LONDON! part un: Buckingham Palace

Where to begin?  I never realized how packed full of memories two days could be.  It's overwhelming to even think about narrowing them down to a single blog post.  Let's break it up, shall we?

Saturday started with a coach (bus) ride at 7:45 a.m.  So I and 4 other college students, my roommate Lucy, our two downstairs neighbors Rachel (who was slightly hungover) and Kate, and my study abroad friend from California M.C. got up at 6 a.m. to get ready and catch a cab to the coach station.  It took 2 1/2 hours to get to London, the entire duration of which went smoothly except for the little hiccup in the middle where we broke down...  "The air's dropped out of it", our driver kept repeating.  Fortunately though, we were only stranded for 5 minutes because our bus decided to have leniency on us and started running again.  We got into London at about 10:30 and began our trek towards Buckingham Palace.

The Change of the Royal Guard was something I demanded to see while we were there.  The English girls rolled their eyes at the sheer level of cliche I was bringing to their country, but I persisted.  I mean, come on!  RICK STEVES SAID IT'S A MUST-SEE!  Well, it turns out that everyone else in London must have Rick Steves' travel guide as well, because it was PACKED!

There was easily 5,000 people there.

And also, we got the times wrong.  We thought it started at 11, but instead it began at 11:30... which led to us taking lots of pictures to occupy our time.

Me and Kate

Me and M.C.

LUCY!!

Lucy and M.C.

Finally though, the Change of the Guard commenced!  The guardsmen, in all their tall, fluffy-hat glory, began marching into Buckingham Palace from either side of the street.  There were full bands with them, complete with drums and trumpets and all the works.

 Their movements were perfectly choreographed and synchronized.  

I can only imagine how terrifying these gents would be in the heat of battle. :)

They lined up in precise lines, only shuffling a little to correct any deviation in the perfection of their stance.  Then came the next batch.

But the party really started when these guys showed up:

Look at those hats!  You can't help but love 'em!

Unfortunately, the crowd started getting a little too big for our comfort, and we could no longer see anything.  We decided to leave the Changing of the Royal Guard early... to my dismay. 

I had no idea what else would be in store for me!  

TO BE CONTINUED!

STAY TUNED!