Pomp and Circumstance

Nobody does it quite like the British...they love their official ceremonies and pageants. 

Today, the Queen's birthday was officially celebrated with the Trooping of the Colour.  This ceremony has taken place since 1748, and consists of a parade with the Queen carried in a Royal Carriage to the Horse Guards Parade.  She is met there by her official troops (the Horse Guards in red jackets and big black hats) and the Household Cavalry.  It is quite a spectacle because in formation within the Horse Guards Parade are over 1400 officers and men, along with 200 horses and 400 musicians from 10 different bands and corps of drums play as one.  At precisely 11am, the Queen takes the Royale Salute and watches the Trooping of the Colour, which is a custom wherein the flag (or colour) is paraded down the ranks of officers and past the Queen and Royal family. 

As I stated, this ceremony has taken place since 1748 to mark the "official" celebration of the Soverign.  What's very funny about this is that the Queen's actual birthday is on April 21st.  However, King Edward VII (who reigned from 1901-1910) decided that he wanted to have the Soverign's birthday "officially" celebrated on either the 1st, 2nd or 3rd Saturday in June in order to have a chance at better weather (I'm not kidding).  Since then, it has always taken place in June rather than on the actual day of the Soverign's birthday.

Unfortunately, we didn't make it to the Horse Guards Parade to watch this ceremony in person, but rather watched it on the "telly".  If any of you are interested in seeing what it looks like, the BBC has a really nice 2 min condensed video of it (seeing that the whole ceremony lasts about an hour).  Just go to http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-13737041 to watch. 

 

Paris, Versailles and a flat tire

Darrel and I just got back home from Paris.  We took the train there on Friday to meet up with our friends Bill and Eugene from Toronto, who were there to celebrate Eugene's birthday. 

Dan, Darrel, Eugene and Bill

 


The Seine at night...a little blurry
(I tried to take it without the flash)







Dinner at Chez Julien

 On Saturday, we all went to Versailles and took a tour of the Palace.  Bill had arranged for us to be picked up at our hotel and be driven out to Versailles, which is about 30mins outside of Paris.  As Darrel says....you can really see why there was a revolution in France because the Palace was so opulent.  The pictures really don't do it justice..

Courtyard in front of the Palace

Palace from the back

  

Let them eat cake

Us with the Fountain Gardens in background...the fountains did turn on eventually,
but we we're in the Palace at the time

The Chapel in the Palace

Entering the Hall of Mirrors (this is where the King would
meet his guests and do his best to intimidate them)

The King's Chair in the Hall of Mirrors

The back of the King's Chair

Now, about that flat tire...

Our tour guide Thomas was driving down the Champs Elysees on his way to our hotel, and had spotted 2 20-something muscle boys trying to cross the street.  Like every forward, aggressive and self-respecting Frenchman he proceeded to pull up next to them (they were in the median in the middle of the road...see the picture below), wave at them and give them some choice words in french (no, none of us understood what he said...but probably got the jest of it).  Now, instead of stopping the van while all of this going on...he instead watches the 2 boys rather than the road, and proceeds to run over the median....first with the front tire, and then the rear tire.  After the jarring we had in the van, we could hear the hissing of the air escaping from the tire.  Luckily for Thomas...only 1 of the tires were blown and not more damage.  Unlucky for us...we had to walk back to our hotel and had a really good laugh. 

We're just bummed that I didn't get a picture of Thomas, the van with the blown tire on the side of the road, nor the 2 muscle boys.

For those of you who have never been to Paris, I found a picture on the web of the Champs Elysees. 
In the foreground, is an example of one of the medians that Thomas ran over.

Olympic Tickets pt 2

WooHoo...I just checked our bank account and see that they have deducted the funds for about a third of the tickets I applied for.  We still don't know which events we got tickets to, but I'm very happy that we at least got some.  We now have to wait about 3 weeks to find out which events we will be seeing, and a little over a year for the Olympics themselves. 

More info to come...

Return trip to Oxford

This past weekend, Darrel and I went out to Oxford to visit Michael.  He and his partner Greg are leaving Oxford in a couple of weeks, and we wanted to get out there once more before they left (especially seeing that Darrel wasn't able to go out there with me a couple of weeks ago).  It is a very easy train ride from us (it took just a little over an hour), and we were happy that we were able to get out there before they left.  Once we arrived, we went to the top of the bell tower of the Old Cathedral and I took the pictures below.



Darrel and Michael at the top of the tower



Me with the Radcliffe Camera (on left) and
All Souls College (on right) in the background

The Radcliffe Camera

All Souls College

View of Oxford High Street





Shakespeare's Globe Theatre



Shakespeare's Globe Theatre

Last week (I know, I've been really terrible at writing in this blog lately...I'm going to try and be better at writing, I promise), we were able to go see AS YOU LIKE IT at Shakespeare's Globe Theatre.  It was Darrel's first time seeing a Shakespeare play, and he and I both thoroughly enjoyed it.  The Globe was originally built in 1599, and it was a little overwhelming to think that plays were being performed there over 400 years ago.  Well, the Theatre that we were in is actually a reconstruction because the original theatre was destroyed by a fire...however, it was still quite brilliant :-)

 

Enjoying a glass of wine at The Globe

 

 

Picture taken from our seats, so you can get a good sense of what the space looks like.  And yes, the people standing are not covered by a roof....luckily, the rain had pretty much stopped by the time the performance started.  









ABBAphonic at Royal Albert Hall

 Our friend Erik is a first chair violinist for the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra.  Last night, he invited us to see them perform ABBAphonic at the Royal Albert Hall.  The performance was really good, and the hall was brilliant!  The picture below was taken from our seats.  The hall was built in 1871, and the best part about it is that it is a 5 minute walk from our flat.  We had a really fun evening.

Getting Settled

We were able to move into our flat last week.  We were given the keys on Thursday, and then our shipment from the States arrived this past Tues.  It was difficult to pack and determine what things from Chicago we would need without really knowing were we were going to end up living.  Unfortunately, we think we brought way too much and wish we were better at editing ourselves.  As it stands, we are having to get very creative on where to put everything, but it does feel nice to have some things from home. 

Our new and more longterm address is:

Flat 5, 1-3 Prince of Wales Terrace

London W8 5PG

UK

+44 02 (0)7937 9350 (our UK landline)

On top of moving into our new flat, we ended up traveling to Paris last weekend.  Darrel had business meetings there on Mon, so we thought we'd go in a day or two earlier and see the city.  It was my first time in Paris, and I really enjoyed it.  We didn't really do that much, other than walk all around (I made Darrel walk 8 1/4 miles) but it was really beautiful.  Here are some of the pictures that I took... 

Arch de Triumph

L'Hôtel National des Invalides (dome on left) and Effel Tower

Darrel in front of L'Hôtel National des Invalides

The Louvre

Effel Tower