and Michael agreed that this was great idea. The Queen phoned her butler and asked for a cigarette for her new friend that was visiting in her bed chambers. Obviously, that alerted them and security rushed up. However, it still took the police – whose station was a 5-minute walk from the palace – over 45 minutes to get there. We thought that story was great!
The tour group had a 2 for 12 lunch deal with a pub, The Old Monk, so we went there with everyone from the tour. I had fish and chips. Josh, and his ever adventurous pallet, had a very exciting cheese burger haha.
That afternoon we went the National Gallery. It was huge and we hardly saw anything before I was ready to go. Josh was pretty much fine, but I was so tired I could barely keep my eyes open. We headed home and I was asleep before 6 pm. Hopefully I’ll be able to get on a better schedule tonight.
Today, the weather is beautiful (unusual for London). We’re taking advantage and changing our plan to do the rest of the outside things rather than go to anymore museums.
Tonight we’re planning to see Les Miss live at Queens Theatre. With the movie version coming out on Christmas, ticket prices have REALLY increased since we bought ours back in Oct. This is one of the things I was most excited to see on the trip, so this should be great!
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