Wednesday, October 14th, 1992. London.
Saw a sign at the subway station today that read, "PLEASE DO NOT FEED THE PIGEONS. THEY ARE A HAZARD AND A NUISANCE." Haha!
This was a most eventful day. I got up before Jeff did and sorted out my stuff. Then, around 9:30, we left for Westminster, but the Abbey was closed, so we walked down to Buckingham Palace instead. We didn't know what was going on at Westminster Abbey, but we saw a lot of men in military uniforms there, some even wearing kilts. There were a lot of police, and lots and lots of cars.
When we arrived at the palace, there were a massive crowd there, and some bobbies came over, and divided the crowd between the main gate, with me on the left side, and Jeff on the other where there was a round-a-bout. I stood beside a really pretty college student from Wisconsin whose mother had come out to visit her, and we three talked for a good while. We watched the changing of the guard, and then extra security came out, and the flag above the palace went up, which meant "the Queen is in residence."
A female police officer astride a horse clip-clopped over to our little assembled crowd, and had us back further away from the gate, and she looked over at us and said, "You're about to get a treat." Then the Queen of England's car approached, and I could see Queen Elizabeth plainly. She had a lady in waiting in the car with her, who was wearing a turqoise outfit, and the Queen smiled and waved at us. The officer on the horse was just beaming, and she looked at me and said, "Now you can say you've been to London to see the Queen."
Not sure what was going on, but after Queen Elizabeth drove by, another car followed with Prince Albert and Prince Charles in it. When the excitement settled down, Jeff and I went over to the Palace shop, and then we opted to have lunch at a place called "American Burger House," where we were served a steak with a side salad that had been seared in a frying pan (?)! The waiter, whose name was Paco, was extremely rude to us, and just took his own time serving us, ignoring us for the most part. When it came time to leave, we left a fistful of worthless coins on the table that the merchants kept passing off to us (because we didn't know the difference, and they knew we didn't know the difference). So much for eating "American Cuisine" in Britain; that was what the sign said in front of the place. I've seen lots of signs that have the word "American" on them, but whenever certain clerks or merchants hear our Southern accents, they're either rude to us, or they ignore us completely, sometimes acting like they can't understand what we're saying. A few times we've faked British accents when we felt unsafe, and no one seemed to notice.
At one point we decided to walk into a pub, just to see what it would be like. The one we chose had two doors, and we walked in on one side, through a wall of cigarette and cigar smoke, and - although we could hear people talking and laughing when we entered - as soon as we crossed the threshold of the establishment, everyone stopped talking altogether, and stared into space, or glared at us. So we walked out the other door, and everyone resumed their conversations, etc., as we walked away. Felt like that scene in AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON come to life. It really did.
Jeff didn't want to go to the Sherlock Holmes Museum. He wanted to go see Wimbledon Stadium, and I didn't, so we parted ways for a bit. I made my way to 221b Baker Street, and it was simply a delight, although much smaller than I expected. It seemed like a truncated apartment, sort of, and I had to ascend a narrow flight of stairs to get to it. I bought a pipe like Sherlock is always shown to use, and a pin, and was given a complimentary Sherlock Holmes calling card, which I will cherish. It was a neat little museum.
Jeff gave the security guard at Wimbledon a cover story that convinced him that it would be okay for him to go see the tennis court there - he told me - and he was able to go down to the net and touch the green, which was his heart's desire.
I shopped for a little while, and headed back to the hotel, and Jeff came in a little bit later. We're watching the BBC, and it's about 11:10 pm. There's a report about terrorism on right now. Last night I noticed that DIE HARD was on during prime time, and they didn't even cut out the cuss words. We watched one of their morning shows the other day, and I noticed that they say "Shed-jewel" for "schedule," and "Vit-AH-men" for "vitamin."
Tomorrow, we're heading back to the U.S.
TO BE CONCLUDED!
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