Jun 072010
 

Eric’s friend and classmate, Ian, is in London for a school project and joined us for dinner along the Thames. We needed to be across the river at 9:30pm for the Tower Keys Ceremony, and headed over at 9:00pm with a comfortable margin for the ten minute walk – then a cruise ship decided to leave port through the bridge. It was fun standing next to the Tower Bridge while it opened, and we raced up the stairs and stood by the lifted roadway as the cruise ship sailed by; the ship’s passengers even higher up waved down at us.

Tower Bridge at night, open

Tower Bridge at night, open

As fun as that was, it used up almost all of our margin time to make it to the Tower of London gate for the ceremony. The Tower Keys Ceremony is the longest continuous running ceremony in the world, having now happened every single day for over 700 years. It is a military ceremony for locking the huge gates to the London Tower each evening, and if you are lucky enough to see it, as we were, you also end up locked inside. It is near impossible to enter the grounds after that, but if you’re polite and don’t misbehave your Yeoman tour guide will let you out through a door in the gates afterwards.

Jun 082010
 

Day 3: Tuesday began with pastries, coffee and hot chocolate across the street and a walk along Hyde Park to catch the bus to Oxford. We found that some of the most elite car dealers are along Park Lane next to the park – including Pagani, an exotic machine that isn’t imported into the US, so even Eric’s sightings of the car are rare.

We rode the Oxford Tube (which contrary to its name is a bus not a subway) to the city of Oxford, enjoying the view from the second level of the bus and taking advantage of free wifi to get caught up on things at home. Once in town we had an hour to kill before our campus tour, so we visited the Covered Market and a bookstore. About the time our tour started the rain began to fall, and it continued off and on for the rest of the day.

Rainy Oxford Tour

Rainy Oxford Tour

Students in Exam Dress

Students in Exam Dress

Oxford is a beautiful campus, divided in to colleges for living and learning. Most students that we saw were in their exam uniforms – white shirts and ties with black cloaks and a carnation on the lapel designating by color how far through exams the student is.

I’m sure there is much more to the city of Oxford than we saw, but it very much had the feel of a college town to it.

Oxford Student In The Rain

Oxford student crossing his quad in the rain

 

Waiting in the Rain

Kevin and Eric, getting partial shelter from the rain during the tour

The Oxford Electric Compnay (sic)

The Oxford Electric Compnay

The Oxford Electric Compnay

Compnay (with a backwards “C”) – I might expect that as a Cockney accent, but at Oxford? Really?

Jun 082010
 
Sagging skinny jeans

Sagging skinny jeans

Most of London was wonderfully dressed, and in fact we missed some of the punk culture that we’ve seen here before. But this was something new – sagging from the US mixed with classic London skinny jeans.

Jun 092010
 

Day 4

A Nice Way To Start The Day

A Nice Way To Start The Day - Hot chocolate across the street from our apartment.

Our primary goal for Wednesday was to see Parliament in action, but that wasn’t until 3pm, so we started out with a visit to the War Museum underneath the ?? building. The museum is the underground bunker where Churchill and his Cabinet and staff ran the British effort in WWII from. Many of the rooms were locked up in 1945 after six straight years of use – they remain today in exactly the condition they were left in. Other rooms have been rebuilt based on photographs taken during the war to reflect authentically how they looked at the time. Connected to the War Museum is the Churchill Museum – a fascinating collection of photos, recordings, quotes and memorabilia of the Churchill’s life and career.  This was all a tangible reminder of why they are called the “Greatest Generation.”

Winston Churchill

A faux Churchill making a call to FDR on display in the War Museum.

Churchill Museum

A wonderful interactive timeline of Winston Churchill's life in the Churchill Museum. Sliders along the side of the projected timeline allow you to select a year, which opens to months, which open to individual days with details in them.

Trafalgar Square was the next stop, with a brief pause in front of Downing Street, where Kevin spotted Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg walking past us on his way to Parliament.  Somewhere between Downing Street, Trafalgar Square and the pub where we had lunch Sarah’s purse was slashed by someone presumably trying to steal her wallet. Luckily the purse had three internal layers and the slice only made it through the outer two, though a nick was clearly visible in the third layer. Nicked but not ‘nicked.’

St. James Lake

Overlooking the lake in St. James Park on the walk to Parliament. The London Eye and home of the Horse Guards can be seen beyond Duck Island.

We arrived at the Parliament Building around 3pm and managed to work past other people waiting in line thanks to now knowing someone on the inside. We sat in the gallery on the second floor of the House of Lords and watched the 30 minute open comment period that opens each session. Topics discussed included whether prisoners should be allowed to vote, tax treatment of low cap stock investments, and the impact of the BP Deep Water Horizon crisis on BP’s dividend. BP accounts for 14% of Pensions’ income in Great Britain, so not paying a dividend would have a huge impact on people living off their pensions.

After the House of Lords we sat above the House of Commons and listened to two first year Members of Parliament (MPs) give their maiden speeches. They were interesting, but generally focused on more local issues than what we heard in the House of Lords. Seeing Great Britain’s government in action was definitely a highlight of the trip.

Photography is not allowed inside Parliament, so we’ll have to go with this:

A Nice Way To End The Day

A Nice Way To End The Day - A pint of Guinness in a local pub.

That evening we watched Prime Minister David Cameron’s 30 minute Q&A session before the House of Commons on TV. Prime Minister’s Question Time opens the House of Commons once a week and is a spirited back and forth between the PM and MPs, with perfect British politeness and formality tempered with insults and wit. Because it is Question Time, there is a Jeopardy strategy of all statements being presented in the form of a question.