Living in the Present

Did you smile? :)

After I visited Oxford, Gannon and Ernst came over to London for the day. Before heading out to the city, I sat down for coffee at the Polish cafe in Ealing and ordered in Polish. For some reason, it felt very good to do so. Like you're not out of place in this huge city, but in a small corner of home. Anyway, first thing and only thing, at this point, on the agenda was Buckingham Palace. When  your guidebook mentions crowds for the changing of the guard, it is not joking. The whole square was packed with people. The changing took quite a while and involved horses and at least two bands. I expected more serious music than "New York, New York." After the ceremony concluded, we strolled through St. James's Park to Parliament Square, complete with a display protesting NATO war crimes. I think.

While we were passing Parliament, we figured a peak inside wouldn't hurt. Instead of taking the tour, we took the (free and educational) student option- watching the House of Commons in action. There are special visitor passes with your photo. Westminster Hall (completed in 1099) is "one of the largest undivided mediaeval spaces in existence." St. Stephen's Hall has beautiful stained glass windows, murals, and a number of statues. The Central Lobby is very pretty as well. The House of Commons Chamber is decorated in green. The debate of the Members of Parliament reminded me so much of debate in high school. The Chamber was actually fairly empty. The MPs are not required to sit in on all of the debates. For voting, a bell is heard all over the building, and they have eight minutes to assemble to vote. Otherwise, they are locked out. After watching for a little while, we crossed the bridge and walked around by the London Eye. For lunch, we stopped at a cafe in the park, the Victoria Embankment Gardens (most likely). Here, the pigeons zoned in on Ernst and his lunch. I always knew they were evil. Across the street, two people were napping on the grass by some statue. In order to fulfill a must do item on the checklist, a double-decker bus took us to the general vicinity of the Tower of London. Not exactly to the Tower, we had to "explore" along the way and take the riverside to the Tower. We found one of the public pianos. Believe it or not, none of us could play. Here you have three Hillsdale students and none of us could make that piano sing. What a shame. The Tower Bridge had the Olympic rings hanging from it. This was the first day of that display. Tower Bridge is so pretty. The blue and gray look very nice together. Actually, the blue is more turquoise and reminds me of Tiffany's. So I may refer to it as the Tiffany Bridge. Either way, I enjoyed the view of the bridge from the cafe along the river, which served the best latte I have ever tasted. Maybe it was the view, maybe it was the company, maybe it was the coffee. Or all of the above. Said coffee was accompanied by very Hillsdale conversations. This is definitely something I miss very much. While we sat sipping the coffee, eating sugar cubes and chocolate candies, and chatting about life, the Tower Bridge was lifted to allow a boat to pass. The Olympic rings are also lifted at that time and tucked underneath the top part of the bridge. Nightfall was fast approaching, so it was off to Piccadilly Circus by bus. We took the mandatory telephone booth photos, and headed off to Paddington Station by tube for a last "goodbye and see you in the fall."