On Guy Fawkes Day…

…we stood outside of Parliament. We wanted to get in, but of course (as NOT stated on their website) they were closed. For those of you who don’t know, Guy Fawkes day is a really important holiday to the Brits—it’s the anniversary of the day that Guy Fawkes (a Roman Catholic, incidentally) tried to blow up Parliament. He was caught, of course, because Parliament is still there :) Now, every year on November 5 everyone celebrates with bonfires and fireworks. Being in London all day (and almost all night!) we missed the fireworks…but some of our neighbors had some during the week in Canterbury, so it was ok :P This year was the 405th anniversary (if you were curious!)

We got some pretty cool pictures of Parliament and Big Ben…that is, until it started raining. So then we trudged over to see the Churchill museum and the Secret War Rooms in Whitehall across the street:

The war rooms were really cool—being filled with artifacts from the period, as well as the furniture being left in the exact arrangement as it was during the war. We saw Churchill’s rooms, and his officer’s rooms, and important meeting rooms and map rooms—totally worth the 12 GBPs it cost to get in :) There was a cafe smack dab in the middle of the museum…I guess they anticipate people getting hungry halfway through. So Mary and I splurged and got cream tea with our lunch (I had vegetable quiche, and she had Butternut Squash soup).

Cream Tea is my one weakness :P (Lark Rise to Candleford reference, in case you didn’t get it)

In case you didn’t know what cream tea is either, it’s tea, served with a scone, jam, and this butter thing (I think the correct term for it is Devon Cream, but its a cross between whipped cream and butter—probably either a light butter or a heavy whipped cream… very tasty on scones though!)

After we finished the museums, we strolled around in Trafalgar Square:

…and then took the Tube to Baker Street :P

Very touristy, very cool… they let us take pictures with the hats and pipes… plus, we got to see TONS of artifacts from all the stories: Holmes’ makeup kit, the head of the Hound of the Baskervilles, Dr. Watson’s doctor bag, the Turkish slipper that Holmes kept his tobacco in… like I said, very cool! It was 6 GBPs to get in, but in my opinion, totally worth it! We spent some time in the cute giftshop as well ;)

Next, we went to the British library to see the Magna Carta, an original music score from Handel’s Messiah, Piers Plowman, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, and other cool stuff… no pictures allowed though…

After stopping briefly at platform 9 3/4 in King’s Cross station =) we tramped over the the Victoria and Albert Museum (passing by Buckingham Palace, of course). Keep in mind, this was already 7pm… so much of the museum was closed even though they advertised later hours on Fridays… whatever, we’re going back :)

Here’s some cool stuff that we found:

Can’t escape those Americans, now can you?

Seeing as how I’m supposed to be writing a paper this weekend while it’s so nice and quiet around here, I’ll leave you with that :)

Cheers!

~Laura

P.S. All that glitters is not gold... some of it is silver ;)