Minding the gap in London

So for the first part of spring break a few of us headed to London for a long weekend. Upon arriving we were tired, flustered, and utterly frustrated at realizing not one of us had remembered a converter (how am I going to do my hair??!). After narrowly avoiding getting on a train to nowhere, we enlisted planes, trains, and automobiles    to get us to our hostel. We found it on accident when I got off the train and walked into the first bar I saw and asked if the knew where St. Christopher's was. It was, of course, on top of the bar. Always a major plus.

It was an early night with an early morning as we hopped back on the train to get to a walking tour of London. We went from Green Park and took the short walk down to Buckingham Palace. I was surprised by the Palace and the stories surrounding it. The flag was raised, most believing that this signified the Queen was home. This had been the case for quite some time until Princess Diana's death. The Queen was away at the time of the accident, so the flag was down. This means that it was not put to half mass. People were outraged, and thus the tradition was changed so that there is always a flag flying at Buckingham Palace, whether the Queen is home or not. We continued on to (one of the) Prince's homes where we were able to get closer to the guards (and therefore take every opportunity to make them laugh). We could not walk up to them. That privilege was taken away when a Columbian student traveler walked beside a guard and mocked him until the guard punched him in the face. Pretty funny, but still a bummer.

We saw most of the staples on the tour; Big Ben, the London Eye, House of Parliament, and many, many, many, MANY statues and monuments. A few funny stories...there is a very exclusive Gentlemen's club in London (country club) and our tour guide went on to explain the thirty year waiting list that you cannot even get ON unless you know someone already in the club, and every year you are on the waiting list you still have to pay a fee. After he explained this a man in a suit walks out and bends over to tie his shoe. One red sock, one green one. Classic.

We were also told two stories surrounding the Buckingham Palace. One was of three German tourists who were out for the night and had been drinking. With no where to stay, they decided to camp out in Hyde Park. Somehow they mistook Hyde Park for the Queen's garden, which is guarded by a barbed wire fence. Common mistake? Anyways the guards were very surprised in the morning when three hungover tourists wandered up to them asking directions for the tube.

Another anecdote was one of the few attempts to break into Buckingham Palace. It was a homeless Irish man who was a drunk (really?) and had a history of mental illness; Michael Fagan. So one night Fagan decided that he didn't want to sleep outside and that he wanted to sleep in the Palace. He walked up to a window and smashed it. Silent alarms went off all over the Palace into the security center. The security guards saw all the sensors going off and thought to themselves, there is no way that all the alarms could be tripped at once so the system must clearly be malfunctioning. Reassured by these thoughts, they shut the entire security system off for  the Palace (band of geniuses). Michael Fagan had since decided that he was hungry. Upon finding the kitchen, he opened one of the Queen's finest wines. He also, in his drunken state, mistook dog food for fine dining. In an attempt to get the can open with a knife, he lacerated his arm. This was the time when he decided it was time to find a spot to lay his head. Searching through the 661 rooms that Buckingham Palace holds, Fagan found the perfect bedroom. The Queen's bedroom. He snuggled up in bed and frightened the Queen. While she was insistently pushing the alarm next to her bed, she put her training to use and tried to calmly talk to Fagan. When the security guards failed to arrive, she picked up the phone and called for a cigarette. The security guard said he would bring one right up, but wondered (aloud) why, because she didn't smoke. She responded that the cigarette was not for her, but Fagan, the drunk bleeding Irish man covered in blood and dog food laying on her bed. He was promptly arrested and removed. However when this incident occurred in the 1980s Buckingham Palace was considered public property. This means that Fagan was not charged with trespassing, and merely had to replace the broken window. Probably not too bad of a night for him.

We went on a pub crawl later that night in London and had a blast, and had to peel ourselves out of bed that morning to make it to Cambridge where I was to meet my cousin, Rosamund. We went to a few rugby games which were AWESOME (it was entertaining to see some real rugby played) and I was introduced to my new favorite drink...cider. We also stayed at Pembroke college and ate dinner there in a very Harry Potter-esque scene (cloaks, long tables...just needed the sorting hat ;) After much hospitality we returned to London just in time to witness the changing of the guard. The crowd was enormous and the changing of the guard was a sight worth seeing. Later that day we went on the London Eye, right around sunset, and got to see London from the sky. We also got to go to Abbey Road which was a MAJOR plus to find and I have to say it was soo awesome and if it had been warmer I would have definitely taken my shoes off to create a firmer imitation.

We left London very early on our last day...and I had less than 24 hours to unpack, regroup, repack, and head back to the airport to go to the Canary Islands....by the end of spring break I was recognizing airline attendants (happily).

Here is the link to my London album on Facebook!
 http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2112143&id=1295933480&l=e241d1c4e9