Woke up today, and headed down to Buckingham Palace. As we were walking up the road by St James' Park, we stopped for a look at the cute little squirrels running all around the place. There was a couple trying to get a picture of one of them, and it was getting quite close to them. So I thought I'd see how close I could get, when all of a sudden, one of them was climbing on me! It climbed up my leg, over my jacket and onto my arm! So cute! After that we headed up to the palace, where we staked out a spot on the Victoria Memorial, where we would get a good view over the Changing of the Guards ceremony. We were quite early, so Darren and Lyle amused themselves by getting in as many photos as they could.. Extreme-photobombs. It was a really nice day, the sun was out, and it was warm. The problem with British weather is as soon as the sun goes behind a cloud, it drops about 10,000,000 degrees and you have to put your jacket back on! So all day it was jacket on-**********-jacket on-**********!! Eventually the ceremony started. First we saw the cavalry ride past and go into the palace. Then we had to wait heaps longer for anything else to happen. After a bit, we started to hear some drums off in the distance, and the marching band appeared walking down the street, followed by a contingent of the royal guard. They marched up and around the memorial we were standing on, and went through the left hand side palace gates. Then we waited quite a while longer, and the same thing happened, but they went through the right hand side gates. After another long wait, the marching band and the guards that had been on duty lined up behind the main central gates, and started playing their instruments, then marched back out and down the street. All in all it was a lot of waiting around, and it was pretty boring... And there were a LOT of people there... But it's something you have to do, I suppose.. I can say I've done it now, and I don't have to do it ever again. :P :P We made our way down the street, picked up some wraps from a bakery, and went into Hyde Park. We sat down on the grass, had salad wraps and a soak in the sun. The park is absolutely massive, and there were people everywhere doing the same thing - snoozing, eating, roller blading, playing. It was very relaxing. When the sun decided to go behind a cloud again, we got up and went to meet Hinny at the corner of the park. Then we found out how big Hyde Park is! We were on one corner, walking to another (along the shortest side), and it took us about 15 minutes! Wouldn't wanna be walking along the long side!! We met Hinny, and he took us up the street where we jumped onto one of the iconic red double decker buses. Where we obviously went straight up to the top right hand side to 'drive' the bus... We had no idea where we were going, and Hinny wouldn't tell us, but when we got off the bus and walked up the block to see everyone taking pictures of people standing in the middle of the road, we realized, where else but Abbey Road? We got a few photos of us crossing the street, which took quite a while, as its a pretty busy street. It would suck to be driving there, cos you can never tell if someone is actually wanting to cross at the crossing, or just waiting for a photo op! No idea why you wouldn't find another way round... (Although I felt pretty sorry for the poor learner driver who was stuck there for a bit!) After that, we headed back into town, and went to Soho, where we wandered around the streets for a bit. Apparently that's the area where a lot of rock stars used to go for coffees and drinks (John Lennon, etc). After wandering through a few streets we came across a few market stalls, and bought an ice cream, and went up the end where there was a small stage with some bands playing for the Soho Flea Market, which happens once a year. We spent the afternoon there hanging out and watching the acts, and drinking some beers. There were a few really good acts, including Battle of You, and The Robbie Boyd Band (Whose song is still in my head!!) In between acts, there was a stand up comedian who was so lame that he was awesome. Peter Halpin. Loved it! Lame jokes are the best! After that we got the tube back to Camden, and headed down the street to go see a friend play. Chris Coleman, from Hobart, who we met at our hostel, is here doing a UK tour. We grabbed some food from a Chinese place first (dumplings! 4/5 I reckon!), then went to the Spiritual Caipirinha Bar to watch him play. It was really nice, cruisy, acoustic music and really deep lyrics. After that we walked back with a couple of the other guys from the hostel and went to bed.