Whew! The last full day was a Friday and we had a walking tour to see the Changing of the Guard. We jumped on the Underground to meet the group at Piccadilly Circus and took a few pictures at the fountain.
Can I say I’m an awesome photographer?
Look at that! Beautiful photo, fountain behind it. Totally focused…
Ahh well.. haha
It started raining on us and we got to hear the history of what happens with the guards if they need to do a “wet change”. We were up for an adventure and moving quick!
It was a nice walk. We got to head down Pall Mall – which was SO COOL, I have read about that street SO MANY TIMES in books.
We got to see some of the fancy clubs.
Then we wandered over to St. James’s palace. We could see some of the guards getting ready past the doors. We heard about the history – I totally forget it now! But it was cool.
Right as the band came out, we darted down the street for a better view! This walking tour was ON the ball and knew what they were doing.
We got a great view of the band marching down the street and the guards behind them. I guess I forgot to get a good picture of the guards as we started walking quickly down the road with them. But I got the band!
We then went over to the military / guard thingy… She knew exactly which guards were which with the uniforms. These were some type of special… traveling ones maybe? I’ve already forgotten.
But then we were on the move again to Buckingham Palace.
We pushed our way through the crowd to a better vantage point which had great photos. We could hear some of the band playing periodically and at that point, we could do what we wanted. We got some great tips on if we wanted to push our way through the crowd, go back to St. James Palace to see the new guards come in, etc.
We declined as we had seen enough. But we got some great photos!
We decided to go back to the hotel… I think we grabbed something. I can’t remember but we wanted to go to Notting Hill to go shopping and have lunch. Dad needed coffee.
He had his map, I had mine…
His worked better, just for the record. I really didn’t have great service anywhere.
This picture was actually taken when we were heading on our way home but it was Paddington Station! HUGE station and so fun to walk through. We found this lady who was lost and going to our section so she spoke up, and then the lady next to HER said she was going that way and we just had to follow her.
THANK GOODNESS we did, we walked so fast, we never would have figured that out. It would have been Uber to the rescue…
But first we went to Notting Hill.
We won’t talk about the restaurant we went for lunch. Le sigh. Dad and I were both cranky and we both agreed that if we were alone, we both would have kept walking but we just went to this weird place anyway. It had fish and chips so it worked. And coffee.
But we headed up the street to Portobello Road Market and did some shopping!
My photo of Cindy & Dad is still better… Just saying.
I got a cute little EUR 15 ring, a painted London scene for my desk, and… I think that’s it. We picked up shirts a few days before so we were good on those.
I wasn’t too big on shopping, I’m not a big shopper. So after we walked through we did our Underground adventure following the super nice lady.
Cindy and I decided we wanted to go see the Diana memorial while Dad went back to take a nap.
We hopped off early – a little too early – and ended up doing a 4-mile walk which was super needed and awesome.
It was still raining but we could see blue sky so we knew it was ending soon!
I am so bundled up. The amount of layers I had on was crazy. I was very comfy though!
We finally found the entrance to Kensington Gardens. I think that was the Prince Albert memorial in the background. We didn’t walk over there, we just snapped a photo.
Cindy’s eyes are SO pretty in this photo!
We found Kensington Palace! This was Queen Victoria guarding the palace.
We had a nice couple snap our photo. There were long lines in front of it and it was kinddddd of tempting to think about walking in but nope! We just wandered around the back to find the Diana Memorial.
We found it! It probably would have been more impactful if we started from the front. But oh well. Also, it was getting hot after our fast walking. Thank goodness for layers!
We couldn’t remember why there was a little girl with the two boys but I looked it up later and the three children were unrelated to her. Just to show her commitment to children.
It really was lovely.
The whole pond and garden was a treat.
Both Cindy and I love catching up on all the royalty news and were happy we got a chance to visit.
We went back to walking and wanted to transition over to Hyde Park – which was basically connected – and find the Diana Water Fountain memorial.
I got a cute video, I’ll have to come back and upload it when I organize all my videos.
We headed back to the hotel where Cindy took a nap and I relaxed a bit and ended up getting room service for dinner. It was super yummy. I asked for club soda with lime and the bartender had this homemade limeade that he made. Sooo good!
So we had plans to see Nicole in Sunset Blvd. It was amazing.
The while audience was in love with Nicole and deservedly so. She just killed her two solos. The first one was “With One Look” and the audience literally clapped for at least two minutes. She was so amazing.
The whole production was really cool. They had a live camera projecting to a screen behind them that did closeups of their face. I was thinking some of it had to be pre- filmed but it was live. So cool.
We headed home after and I said goodbye.
The next morning I got up around 7 and then headed to the airport. It’s really odd the gate doesn’t get assigned until an hour before the flight leaves and you aren’t really sure if you will have to scramble to a different terminal. But it all worked out.
The plane ride was a bit difficult with 7 hours with only peanuts, I was a little sad and hangry getting out at JFK. Even though I only had a carry-on I’m determined to hate immigration in the US. Or, should I love it because it’s so much more strict?
We literally WALKED through, holding our passports down on a screen at Heathrow and sailed in. At JFK, it must have scanned my face as I walked up and before I even HANDED him my passport, he said, “Kristina?”. Dude. What is SCANNING MY FACE as I walk through the airport?
Also. Super cool for spies though.
But it was an amazing trip. I had so much fun! Already planning the next one!!
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