Victoria & Albert Museum, Buckingham, and Kensington Palace...

I know... it's been a while since I have written, but I have much to share with you in the last week! Right after my last post I headed out with Leonore and Phoebe into London to visit the Victoria & Albert Museum. I had heard how wonderful this museum was, but quite frankly I thought It's just another musuem... How very wrong I was. It is an incredible museum, but also an art gallery, fashion archive, cultural phenomenon!! I was so incredibly blown away by all they had! Very cool stuff...






Me and Christopher Wren!!


I had such a fun day and I didn't even get to see it all. Unfortunately the musical instrument section was closed for renovations... ugh!

The next day after the V&A museum, Phoebe, Leonore, and I went back to London for another day of excitement!!! It was this day that we went to see Buckingham Palace and Kensington Palace!
First stop - Buckingham Palace - at 11am we made it to the gates and were met with 100s upon 100s of people crowded around waiting for the changing of the guards ceremony. This was precisely what we were there for also, so trying to get to the front of the crowd, we knew, would be a task. Luckily I'm very pushy, so we could see the courtyard in no time!




The ceremony is long... it's cool and tradition and all that... but it's long. Finally the band got into position and began playing some tunes... all of a sudden I recognized a song... how odd - "that's the way, uh-huh uh-huh I like it!" That's right... they started playing 70s and 80s hits!! I kept yelling my request for Eye of the Tiger, but no luck. We danced and sang a little bit in place.. the people around me laughed - AT me, not with me.
It was a very good time, but sadly the Queen was not home and she didn't get to party with us. After Buckingham Palace, the 3 of us went off to Kensington Gardens to visit an old friend if mine...

Last time I saw Peter was my first trip into London EVER back in January... I missed him and needed one last visit to say goodbye. Later in Kensington Palace I found a necklace charm of the statue and was gonna buy it. It was only 14.95GBP! So I get up to the cash register and hand her the packet. She rings it up and it pops up 19.95GBP. I point out the mistake and she goes and checks for me. She comes back, "oh yeah it was mismarked... it's 19.95" so I reply "oh... strange. Well is it possible for me to get it for the ticketed price?"... "It's 19.95 miss" and then she proceeds to put it behind her on the table and call for the next customer... EXCUSE ME!! I wasn't finished! I mean how does she know that I wouldn't still have bought it... HOW RUDE! So I just left... leaving Peter behind. But I'm getting ahead of myself with stories of Kensington Palace, and we're not even there yet... let's finish Kensington Gardens


At the end of Kensington Gardens lies Kensington Palace which was the childhood home of Queen Victoria and was also the official residence of Princess Diana until her death. It houses all her most famous dresses!





It also has an exhibit on right now about the debutant society of England in the 1950s (the last debutant era)... there were clothes and etiquette lessons all throughout the palace...


It was fun learning how to be a debutant and be presented to the queen... even if it was just her picture.

After Kensington and the unfortunate incident in the gift shop, we headed out of Kensington Gardens past the Albert Memorial. Queen Victoria sure loved that man.

here I am posing with the part of the memorial dedicated to America

To finish off our visit into London, Leonore took us to the Hummingbird Bakery next to South Kensington Station!! They have such delicious cupcakes!


The chocolate one was AMAZING!! It was basically mini snicker, milkways, malteses, gummy bears, and marshmallows all covered in chocolate and shmushed together into the shape of a cupcake... I was in love!!!