more hustle and bustle

July 19

another very long day, as well as overwhelming. last night there was a party going on nextdoor to my room. VERY loud and VERY obnoxious and VERY rude, until about 11:30 when they all finally decided they better go to bed if they were gonna get up at 5 a.m. to leave for their tour. i didn't have a roommate last night, thankfully, so after the party quieted the place i actually slept pretty good.

got up and left the hotel about 9. joined the bus tour at the nearest stop to the hotel. the driver was a cute and flirty guy ... he gave me his number, in fact. :-) told me he got off at 5:30 and to give him a call, we could get a drink or something. (i didn't, but it was nice to be asked.) traffic was ridiculous, so it seemed we didn't get anywhere fast the entire day ... well, until i wanted us to go slow in order to get a picture, then we zoomed by at an incredibly fast speed (probably only 15 mph, but still!). i got off near St James Park and walked through to Buckingham Palace, my first stop of the day, to see the changing of the guard. i got there around 10:45, maybe. the change takes place at 11:30. all the spots in the middle of the gates were taken, of course, so i found an empty spot over to the right and parked my butt.

a little before 11 a.m. the horse guards made their way past the palace. very, very cool. big horses. all black. really something. then at 11:30 you could hear the band coming. couldn't see anything, cuz of all the people, but you could hear them. they made their way into the palace gates and stood way over to the side where i couldn't see anything. for a long time nothing happened. finally they all moved over to the right and changed the guard. there was a lot of standing around waiting. the entire process took over an hour. and turns out, the actual changing of the guard was the same as what i saw the day (or two?) before, just the color of the guard was different. first stood a "black" guard and he was replaced by a "red" guard (uniform color). the previous time i saw it by accident, a black replaced a black. basically it was all the same except for the addition of the reds, the band, and the horse guards ... oh, and a thousand more people.

all in all, it was cool to see, but...

got back on the bus and didn't get off for a long time. i actually rode the entire tour around and then got off at St Paul's Cathedral the second time around. during this ride i saw Tower Bridge. that is just as cool as the pictures i've seen. it's very big and very castle-like. St Paul's is beautiful. i got there at almost 5, just in time for the Evensong to start. i listened to the choir sing a Psalm or something. when they moved down front to do something else, i left. i was tired and i still needed to go back to Tower Bridge and get off to take pictures. but the church ... it's beautiful, just as any other church i've seen is. BUT, the difference is that THIS church is where a couple of special people got married (you might have heard of them, Charles and Dianna?). it's also where the "Feed the Birds" scene for Mary Poppins was filmed.

oh, speaking of which, also on the tour i saw the group of houses that the Banks family "lived" at in the same movie.

anyhoo .... after the cathedral i went back to Tower Bridge and took a ton of pictures. also saw London Tower, the only castle in London. it's cool, but doesn't look like much of a castle, honestly. more like a fortress. there used to be a moat, but they drained it years ago so now it's just a big grassy ditch around it. you can go in, but i didn't. i didn't have time to go into everything!

rode the bus a long time more in order to get to the closest stop to the hotel as possible w/o having to buy a Tube ticket for the day (which i succeeded in). walked a ways and found a restaurant to have fish and chips in. served with green peas of all things. it was all good, but cost me 11.50 pounds, approx.

now i'm at home and planning tomorrow. i have a roommate, but she hasn't emerged yet. she's from australia, yes, another one. seems everyone is from australia. not true, but seems like it.