Parliament, Westminster Abbey, and the Theatre, of course!

Saturday's planned activities included guided tours of both houses of Parliament and Westminster Abbey! These (and most of our tours) are lead by Blue Badge Guides. These people are amazing! They can walk around and talk about these various places like they lived it all! One of the guides that did groups for both of today's tours had was also one of our guides for yesterdays trip to Bath and Stonehenge. The Blue Badge is to tour guides as the CPA is to an accountant. They spend nearly two years studying and training to get their badge. They are just amazing!

Parliament was amazing! Did you know that it was built along the river so that angry mobs could never surround them? For the tour, we followed the route that the Queen takes when she appears to open Parliament, starting in the Robing room. This is where she gets dressed for the ceremony and is the only room in Parliament that doesn't have cameras! From there, she proceeds through the Royal Galley. This is the room that is often used to greet heads of state. The last one to visit was French President, Nicolas Sarkozy. What is funny about this is is that on either side of the long walls in the Royal Gallery there are two huge painting. One is the Battle of Waterloo and the other the Battle of Trafalgar. In both cases, the British defeated the French. I wonder if he noticed!

The walked through the House of Lords, which is a little over the top with all the gold trimmings. This is where the Queen sits (with her husband sitting next to her on a chair that is 1 inch shorter) to give her speech, opening Parliament. From her seat, you can see right through the chambers, through the Central Lobby and in the House of Commons. The Queen has never been in the House of Commons; she is not allowed past the House of Lords. The word lobbying, we were told, comes from the fact that commoners are permitted to come to the Central Lobby and talk to their MP (Member of Parliament). If the member is in, they will come down to talk. Talking to your member, stating your interests, in the Central Lobby was called Lobbying!

They don't allow photographs inside, so this is the hallway off of Westminster Hall, which by the way, is currently undergoing preparations for President Obama's visit at the end of the month!



















Westminster Abbey was simply glorious! I found it interesting that there are little statues that have been added above the doorway, including one of Martin Luther King with a child at his feet. Within the Abbey, there are some people buried there and many more memorialized there, including FSU's own Paul Dirac! It has been said that if he had more social skills (they now believe that he was probably on the high-functioning end of the autism spectrum), he would likely have been more famous than Einstein as he is credited with laying the foundation for the microchip! My favorite statue was of William Wilberforce as he just had a wonderful smirk on his face!

The Abbey has been the site of all the coronations since 1066! Also, it is the site of some notable weddings, the most recent being of the the William and Catherine (as she is being "re-branded"). The guide pointed out that these wedding weren't always so elaborate, because before television coverage, it didn't much matter.

After all that, I was exhausted, but after a rest, couldn't let an evening be lost. So I decided to wander out and ended up at the theatre (surprise, surprise!). I saw "Blood Brothers" which was very sad, but really good. I could particularly relate to the final song, "Tell Me It's Not True."