Living London During a Wet Parade

11-8-2008

Let me preface this with a huge "I told you so." I knew I'd get waaaayyyyy behind eventually, but I never anticipated writing a blog from Nov. 8th on Nov. 25th, but do not fret, I have the memory of a drunken elephant and will not leave out a single detail!

Of course, I always have an excuse for getting so far behind. This time it's the fact that I've been blogging for Life. So do check out those...

Today I educated myself on the going ons of London, both historically and presently. The day started with sprinkles of rain, the picturesque kind that Londoners know so well. Eventually that little sprinkle came fully equipped with some spurts of full out downpours.

Of all the days that London could have used a dry one, today was it, the day of the Lord Mayor's Parade. From my understanding, all the floats, which followed the route below, were put on by organizations that in one way or another receive their funding from the Lord Mayor. Eventually, I'm going to get a video edited and uploaded here but for now suffice it to say that I saw some sweet floats, lots of horses and impressive carriages, and sharp, classy marching bands...and all of them were soaking wet.

Since it was quite a wet one, Chad, Kim and our visiting guests decided to check out the London museum. This step back in time focuses specifically on the London area, from the dawn of man in Western Europe. I learned just about everything I'd need to know about London's history and more than I ever wanted to know about the Great London Fire of 1666.

The most interesting part of this fire was the fact that like any city ablaze, the citizens were gathering whatever they could out of their homes and getting what they could on to boats on the Thames. At this time, many Londoners with a bit of cash had a small ornate piano-like instrument in their home (the name of which escapes me right now) which was rather expensive, however also rather lightweight. So of all the articles in the home that could be saved, music was one of them.

The other coolest part of the museum was the display of medieval foods that two cooks had set out. They were there to field questions and I purchased a cook book from them!