Day 33: London, England

We changed all of our plans around today to be able to see the parade and flyover at Buckingham Palace for the RAF’s 100th anniversary. On the way to the palace we went by the Natural History Museum. I had heard Lucy, the famous hominid skeleton, was there. The outside was amazing. It was a large museum and we wound our way to the Human Evolution exhibit. We found Lucy, only to discover it was a replica. The real Lucy is on display in Africa. We all enjoyed the trip regardless!

Next, we headed toward Buckingham Palace. It was crowded when we arrived and the parade had already started. We couldn’t see it. I got separated from everyone else for about an hour. A very sweet Londoner loaned me her phone and helped me for about 30 minutes until I was able to find “my mates” again. 

On a whole, the people of London are the rudest people I have ever met. They are rude, passive-aggressive, and generally jerky to pedestrians. There are exceptions of course. Most exceptions seem to be younger people, especially first or second generation Londoners from immigrant families. Our tour guide at St. Paul’s was super nice, too.

Anyway, we learned that the Royal family appears in a balcony on the front of the Palace. Our location wasn’t great for seeing the Royal family, but I could see them pretty well. It was easiest to see The Queen and pick out William and Kate from where I was. Once I moved later I could pick out Prince Charles and Camilla. There were other folks there, but harder to identify. I had no idea that we were going to see the Royal family and I was actually more excited about it than I would have expected.

By the time the Royal Family appeared and the flyover started the area was totally packed. We did have great views of the flyover, at least 100 planes for all different types from the RAF to celebrate The centennial. It was awesome.

It took quite a while to get out of the mob. We headed toward Piccadilly and happened upon a courtyard filled with folks serving different types of food. We got Jamaican and Vietnamese food. It was all delicious and about 6-7 pounds per meal.

From there we went to the British Museum. We only had about an hour and half, which is not even close to enough time to explore. It is the largest museum I have ever visited. The collections are amazing. We saw the Rosetta Stone, which was awesome. We all separated and explored on our own for a little bit. The Assyrian exhibit was so fabulous. The Egyptian exhibit was so extensive. We saw the Parthenon pieces and column/statue that Greece has been requesting since the 1980’s. There was so, so much more I wish I would have had time to see. Basically all civilizations have something there. It’s crazy. 

We took the tube to the Shard. It has the highest viewing area of London open to tourists. We went to the 72nd floor and enjoyed the views. We really could see quite far. I saw the roofs of Wimbledon. It is very pricey to visit normally, but was included with our London Pass. I don’t think it would be worth going to at full price. 

We headed toward Regent’s Park next, where Jack and Adi have relatives with a flat(?) overlooking Regent’s Park. We met them and walked through Regent’s Park to a nice little part of the town that reminded me of downtown Dunedin, with its shop-lined streets. We had a very nice visit and a delicious Indian dinner. It was so nice of their family to include ours in the evening.

The restaurant was very close to Baker St., so we made our way to 221B. There is a very interesting history to the particular address 221B Baker St. that I was glad I looked up before we came. We all took our pictures at the door and then headed back to the hostel.