Changing of the Guard, National History Museum, and Hyde Park

Sorry for the late post. I've been working on planning a trip to Normandy and it's been a nightmare. Flights to nearby cities, flights to Paris and then a train, trains from London to the city; it's all been a giant mess. Now I'm gonna try to take a ferry but with my available time after class it's really hard to plan out when I can take the train.

This particular Sunday was a long day.

It was the first morning we had off since classes had started, and a small group of my flatmates and I decided to go to the Changing of the Guard ceremony in front of Buckingham Palace. Since it occurs at 11:30 A.M., we had never previously had a chance to witness this, so we made plans the previous night to get a proper English breakfast, take the tube, and arrive early for a good spot.

Of course, plans never work out. We left late, to the point where we decided just to eat breakfast at the first place we saw. Being a Sunday, many typical places were closed, and when we finally got to a place, the service took such a long time that we were still behind. In fact, after taking a hurried and haphazard metro route to the palace, we were there minutes before it begun. Yet we had already lost the valuable advantage of arriving early.

Note: I'm still having camera issues so these are still not my pictures, but are meant to convey how the actual ceremony looks.

Crowds thronged every inch of the entrance. People pressed against the gates and along the barricades setup to clear a path for the soldiers. People were on the pedestal of the fountains, climbing some of the smaller statutes to get a better look.

It was pandemonium.

While jostling for a place, the old, tired guard assembled out of sight on the far side of the courtyard. It proved impossible to get a good spot, but we settled at the back of the crowd, close to the main gate as we heard the faint "thump" of a bass drum on the distance. As it drew nearer, one could see the black hats appearing over the heads of the crowd. Finally they rounded the fountain.

Two groups of soldiers, dressed in their red tunics and black pants with their bearskin hats, marched through the clearing. The first was a small marching band, led by the drum major.

Behind them, a decorated soldier wielded a sword in front of about forty soldiers, holding SA80 assault rifles fixed with bayonets, as they silently marched step in step, the sound of their boots crunching in harmony upon the gravel below.

As they entered the courtyard, the soldiers faced their comrades on the other side of the courtyard. As the band played a tune behind them, they slowly marched into a closer position. Apparently the tune the band plays is different for each particular regiment. The officers, one from the old and one from the new, met each other in the middle while still brandishing their swords, and then began to change the guard.

A small group of soldiers accompanies each officer and replacement as they move to the guardhouse.

As they marched around each guardhouse, checking it and replacing the old guard with the new one, the band played in the middle, while two guards carrying their regiments flag patrolled the grounds.

After the guards were changed and the music over, the old regiment headed home, while the new one headed to their barracks. It was a pretty impressive spectacle, but the old guard was not actually the traditional British Grenadiers. It was something with a dark uniform, definitely not the standard uniform. Sometimes special honors are given to foreign troops, to guard Buckingham and participate in the ceremony. But I haven't been able to find out which troops these were yet, but I believe they from the Queen's Color Squadron, a regiment with ceremonial duties from the Royal Air Force.

Fun note: The Queen's Guard is made up of forces from five sections: the Grenadier Guards, Coldstream Guards, Irish Guards, Welsh Guards, and Scot Guards. One can tell where they came from by their arrangement of buttons on their tunics and other small details. For example, equally spaced buttons indicates Grenadier Guards, while buttons in groups of 5 indicates the Welsh Guard.

This is an official video about the Changing of the Guard. It has some interesting information as well as some good footage.

The other members of my flat, being shorter girls who couldn't see a thing, had long since abandoned the Palace before the event was over. So, being on my own, in a new corner of town with time to kill, I decided to strike out and visit the Museum of Natural History.

As I left the area, I passed around several monuments decorating the interior of a gigantic roundabout. The most imposing building here was the Wellington Monument.

It commemorated the Duke of Wellington,the British Commander who fought against Napoleon, and ultimately defeated him in Waterloo. Nelson and Wellington pretty much make up the two biggest war heroes to the British, and both fought against Napoleon. It also apparently functions as a vent for the London Underground, which is kind of neat. It even holds a tiny police station inside of it.

Continuing on, it became clear I was entering a very high-class section of town. The hotels were lavish, and super cars passed you every minute. Aston Martins, Rolls Royce and Bentleys were as common as Mercedes.   There was even a Ferrari dealership along the street. I assume that because of it's proximity to the Palace, this area was filled with rich people. After getting a quick lunch, I finally found the Natural History Museum.

Entering the Museum immediately took you face to face with the skeleton of a brontosaurus.

 After looking at some other fossils, I decided to head into one of the wings. Unfortunately the Dinosaur section was under construction so it was closed, which was a bummer. So instead I entered was on humans. It had a delightfully informational interactive exhibits about human development and biological processes. It covered about half of what I learned in Bio 1, and I managed to use this knowledge to impress nearby tourists by successfully answering several trivia questions.

The next section looked at some of the larger mammals and animals in the world. One noteworthy exhibit was the sea mammal section. A large model of a Blue Whale hung in the middle of the room while other whales swam around them.

It was very interesting, but unfortunately it was all on things I already knew. After correcting a mother that the dolphins were in fact, not sharks, I headed toward another animal exhibit. After going through a insect room, I found myself in a room with stuffed birds. Some really neat species were here, including several extinct species like the Dodo bird.

The next room was the entrance to a mineral room, which, getting a bit tired, I went quickly through,before leaving the building.

Nearby was Hyde Park, so I decided to walk through that before taking a bus home. As I walked towards the park, I passed a building that still had scars from the bombing runs in World War 2. Arriving in the park completely drove any thoughts of war out of my mind though.

Hyde Park was massive. I had thought that Regents Park was big, but this was even larger. I was too exhausted to explore every corner, and decided just to meander towards the bus route and look at it better later on.

The first thing I saw was a giant monument to Prince Albert, the husband of Queen Victoria, the longest living British monarch ever. His death devastated her so much she only wore black in public ever again.

The park itself was decorated with short grass, periodically sprinkled with small white flowers. The middle of the park was cut by the Serpentine, a large lake that gave access to some boating.

 On one corner was a memorial fountain to Princess Diana. Unlike a traditional fountain, it was a long ribbon cut into a rough circle like shape, filled with shallow water, allowing small children to play in it.

Walking past a nearby restaurant, one could hear the thumps of the bass from a nearby concert.

Near the end of the park was a couple of statues and memorials. One was to the victims of the London Bombings, who died in 2005 due to terrorist attacks.

Each beam represents a victim that was killed in the bombings.

 Another statue was also dedicated to the Duke of Wellington. A giant statue of Achilles stood atop a pedestal, smelted from the cannons captured from the French after the Battle of Waterloo.

By now I had had a long day, and took a bus back to my dorm, and finished a couple of things to get ready for the coming week of class.

By the way, we are going on a trip to Cornwall, leaving tomorrow morning and coming back late Sunday. Internet connection might be spare but I'll try to write in on the bus.