Downing Street/Saint James Place/Buckingham Palace/Guard Change

Downing Street/Saint James Place/Buckingham Palace/Guard Change

So day four started out earlier than any day so far. We had to meet in the Lobby by 8am to make our way to the Supreme Court building to meet Constable Richard Watson and Phil (I didn’t catch his last name but he was pretty cool so all I really needed to remember was Phil).

From there they walked us to Downing Street, which is where the prime minister and a few other important people live. It was very exciting because we actually got to go through the gates and take pictures right in front of the Prime Minister’s residence which most people don’t get to do, much less if you are an American.

The Prime Minister lives at #10 Downing Street. There are no locks on the door because there are guards that are always there making sure no one breaks in. The gates of Downing Street were added in 1984 because of the war with Northern Ireland and the name Downing street came from a chief spy for royalty named George Downing. There was a while mess about him changing sides a bunch of times and the last time he changed sides the King at the time gave him the street as a gift. In the 60’s the building was falling apart so they decided to rebuild it. The only problem was that it was red so in order to keep the look the same that it had been for years and years (black) they artificially colored it to make it the same.

This is a picture of our awesome Tour Guide/Cops Phil on the left, Our awesome teacher Tracy Nobiling, The Vice President of Chadron State Dr. Snare, his wife, and Constable Richard Watson.

Actual Guard!

Pictures around London

[Insert pictures of Saint James Palace and guard]

These are pictures of Saint James Palace and the guard. Every day at 4pm the guard has to be changed because one day a guard was found drunk and unable to actually keep watch because he was drunk. So for hundreds of years there has been a change at 4 every day because of that one instance.

[Insert picture of arena of Saint James Palace]

This is the big arena that they use for the Queens Birthday Parade

[Insert picture of Naval Building]

This is a picture of the Naval armory that was built, and to keep it inconspicuous they covered it with vines. There are also no windows in the whole building and the walls were 20 ft thick so it could stand a German bomb dropped right on it.

[insert picture of national police memorial]

This is a picture of The National Police Memorial that is dedicated to all the police that have ever lost their lives serving for the country.

[Insert picture of entrance of Mall]

This is the front entrance of the Mall (which is pronounced Maaaaal) which is the street that leads to Buckingham Palace which is also the place that they do the march for the changing of the guards.

[Insert picture of rest of Mall]

This is the picture of the rest of the Mall

[Insert picture of flag poles]

I thought that this was interesting because all the flag poles had crowns on the tops of them.

[Insert Picture of Saint James Garden]

This is a picture of Stain James Garden, not much that I can say about it, other than it was beautiful.

[Insert pictures of guards]

On our way to Buckingham Palace we stopped at this place that these guards were watching and I learned some pretty interesting information about the guards. These that were standing there were called the Coldstream Guards because they had a red little stripe on the right side of their bearskin hat. The way that you can tell what regiment that they are in is by the way their buttons are. So if their buttons are spaced in twos they are in the second regiment, if they are in threes they are in the third, so on and so forth. Because I am writing this without internet and I can’t for the life of me remember what the guards with the white stripe on the side of their bearskin hats but I do remember why they had the white stripes. They were the part of the guards that had bombs and they would pull the tab and hold it over their head and white smoke would come out.

[Insert pictures of Buckingham Palace]

The next thing that we did was walk by Buckingham Palace and man was it awesome!

[Insert pictures of building on our way to the resting place]

It wasn’t time for us to be at Buckingham Palace so we walked to the place that all the cops eat at when they have big events in the city of London.

[Insert picture of Titanic Building]

The interesting thing about the place that we stopped to rest at besides the fact that all the cops eat there when there is big events, is that it was built so that they could investigate how the Titanic sunk, and how they lowered the boats down. So the balcony and the arch were  pretty much exact replicas of the Titanic.

[Insert pictures of gate]

After getting some refreshments at the Titanic building it was time to walk to Buckingham Palace to watch the Guard change! The awesome part of the whole experience was that we got to go into the gates of Buckingham Palace and watch the guard change. It was cool because all the people were watching us from the gate while we were standing right next to the palace and they were taking pictures of us like we were important or something. Little did they know, that we are just a bunch of college kids from Chadron, Nebraska! The sad thing was that we weren’t allowed to take pictures once we were inside the gate. But here is a little bit of what I remember from the Guard Change…

The guards have this big ceremony once every day in the summer and fall and once every other day in the winter and spring. Which is crazy because the whole ceremony took like an hour and a half to two hours. Basically, in short all the guards from Buckingham Palace and Saint James Palace March over behind the Marching band and wait for the new guards to come. While they are waiting the guard with the flag paces back and forth which was a tradition so that the people in the army would know what flag to meet at and/or fight for because a lot of the time, it was a bunch of peasant armies. While the flag was pacing back and forth so was the captain. They did this so that they could check for people that were drunk and so that the people knew who their captain was and who they needed to take orders from. Besides them pacing around there were also two guards patrolling. They had to do this because one time Queen Victoria came down and both of the guards were asleep so she said “none of that!” and they had to pace around, and they still do that to this day. After what seemed like forever the new guards came marching down and stood facing the old guards. Both of the bands took turns playing different songs but the two that I remember were the Clint Eastwood theme, and Sir Duke. Both of the bands were amazing, and I’m not gonna lie, I really wanted to just go and grab a saxophone and join in with them. Before the guards could actually switch off we had to wait for the Calvary to trot by on their horses because the queen was in the building. On any other day they wouldn’t have to wait for that because the queen usually isn’t there (which I would like to point out is awesome and that means that we were pretty close to the queen). The coolest thing about being there waiting is that the two captains, one from the new guard and one from the old one both came up to us and talked to us. Which according to Constable Richard Watson, has never happened before. He then told us that the captains are usually from very well to do families because they have to keep their suit tailored themselves and the belt on their uniform alone costs 3000 pounds! We were also told that those captains were in the rank of major. After the Calvary passed the new guards marched off and so did the old guards and everything was done so it was time for us to go. It was definitely an experience that I will forever remember!

[Picture of Scotland Yard]

After eating it was time to go to Scotland Yard, which I was very excited about because I thought we were going to tour it, but it turns out that we were just going to attend a lecture, and I’m sorry to say, it was very hard to stay awake for and it didn’t really keep my attention despite their efforts.

It was time to head home, and I was very tired and started getting really cranky. So instead of going to dinner with my roommates and a few of the others in our group I stayed in the hotel and took a nap, which was much needed because I was getting to the point where I just wanted to punch everyone in the face. Thank GOD for naps!