LONDON | Touring the U.K. 2019

Friday, September 13th, 2019

LOCATION: London

ITINERARY:

JOURNAL ENTRY:
Got up at 8:30am so we could see the CHanging of the Guard at Buckingham Palace. Got there around 10:15am to find a spot for the 11:00am performance. Worked our way to the center gate, about 3 rows back.

As we were waiting, a policeman shouted to Phil, "the man in the red shirt with the girlie backpack needs to have his pack in front". We had our clear backpack from our Pokemon Go event in Chicago. What goofy English humor. [He was warning people constantly about pick pockets taking advantage of the large crowd. And it's NOT a girlie backpack.]

Watched the ceremony, but got bored after 15 minutes(the show lasted 45 minutes), so we left to get tickets for the State Rooms tour at Buckingham Palace. Phil bought a guidebook. Walked down the street to enjoy a fancy lunch at "The Rubens" hotel dining room. [A proper English meal.]

Barb had Chicken Kiev and Phil had Calves Liver. [I'd not had liver since Mom made it way back when.] Before the main course, they brought out veggies and dip. They also brought out various types of bread and crackers with plain and onion flavored butter. After the main course, they brought out four truffles. [A treat for us since we didn't want dessert.]

Doubled back to the palace to take our audio guided tour. Barb enjoyed it a lot. [I thought it was curious to have a room full of people all wired for sound and being very quiet. I think the on-site staff encouraged questions to try and ease the boredom.]

After the palace, we went to see the Churchill War Rooms. It was also an audio guided tour. Barb enjoyed that one too. [I enjoyed both tours. But liked the War Room tour better because the whole operation was much broader and involved over 500 people at one point. A very interesting tour with a ton of information. You'd need a whole day just to get through it and you'd still forget much of what you saw. So I took a lot of pictures.]

Rested our feet for a while, then walked to the "Two Chairman" pub for dinner. Lots of oung people hanging outside the front door talking and drinking. Found a seat inside and ordered "Fish with Mushy Peas", "Mushroom Wings with BBQ Sauce", Camden Pale Ale, Ginger Beer and a Chicken/Mushroom Pie. All was very tasty.

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