cuponoodles

July 27, 2006

We went down to Buckingham Palace to see the famed changing of the guards. We got there about 45 minutes early, but there was already a growing crowd outside of the gates. We waited with the crowd for around a half an hour in the sun while London police on horse and foot told tourists to stand back from the street or helped the occasional confused out-of-towner.

Finally, we heard the shouting of commands and everyone's heads turned as the guard emerged from somewhere within the palace. They arranged themselves in a formation and proceeded to stand at attention and wait. We did the same. After another 15 minutes or so, we heard the sound of drums and necks craned to see the source. There was the new guard coming in, along with a number of soldiers equipped with brass and wind instruments.

They all arranged themselves accordingly and the band played a number of songs, none of which I recognized except for the theme from Austin Powers, which I found to be tack and out of place, but nonetheless charming.

When the band finished the old guard marched out (equipped with L-85 rifles, as Hiro noted) and it was done. While I'm not sure if the wait or the heat was worth the spectacle, I think it's worth it to see the ceremony at least once in your life.

Afterwards, Hiro and I headed to Hyde Park where we enjoyed the scenery and had a rest. Unfortunately the scenery was not much to look at because the lack of recent rain reduced the park from a fine expanse of green (as I've seen in photos) to small small clumps of green grass stranded in a sea of yellowness.

Eventually, we made the long trek past Big Ben and across the Thames to the Imperial War Museum. The museum is an impressive collection of old military vehicles and paraphernalia. Several tanks sit on the ground floor while a Spitfire, a Sopwith Camel and other airplanes hang overhead. A V2 rocket nearly reached the top of the museum and artillery pieces pointed skywards.

The part of the museum I stayed in the longest was the Holocaust exhibit, which was very extensive and very graphic. The exhibit covered much of the history of the Holocaust including pre-war anti-Semitic history to the origins of the gas chamber (they were originally "gas vans" that pumped the exhaust from another car's engine). There was a large amount of the anti-Jewish propaganda that circulated around Germany at the time, and there were displays of the belongings of the survivors and victims. There were also a number of video interviews with survivors along with family photos and letters, showing what life was like for Jewish people in Europe before and after the Holocaust. It was sobering, to say the least, and I anticipate things will be even starker when we see Dachau when we go to Munich in a few weeks.