Jenny and I knew we only had two options: go to class or be the only ones on the trip to see the changing of the guards at Buckingham Palace...again...guess which one we chose?
We knew with our few remaining days in London that the only time we had to see the changing of the guard was today: the last Friday of the trip. All of the rest of our gang had already reconciled the fact that they wouldn't get to see the guards change. Not Jenny and I. We figured we had the time and we were going to seize our final opportunity. We ate breakfast quickly and then took the train to Kensington Palace.
We took pictures of the outside of Princess Diana's old home and walked to the Princess Diana memorial playground in the adjacent park.
Before we knew it, we were going to be late to the changing of the guard. But the subway station nearest to us was closed due to the flooding amounts of rain last night, so we jumped into a cab without realizing there was massive construction and traffic. We eventually had the cab turn around and ended up backtracking to an even further away tube station. This station was open, so we hurried underground as quick as we could. We exited at Green Park and started walking through Hyde Park. We were both convinced we had missed the changing since we were 9 minutes late at this point. We slowed our pace and even stopped to take pictures with a dog in the park.
All of a sudden, in the distance, I saw a bunch of people…in RED.
"OH MY GOD! I SEE RED JENNY!!! They haven't finished yet! Run, Jenny, RUN!!!" I yelled.
I grabbed her hand in my hand, and we started running as fast as we could. By the time we got to Buckingham, the changing of the guards was in full swing and we could see everything!
We got lost in a crowd of people but soon found one another: satisfied and triumphant that we had made it!
Once the ceremony had ended and the crowd diminished, we had to choose our next course of action. We knew at this point that we would already be missing class, so we decided to head to another famous London attraction:
Harrods.
We walked through a very posh neighborhood, Kensington, to get there.
Harrods ended up being this gorgeous building that was sort of a couture, self contained, ridiculous mini-mall. Rooms were very extravagant: The Egyptian columns throughout or the Crystal room: where even the walls were crystal. Jenny and I decided that, though we didn't want to pay the £21 price a piece for a glass of champaign, we did want to toast to the occasion. So we did so over two glasses of chardonnay in the restaurant on the top floor of Harrods.
Jenny and I left our Absolutely Fabulous destination and rejoined the group at Westminster Abbey for the official tour. So many famous people are buried there, including Elisabeth I. We left there and ended the night attending a Baroque concert. I was so tired by the time the day was done that I just went back to the hotel to work on school work and rest. Overall, it was a great day. We did miss class to do all of that, but I wouldn't trade our experiences for anything.
