Europe Trip - Day 15

Day 15 - London, England

The Globe Theatre!!


The stage and some of the seating in the theatre

Victoria Monument... a huge fountain and statue to remember Queen Victoria in front of Buckingham Palace
Go England!

It's hard to get a good picture of Buckingham Palace

The band as it marched away from Buckingham Palace

In memory of Princess Di

Dad randomly started talking to this guy in the park. Apparently he comes here daily to feed to squirrels and birds. It was pretty cool to watch.

In the park by Buckingham Palace... the palace in the background

Ah... the red double-decker bus

Big Ben
Westminster Abbey
I thought this was pretty cool... it's on the side of Westminster Abbey.

The Tower of London

This is a beefeater

A memorial for people who were killed in this area of the Tower of London... including Anne Boleyn.

How come every time you come around... my London London Bridge wanna go down?

I forgot my gun today... I'm not the best soldier

Off to Hogwarts... woohoo!! If only...

The play is the thing!!


Today was a busy day. Had to get up early and get ready because I decided I wanted to add something to the schedule that I didn’t know we could see here. I wanted to go to the Shakespeare Globe Theatre. So we hurriedly got ready, had our breakfast and grabbed a taxi to take us to the theatre. The taxi driver was interesting. He told us all about what you have to do to get your taxi license. It takes a lot of work. He dropped us off and we went and bought our tickets for the tour. Our tour guide today at the Globe was named Kitty. She’s one of the actors that worked there. If we had known the Globe Theatre was there and that they did matinee performances… we definitely would have gone… oh well… maybe next time around. The tour was really cool though. I got to take pictures of the stage and seating areas from a TON of different angles… and Kitty told us all about the history of the theatre… and their theories about different things according to evidence they have found. It was cool. I enjoyed the gift shop too. It was really hard to not want to buy everything. I did only end up with a handful of pin buttons and a necklace with the theatre masks. ☺ After that we grabbed another cab and went to Buckingham Palace to watch the changing of the guards. Now… you can’t really see the changing of the guards unless you get there really early to stand right in front by the gate, but that wasn’t gonna happen… but it was still cool to see the band come and the guards march in. While the guards were doing their thing inside the gates… the band set up and played a bunch of Beatles songs. It was awesome! ☺ After the changing of the guards… we walked through the park towards Downing Street, which is where the head of parliament lives. It’s all gated off and guarded so you can’t really see much. So we walked over to Westminster Abbey. Dad and I went in and took the audio guide tour while mom sat outside (she didn’t wanna go). It’s a pretty interesting place… and I got to see where all the Kings and Queens had been buried… and the commencement throne. After we grabbed mom… we went and had lunch. We found a place called “The Red Lion” which was a pub downstairs, but they have a dining area upstairs for lunchtime. It wasn’t too bad of food. ☺ Next… we tried our luck with the underground. I was a little afraid since we seem to have so much bad luck with the train systems, but it’s definitely easier when you understand the language. ☺ The underground here reminds me almost exactly of the subways in Manhattan… so I could follow the tracks and lines really well. We headed to the Tower of London. We didn’t spend a ton of time there because we had to do a few other things… but we did check out the crown jewels… and I saw the bloody tower… and a bunch of old armor and weapons… and a torture chamber… and the area where Anne Boleyn was executed. We then jumped on the underground again and headed to check out a spot I didn’t even know they had till I was flipping through dad’s Rick Steve’s Great Britain book. It was the platform from Harry Potter… Platform 9 3/4… and I jut had to go. ☺ I couldn’t help myself. We did that real quick… which wasn’t too hard to find… and then hurried on the subway again to where we would go see our play. We went and saw “Les Miserables” at the Queen’s Theatre. We picked up our tickets and then grabbed a traditional, All-American dinner at McDonald’s (not my idea, but it worked), then headed to our seats. The play was SOOOOO good. I enjoyed it thoroughly. The singing was really good. I do have to confess though that I didn’t even know what “Les Mis” was about at all… surprisingly since I’m a theatre major… I know. I wasn’t disappointed though. But that got out kinda late and we had to take the subway again to get back to our room. It’s almost 1:00 now… which by the time zone I’m actually used to… it’s 2:00 pm. We have to get up in the morning to get our rental car… and if I want to try and go to Abbey Road and possibly the Beatles store… I need to get up early. So I should probably get to bed. Peace!