Wednesday morning I woke up to horses. I kid you not. Apparently there are horses that wander the streets of South Kensington. We went to the Banqueting house at Whitehall in the morning. We got there early so we poked around the calvary across the street:
This is the back of 10 Downing Street. We saw on the map that the street in front is blocked off (though that might have just been to vehicle traffic) but it was cool to see it from the back. Guarded by a lone police officer.
Guard Division Memorial
Ministry of Defense
This cannon was abandoned by the French. It has been turned into a memorial to to commemorate Wellington's victory.
We then went to the banqueting house, the only part of the Palace of Whitehall that still exists. Whitehall used to the royal residence until it burned down in 1698. The banqueting house was a late addition, built in 1622, and was the location of Charles I's execution. Again, pictures aren't allowed inside. Funnily enough, we went inside at the same time as a college group. They had some bean bags around, I'm not sure if it was for the college group, or if they're always there. They were really comfortable to look at the paintings on the ceiling, and I laid in one after the group left. I may, or may not have dozed off...
Afterwards, we walked up to Trafalgar Square. I took some pictures of Nelson's Column, the lions, and the giant blue rooster on the fourth plinth.
I kid you not, a giant blue rooster.
National Portrait Gallery
There's a church called St. Martin-in-the-Fields. In the basement, you can do brass rubbings. Brass rubbings
was a Victorian pastime where people went to churches and rubbed the plaques with paper and wax to get impressions. This started to cause damage to the brasses, so replicas were made and you can now make your own cheap souvenirs.
St. Martin's
Justin did three, I did seven. I couldn't feel my right arm afterwards.
We killed some time at the National Portrait Gallery afterwards, but I got really tired again (stupid mastectomy), so we went back to flat to rest before our show.
After I woke back up, we headed to the West End to the Duke of York's Theatre, which is one of the oldest theatres in the area. It was amazing theatre. It was also where Peter Pan originated, as well as the Madame Butterfly play that the opera was based on.
On the way to the theatre, we pass by Freed of London and I got super excited because I used to wear Freed pointe shoes.
So beautiful.
We saw Jeeves and Wooster, with Stephen Mangan and Matthew MacFadyen which was hilarious and excellent. MacFadyen was Mr. Darcy in Joe Wright's Pride and Prejudice and Stephen Mangan is currently in Episodes. I love Stephen Mangan. He's got my favourite English accent and he's incredibly funny:
After the show, we went to Bella Italia because I had intense craving for spaghetti. It was yummy, but I was glad to get back to the flat.
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