CCTV: 1984, The Sequel

And the journey begins to London at 8am on a Friday morning! This is the first three day weekend we have had this trip!.....

Jackie is not sooooo super excited about waking up early, but we all made it to the train in one piece!! I take this as a sign that it's going to be an excellent weekend! (We even got student discount rates for our train tickets! Europeans are so warm and welcoming to students who want to experience culture! I LOVE IT!)

Upon our arrival to Paddington, we took the underground into the heart of the city! Here Jessica and I are complete American Tourists! We feel accomplished and victorious (V for Victory!) for making it from the train to the underground AND into the city! :-)

We found this little area on a back road. It was quaint and nice. Kinda cool considering it is in such a BIG city! I thought New York had a TON of people! I got to the point a couple of times in London where people were suffocating me!!!

As we were wandering around London, getting our bearings we happened upon Buckingham Palace. It was about 11:30am, which meant: CHANGING OF THE GUARD! :-)

....so we walked right in to see what we could see of the changing of the Guard! This is me in front of the fountain that's in the center of the square in front of Buckingham Palace.


Can anyone guess what is weird about this marching brass band? Notice anything strange? Anything out of the ordinary? (Once you think you've figure it out....scroll down)




Answer:
1) There are marching French Horns, which in reality is not all that odd- but slightly dangerous to the embochure of the marcher. You can do significant muscle damage to the embochure with a French Horn mouthpiece and marching, that's why Mellophones switch mouthpieces for marching band!
2) There are marching double reeds! (Yes, there are BOTH bassoons AND oboes in this marching contingent.) This is much more dangerous than any muscle damage done from brass mouthpieces! If played incorrectly or mistakenly or the marcher turns one's head too quickly, then you can split your lip wide open or cut yourself on your reed! I was shocked....while Jackie and Jessica just looked at me like I was crazy!


Jessica and I in front of Buckingham Palace! (The apple does not fall far from the tree as far as pictures are concerned- I tried to photo-document everything!)


This is a new museum! It houses some of the art of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. (On a side note: I find it fascinating that Queen Victoria had a successful marriage and love affair with her husband Prince Albert during her reign. With Queen Elizabeth I, she would have had to forfeit the beginnings of an English Empire had she married. The ironies of the life and times of society.) While we were walking to a bus stop to find the PERFECT double decker bus to ride on, we found this! Of course, we had to stop in and take a look (being a Girl Scout and all).....
The two Girl Scouts standing in front of the Girl Guides Association store....tehee. How cute!

...aha! This looks familiar. I wonder where I've seen it before? After looking around in this store, we wandered around a bit until we found....

THE DOUBLE DECKER BUS!

Of course we say on the top level. It was quite fun and extremely windy! I had to pull out my poncho at the end to provide extra warmth. (But then again, like mother like daughter....)

In front of the Royal Mews! (Sadly they weren't open this weekend!) I love seeing the carriage that Lady Diana rode in the day she married Prince Charles. She is such a class act. (For more fawning over the Lady Diana please scroll down to Saturday's events!)

It's an ASLAN sighting! I have been reading and writing about The Chronicles of Narnia for my literature class. Jackie and Jessica are also in the class with me. In honor of our paper that is due, we found various Aslan sightings along the way in London and the City of Westminster! ( ask any true Londoner and they will be happy to tell you the difference!) Thus far, I have only shown you parts of the City of Westminster.

This arch was dedicated to the Duke of Windsor. Apparently he owns a majority of the property in the City of Westminster. He owns all the flats from which the foreign dignitaries have their embassies. He makes a boatload off those houses! I tried to get those pictures, but the bus moved too fast!!!! :-( These "flats" are UNBELIEVABLE! They are extremely roomy for English/European standards and extremely costly. One Saudi Arabian prince has yet to use his "flat" located on "Embassy row." There were sooo many pretty flags as well!!! :-)
....and this marks the beginning of Hyde Park. In reality, this kinda marks the beginning of The Shire, because Hyde Park NEVER ENDS! EVER! It's worse than the Energizer bunny and KEEPS GOING FOREVER!


This monument is dedicated to those from Australia who fought in WWI at the battle of the Somme. Aside from Gallipoli, this was one of the bloodiest, goriest, and deadliest battles of WWI. The United Kingdom highly respects its former colonies such as Australia and New Zealand concerning their participation in WWI and WWII.Another memorial dedicated to those who gave their lives in the Battle of the Somme. For those of you who don't know, the Battle of the Somme lasted ONE DAY and was considered a massacre of British troops in World War I. JRR Tolkien fought in this battle and was one of his fifteen friends to survive.
In this pretty building it costs about 20,000 pounds to spend the night for one night- AND buy breakfast for an extra 64 pounds.......go figure.
'...and Here's Hyde Park- again! (It's still going....) This is a statue of Achilles. It's the first statue to explicitly have uncovered male genitalia- so to censure it, the board of Hyde Park decided to put a fig leaf covering the sexually explicit part of the statue.....the leaf is the most frequently replaced part of the statue. Apparently British women have the hots for Achilles.

Madame Tusseaud's! (We went there on Saturday! To see pictures scroll down....)

