Visiting the U.K. – Part 7

We went by Buckingham Palace, which had most of the statues out front totally blocked off with the big white fencing.

But the flag was up, which I’ve always heard means that the Queen is inside.

We came by just in time to see the end parts of the changing of the guard, so that was kind of cool.

I did take a picture of the guards but it was from a bit of a distance so it’s not that great. As far as the statues being covered up, that was kind of a bummer.

When I got  home,  I was told they were probably preparing for the Royal Wedding, which I hadn’t heard anything about at that time. I wasn’t really following Prince William’s love life.

Instead, I had just assumed they were renovating and cleaning things up around the city in preparation for the Olympics, which I’d heard were to be hosted there next.

I took a pretty cool picture of my brother in front of Buckingham Palace too:

It’s a little dark, but I left it that way because I liked how the sun looked and how the light fell on his hat and face. It may not be the most artistic photo, but I like it.

We found the American Embassy! And so we took pictures. Oh! That reminds me…Eisenhower is out in front of the American Embassy, but Lincoln was overlooking the Parliament Square. It seemed really odd to me, seeing as Lincoln is an American figure, but he’s represented on England’s Parliament street. Lincoln was president during the Civil War…which I couldn’t connect back to England. I’ll have to find out why he’s there.

 So, what I found out about this was that the statue of Lincoln is a replica of one in Chicago. It was unveiled in London in 1920. Why?

I’ve still no idea. I don’t know what significance it holds, if any. It could be on Parliament Street for no other reason than because it was given as a gift and that’s where they dropped it down.

Because what I’ve managed to discover so far is that the statue was a donation by something called the “British Committee” which could very well be any committee in England, so far as I know.

At least the Lincoln monument that we saw in Scotland had an inscription, stating that it was there as a memorial to all the Scottish-Americans that had died in war.

We also saw…what? Ah, the Westminster Abbey – which charged a RIDICULOUS price to get in! I didn’t have enough cash on me, so we settled for pictures of the outside. [I'll add a gallery at the end. We also saw St. Paul's Cathedral which I kept mistaking for the Westminster Abbey in my picture - it took a while after being home to realize they were pictures of a different place.]

Eventually, we started our painful journey to Regent’s Park, where we hoped to get into Madame Tussaud’s Wax Museum before it closed. We didn’t reach there til probably 4PM but we got to go in and see everything. Making it there, however, was nearly unbearable.

My face had gone numb by then, so the cold wasn’t bothering me anymore, but my feet were killing me. My right leg felt like it might just snap off like a Barbie Doll’s and my groin further up on that side actually felt like the muscles were failing me. My toenails felt like they must be bleeding but, of course, they weren’t.

I think I’ll include the Madame Tussaud’s visit in the next post so I can add some photos – all of which are stored on my drive at home (where I’m currently not.)

But in the meantime, here’s a gallery to show you a few of the photos from the day’s events [I have more at home that I might add later]: