Second 2 days in London

Update!

Sorry for the incomplete entry before now...The internet at the cafe I was writing at, decided to disconnect right when I saved the entire entry...so here is the rest of it:

Happy 80th Birthday Madam!

Hello again!

This is Jen speaking...the second two days of our trip to London were a jam packed with fun stuff.  The evening before we went to a showing of Avenue Q in the west end of London.  The show was still in previews so the tickets were cheap.  Our seats were all the way in the back and the girl sitting in front of us had ADD, but the good news was, the cast was mainly made up of the orginal cast from broadway! The show was excellent, and it was great to see for the first time.

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The next day Jessie and I went down to Westminster Abbey, which is Jessie's favorite place in London.  The church is huge and there are tons of tombs and statues everywhere.  It was very beautiful and we followed Rick Steve's walk around the place to give us some more info about the different tombs.  This was both of our favorite sites so far.  We had then planned to go to the Churchill museum, but on our way we saw a huge crowd outside the horse gardens. We follwed the people, and we found out that it was a celebration for the Queen's birthday. We walked around the park for about 20 minutes before settling into some good second row seats where we were told there would be a parade and the queen would drive by.  In front of us the street was lined with school girls who clapped and cheered as soldiers rode by.  We were able to see all the horse guards and the royal marching band on their way to buckingham palace, and finally the queen drove by in her carriage.  She waved and was beatiful in a purple outfit.  After the parade, we booked it down to buckingham palace with the rest of the crowds to see fighter planes fly over the palace for the queen to view.  She came out again and stood on her balcony as planes flew around the palace in groups of 2-9.  The final planes blew a streak of red white and blue smoke through the air as they passed.  The entire park was filled with people and eveyone cheered after the planes flew by.  Finally after the show, the queen went back in, and the guards proceeded with the changing of the guards.  Jessie and I got front row seats right in front of the marching band.  Let me just say, this band had some really great musicians, but in terms of their marching they were not the best band in the land.  Compared to the other soldiers who were wearing the same red and black uniforms, they were slow, fat, and sloppy.  They didn't stay at attention and they moved constantly!  They didn't even march everywhere they went, sometimes they just walked around!  But other than that they played beautifully, more like a concert band.  And there were saxophones! All in all, it was quite a treat to be able to see the Queen on our short trip, and we had a blast walking the entirty of St. James park in under 2 hours.

After that it was only around 2pm so we decided to head over to the British museum. At this point we were both exhausted and I was sunburned so we weren't very happy campers.  We did manage to make it through the highlights of the museum though.  We saw Cleopatra's mummy, the rosetta stone, a mummy with skin that was preserved in the desert, and the Elgin marbles from the Parthenon among others.  When Grandma first told me to see the marbles I thought she meant toy marbles to play with, but it was only after I had seen the actual marbles that I realized that is what she was talking about!  Boy, did I feel silly!

After that we took a nice long nap and went down to the Tate Modern after dinner since they were open late.  We got to wander around with very few crowds and see all the strange and interesting art they have in the museum.  My favorite was the famous can of poop that I read so much about in my art management class.  It looks just like a regular can!

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Because they are closing in ten minutes...we will add some pictures and have to update everyone on the last day of london, and our stays in Milan and Venice at a future time. Hopefully the farm we are going to tommorrow with have internet access or something nearby.  Other than that Milan was fun, and Venice was GORGEOUS!  It is soooo beautiful and we met up with one of Jessie's friend's family tonight, and we had a wonderful evening.  Tomorrow off to the farm and onto the working part of our trip.  Jessie bought a phone for us that recieves calls from the U.S. for free, althought it's probably pretty expensive for the person calling.  But if you'd like the number here it is:

(+39) 335.168.5826

Yay!