Sometimes I think we get so absorbed in what's supposed to be significant that we lose sight of why it's significant. We went to Buckingham Palace, and just happened to arrive about 40 minutes before the Changing of the Guard. Most of this highly ritualistic event takes place inside the palace gates and can only be seen and heard by maybe a couple hundred people smashed against the gates. The rest of us were stretching our cameras in the air hoping to get something. Most of the video I shot was of the tops of the guards' furry hats. So I'm standing there w/ my arm in the air looking around at other people w/ their arms in the air, and I'm thinking, "Why are we here? I have no idea what this ceremony is about, but I'm here b/c others determined that this is an amazing sight to see." Yes, there's a lot of pageantry, and that was exciting, but ritual w/o meaning is the true definition of a tourist.
Ron and I booked a tour on the Big Bus Company that allowed us to get on and off as we wanted and to see a lot of sites and parts of London that we probably never would've seen. I saw Kensington Gardens where the Peter Pan statue was erected mysteriously over night so the children would think it magically appeared in the morning. Mind you, I didn't actually see the statue, but I saw the gardens where this took place. I saw the only apartment all four Beatles occupied at the same time; not the apartment but the outside of the building. I saw buildings and sculptures and structures, but what really had meaning to me was the mother who sheltered her daughter from the sun using the Big Bus Company map, and fussed over her by lovingly spreading sunscreen on her face. And the young Indian couple whose parents were visiting. I don't think the young woman saw anything b/c she was more concerned w/ the comfort of her parents. Maybe she'd already seen all the buildings on another double-decker bus tour. We went on a Thames River cruise to the Tower of London only to discover that we only had 45 minutes to view it. We opted to use our tickets tomorrow. I did take some more video of the buildings and bridges, which did have some interesting histories and stories, but the biggest impression I got was, "This river is filthy. I wouldn't eat anything that came out of it, and I'm not sure anything lives in it."
I'm tired and I'm cynical and I hate London for not opening herself up to me. I'm so worried about shooting videos of the sites I'm seeing that I'm not really seeing the sites at all. I'm frustrated that I can't figure out the bus system in this crazy city. Ron and I walked around for an hour and a half looking for bus line M that would take us from Victoria Station to the corner near our hotel. We took the bus this morning, and it worked wonderfully. I figured out the bus we needed and then couldn't find the bloody bus stop! Asking bus drivers was worthless since they sent us in opposite directions. An hour-and-a-half we walked. We could've walked to the hotel and back in that amount of time, if we only knew where that was. Again, we gave in and paid the four pounds for a taxi to drive us two minutes from the station.
Climbing the eight flights of stairs, we collapsed on our beds. Ron is exhausted and his knees hurt from all the walking. We have one more day in London so I'm going to concern myself more w/ my impressions of what I'm seeing rather than trying to digitize those images to upload onto my computer later.
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