Days 53 and 54: more London!!

So I left you all with the intrigue that we'd just missed seeing a prince. Yeah, apparently, we'd just missed him, but that's okay! It wasn't William, Harry, or Charles... eh, just your average British prince. No big deal :) After Westminster Abbey, we walked about the Parliament building, which (in case you didn't know) is absolutely gorgeous! Just beautiful! And it sits rights on the Thames, so you can look down the river and see so much of London, including the London Eye! Unfortunately, you can't actually go inside the Houses of Parliament except during the summer. :( That just means that I have to go back to London sometime during the summer! From Westminster, we walked relatively aimlessly in a northwest direction. We passed by 10 Downing Street (where the Prime Minister lives... shame it's not Hugh Grant) and the Horse Guards Palace, where the soldiers are horses have to be very stoic and can't smile or laugh! We then had a short stay in St. James' Park before heading toward Piccadilly Circus! Sadly, there was lots of construction, so it wasn't quite as fabulous as I remembered. Oh, and it was raining! But I did see Lillywhite's, which I distinctly remember spending both too much time and money in when I visited in 10th grade. :) From Piccadilly Circus, we wandered, saw some street vendors, just explored, and ended up getting hot chocolate. By this point, we were all tired and a little wet, so we ventured back to the hostel to get ready for Billy Elliot. Upon arriving at the hostel, we basically crashed for an hour or so (we were allowed to be exhausted after traveling and less than 6 hours of sleep).  Then, it was Billy Elliot time!!! And there were really no words to describe how amazing the show was (I mean, I'll try to describe it anyway since my words are basically all you have :) ) So the three of us are sitting in Row A, yes the front row, about 3 feet from the edge of the stage. Even though you can't see the floor on most of the stage, you get to see the FACES of the performers and they can see you! It's basically the coolest thing ever. Plus, the boy who was playing Billy Elliot is probably the cutest 14 year old I've ever seen. His name is Fox and he looks like he's maybe 12. But really, he could sing, dance, and was so so so cute. The show was just FABULOUS! I mean, if you haven't seen the show, you should definitely have to! (The movie just doesn't suffice!) But anyway, after the show, we dragged ourselves back to the hostel and passed out. Oh, and somewhere in there we got dinner... I don't really remember when or what :)

And now, Friday-- the second full day of London! We allowed ourselves to sleep in a little, but not too much. There's a lot in London (if you didn't know), and we had only 4 days to do it ALL! First stop, Leicester Square. Basically, if you want show tickets (cheaply-ish), this is where you go! It was not as exciting as I remember, but it's London, so it was still awesome. Leicester Square is only a short walk to Trafalgar Square... which is super neat!

The highlight, well the middle of the square is Nelson's column, built to commemorate Nelson's death at the Battle of Trafalgar (a battle that the British won in the Napoleonic Wars). This column is surrounded by four huge lions, which people love to climb and take pictures with. :) But there are also a few fountains and the National Gallery sits on one edge of the square, and although we didn't go in, I hear that it's fantastic! So after Trafalgar Square, we headed to Buckingham Palace to watch the Changing of the Guard. We walked along St. James' Park and joined the huge crowds for the ceremony. Now, it was a pretty cold day (as in freezing!) and despite the number of people, I was COLD. Plus, because there are SO many people, it's hard to see anything, and to be honest, I was a little disappointed. But!! It all turned out to be worth it... At one point, the band (the military one) starts to play... and the intro sounds really, really familiar. I mean, it sounded like the beginning of the Star Wars theme, but really?The Changing of the Guard band playing Star Wars? I don't think so. Ah! But these are the times in life that I LOVE being wrong. About ten seconds in, there is the distinctive duh-duh-duh-nuh-nuh-nuh... (and so on... you know the song!) and lo and behold, they're playing the theme to Star Wars. How cool! I was completely flabbergasted! So much for "God Save the Queen." And after, Star Wars, they played music from "Les Miserables" and then Sergeant Pepper's :) But, the highlight (perhaps of my life, well not really, but close) was the band's closing number. Yes, it was ABBA. They played "Dancing Queen" and "Mamma Mia," and I almost passed out with excitement (and maybe a little from cold). After the band stopped playing, we decided that nothing could top that, so we headed out! We walked to the nearest tube station and set our sights on the Tower of London! Upon getting off the tube, we were starved so we searched and found a cute pub-ish place to eat... and this photo is called "Our Drinks of Choice."

Can you guess which drink belongs to me? (Yes, it's the beer.) Lunch took a bit longer than we'd expected, so we didn't end up getting to the Tower of London until a bit after two (if I remember correctly). And being the nerd I am, I knew that I would want longer than 2 hours inside, so we bought our entrance tickets (for the next morning) and proceeded to walk across Tower Bridge. And if you didn't know, Tower Bridge, not London Bridge, is the gorgeous, gorgeous bridge across the Thames; I probably took 50 pictures of it. Once across the river, we walked along it, exploring a few shopping streets and seeing Shakespeare's Globe along the way. The Globe is right near the Tate Modern Art Museum, which we did not go into (although again, I hear it's awesome), and the Millenium Bridge. This bridge, even though I'd walked across it before, I was SUPER excited to go across it again. Why? Watch the first few minutes of "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" and then you'll understand why Genevieve and I kept shouting "Potter fixed it! It's been magically restored!" (Yes, we said that, but no, we did not shout :) ) If you keep walking in the direction that the bridge leads you, literally you run into St. Paul's Cathedral, which is magnificent. Absolutely magnificent.
We walked around the outside, explored the gift shop and then entered the sanctuary to hear an Evensong.  The three of us were probably in the first 15 people there, and I'm so glad we were because one of the priests invited the first group to sit behind the choir, closer to the altar. Sadly, no pictures were allowed... and I'm not sneaky enough to take decent pictures without people seeing me. But we were sitting in the booths where important people or the larger choir would sit. Unbelievable! It was just amazing.  We then left St. Paul's, spent almost 90 minutes in a Starbucks (just relaxing) before walking along the Thames to the London Eye.  We didn't end up going on it (yet), but it was so beautiful at night and there was the backdrop of Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament. Just gorgeous...
And sadly, I have to leave you again. This whole going to classes thing really gets in the way!