ISO a Trash Can (and the Queen) in London

This past week was Bac Blanc at my highschool. The Bac (baccalaureate) is the national test that seniors take to pass high school. And Bac Blanc is their 'get ready for the real deal' practice exam. It's pretty intense -all day for several days. But while they were grueling away and stressing - in fact BECAUSE they were grueling away - I had the week off and went to London :-)

My friend from Paris, Sarah, was my travel buddy. We saw Trafalgar Square - and had some pretty great weather.


Then the National Gallery museum. Then a little shopping.


Went to Green Park and marvelled at the great idea this sign in the Tube evidenced.

80097. Remember it.

Went to the annual 21 gun salute to the queen to celebrate her accession to the throne - to which she didn't show up, but her cavalry and band did.

After this little clip, they fired off their canons in succession. Some woman caught on the wrong side of the canons gave us a nice little show of running like mad down the sidewalk to escape their aim. Once she made it to the shelter of a tree trunk she calmed down :-)

Saw Buckingham Palace. I guess the Queen was home and just watching the salute from her window.


Did some shopping on Portobello Road.


Had a little clotted cream and scones with our tea at the Orangery in Kensington palace.

On the way there we passed High Kensington St. and St. Mary's Abbot. I LOVE English architecture.

This building was across from the British Museum.


In the British Museum we saw the Rosetta Stone. Pretty Rad. It took them 25 years to decipher Hieroglyphics after getting their hands on this, inscribed around 196BC.


Our friend Olivia told us about the planned flashdance at Liverpool station scheduled for 7pm on Friday so we made it there. Everyone was supposed to pull out their ipods right at 7 and start dancing silently to their music. Problem was, everyone was so pumped up about it that they were all screaming 20 minutes before the start. And the station was so jammed with people that you couldn't budge let alone dance.


We managed to get the authorities upset, not because of misconduct, just overcrowding consequences, and they threatened to arrest all of us if we didn't leave. And that was that. But we made the news.

We got to actually dance later that night at a London institute dance which was super fun. Europeans know how to play music. And the men dance! I'll never be satisfied in America again.

Took Saturday morning to go to the temple in Lingfield - 25 miles outside of London. The lowly little train station housed one of the 5 total trash cans we saw in all of London.


It's like finding treasure! We had to keep packing around all of our trash for miles and hours before letting it loose. Evidently it's their way of lessening the bomb threats. I just didn't understand how the tube stations were so clean with NO trashcans. The Brits must be eating it or something. That might explain their bad teeth :-) which stereotype is WELL-founded, BTW. To make up for it I guess, the girls have incredible style. I loved it! So much color and individuality. As beautiful as French women are, their style is boring. All black and the same. Blah blah blah blah black.

Saw Thriller that night. It's the new musical paying tribute to Michael Jackson through all of his hit songs. Really cool. Notice that Billy Jean pose on the billboard? It was playing at the Lyric Theatre.


Denise, are you reading this? - not at work I hope ;) My first exposure to Michael Jackson came when I was about 8 sitting in the Hanson's (no relation) light blue Buick station wagon. Denise and I played the tape for his Bad album over and over while we waited for Arlene to run some errands. Come to think of it, I think my first exposure to Paula Abdul came from their tape they had for her Opposites Attract album. Good times in that Buick.

I bet some good times are had with this little wagon too. We saw it just outside of the church building on Sunday :-)


People were actually buying ice cream. Sunny and beautiful as the day was, it didn't warrant ice in the belly.

The church building is located in a fab place - Exhibition Road in Kensington. It's nestled amidst all these really expensive apartment buildings and across from the gorgeous Natural History Museum and Imperial College.


I'm not going to lie. It felt really comforting to go to church and actually understand what's being said for the full 3 hours. To cap off the Mormon element to this entry. I'd just like to display a little sign we passed endlessly in the Tube stations as we went up the escalators - hence the blurr.


I had no idea there was a "Jimmy" Osmond. Nor do I think that he deserves the title of "Teen Angel" - which role he's playing currently in the London production of Grease. Eeek!