Friday, May 20, 2011

Day 12

Up and early…rise and shine. The sun hurt my eyes. I didn’t want to get up at all, but I had to. We went to Cambridge and it was very nice and peaceful. The markets sold everything from clothes to food. It was like an old fashion market with high prices for everything. I have beautiful footage and the history behind the beginning of these colleges. There were many famous people that we all have heard of or learned of that studied there. The scenery was grand and I would love to check it out again. For this even, I am sorry but the footage is the best. The architects of the buildings were fantastic. I felt that I stepped back in time and experienced a whole new adventure. The only problems that I felt were all the bikes that people were riding around. These bikes I mean are the ones you peddle yourself. Just think if we Americans did that more often???????? Things that make you say HUMMMM

DAY 11

We started the day dressed in our very best. We were on our way to Buckingham Palace and were just right with the lighting and the crowds were getting larger by the moment. As we were walking up they open the front gates and let us walk all the way up to the front of the Palace. We were able to watch the changing of the guards from inside the gate. It was wonderful. There are so many different guards that are involved which are: The Grenadier Guards, The Coldstream Guards, The Scots Guards, The Irish and Welsh Guards. There are many ways to tell the difference but you would really have to know what to look for. For instance, the buttons if they are single space or in certain rows. If there are certain kinds of particular badges on their collars, shoulder badges and most of all the Plumes that are in their Bearskin Cap. The other interesting thing I learned was that all of these guards are military. They have all done something and have been a part of some kind of war. It was a great honor to be and see this.

Now I know the last I left you with was with the Jack the Ripper tour…….. Well, all I can say right now was that I have some pictures and well the history of the story is great. Our tour guide was great as well, but there is so much to learn and of course we may never learn it all. There are too many theories out there and well it is pretty much up to you to find out what you believe. The cool thing is that there were still some of the old buildings that still exist today and that helped with the adventure.

Later that afternoon, we were able to see the New Scotland Yard, of course no photography or video, except on certain conditions. I was pretty excited to take a picture with the Olympic Vancouver torch from 2010. I loved that. I also learned a lot about what they do there or what you can say, what they have to do to plan certain events. The biggest event was their Nottinghill Carnival. This carnival is a four day event and just crazy. They talk about how many police officers they have to use and it is a crazy amount of around 5,000 officers and more. I think of Sturgis and that is nothing to what Sturgis deals with. The thing that floors me the most is that these officers while doing this are still unarmed and pretty much use their own force to try to keep control. CRAZY!!!!!