This is THE ORIGINAL Hard Rock. We decided to go for mexican at Leicester Square that night, but Jessica was all for a burger at Hard Rock! :-)

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....so, you know how it's illegal to own a Giraffe in the state of Louisiana? Well, it's illegal to walk underneath this arch! It's the original entrance to Buckingham Palace and apparently it's illegal for commoners to enter through that part of the Palace...you won't get arrested for walking underneath it today. It's cheaper to ignore the law than repeal it :P ha!

Does anyone see something wrong with this spire in this Anglican Church? The British people despise this church because the spire is too pointed! (?!)

I thought this was quite a pretty church for being downtown City of Westminster in the midst of the hustle and bustle.

Here's the McDonald's on Seven Sisters Boulevard....I've heard stories about the opening of this McDonald's! ha! ha! ha!

This is Faith, Hope, and Love all sky diving pixie fairies! (as our guide described them) This is just a reminder that regardless of where you are, you have to look up to catch ALL the splendor of the architecture! There's soooo much it's kinda overwhelming!

....and we are almost to Trafalgar Square!

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At last! Trafalgar Square! I find this entertaining because it doesn't go well with the other decor of the square....it's just randomly there......

ASLAN SIGHTING IN TRAFALGAR SQUARE!

And we are still having the time of our lives on top of the Double Decker bus! hahahahaha!!!

As we were passing, there was the changing of the horse guard. Apparently we had perfect timing, because we saw the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace and here too! :-) This is also located near the War Rooms (which are pictured in my previous post)

We are passing Parliament! I will pay anyone $100 if they can see Big Ben in this photo!
What's the catch you ask? You must pay me $5 if you're wrong :P Does anyone see Big Ben...?





Think carefully.....







NO YOU DON'T! Big Ben is actually the bell inside the clock tower and not actually the clock tower! Made you look! hahahahaha :-)

The London Eye.

Another beautiful picture of Big Ben & Parliament after we went over the London Bridge.

LOOK! It's another Aslan sighting! :-)

This Building has been awarded the certificate for Ugliest Building in Europe. I have to say that I agree......

Now, we are officially entering London! This Dragon marks the beginning of the city of London (and the end of the Queen's reach, so Londoners say...)

This picture does NOT do St. Paul's Cathedral justice. We drove straight by it. The entire time it was looming over us....it's so overwhelmingly magnificent! There are no words to describe the way this church makes me feel.



The cool thing about this picture is that the center of the sun (if you can zoom up on the face) is it's Winston Churchill in the center! hahahahaha. Below, this is a statue indicating where goose flocks were....we all called it the Mother Goose Statue. One thing you should know about all of the statues that you have seen on my blog: They have been made out of melted down french guns (what else are you going to use them for?)

The Tower Bridge! (you know what that means? THE TOWER OF LONDON IS NEXT!)

TA DA!
The museum left some of the defenses up to show those of us who visit today how the White Tower would be defended in times of trouble. In reality, there also used to be lions, and tigers and bears, oh my! defending the White Tower.

iI am standing outside the Tower where all the torturing took place. *imagine evil maniacal laughter here*

Before we entered the White Tower, we happened upon Two Beefeaters :-) They got the nickname Beefeaters, because they would tastetest the food for the Queens and Kings. If I'm not mistaken, I believe this became the fashion during King Henry VIII's reign. Taste testers were used before but not nearly to the extent as they were during and after his reign. In the White Tower there was a hands on activity area, where we could play with the weapons of the time. Being the intellectual creatures we are, Jessica, Jackie, and I (of course) had to do some research....i.e. play with the toys :-)

For a relative perspective- I'm 6'0''.....that sword is MASSIVE!

Jackie found the latrine....she says it still smells. ew!

I finally found some armor that is Jordan-sized. Apparently, I would have been considered an Amazonian in the world of Queen Elizabeth and King Henry VIII. You read about all the monarchs in the English monarchy and you think that they are larger than life because of their power. In reality, these people were TINY! (Okay, not really tiny, but the tallest person was around 5'6" of 5'7". On our way out we saw this:This is the coat of arms today and how all the coins (the pence) fit into the shield today..... In the past monarchs have had coins made in their image and those coins were the only ones good during their reign....so then the coat of arms was made for the family as the lineage developed. Thus, the coins fit into the coat of arms instead of the monarch's image today.



Next, we saw the crowned Jewels- which is always pretty and soooooo much fun! :-)
Then, we entered into the dungeon for torturing people. I banged my head in the archway, I was too tall. May I please reiterate my point that people were TINY back then!
Here we have an interesting form of punishment. It is the opposite of the rack. You bend your prisoner into three (as the chalking indicates) and you lock them into place. More people broke under this torture than the rack.
This form of torture is called The Rack. You tie someone's arms and legs down and for every lie they tell you, you spin conveyor belt on which they are lying outwards, which eventually breaks every bone in the victim's body (the ribs, the shoulders, the pelvis bones, the hip bones, it's making me cringe to think about it.)
And these are the manacles. You hung someone by their wrists. You could flog them or whatever you wanted to do to them while they were in the manacles, because they were quite defenseless.
These are the three main ways in which people were tortured for information beginning during King Henry VIII's reign and continued through Queen Elizabeth's I reign.....the Golden Age in England wasn't quite so Golden......

We finished off Day 1 with The Mousetrap, which has been running as long as Queen Elizabeth II has been reigning! I will continue Day 2 in a separate blog! Please Keep Reading!
Cheers from London!
J.