Our last touristy thing on the last night I was in town …

The original plan was to go on another of the walking tours. … There are a couple on Monday nights, but I chose the Westminster by Gaslight because at the end we could go in and see Parliament working (apparently they work late Mon nights).

Alas, they had already left on their Easter break, so we didn’t get to go in…

I wonder if all the protesters knew there was no one at Parliament?

So, this tour was guided by Angela … Who was nice, and very knowledgeable, but nothing compared to Shaughn. … Who is, really?

The only thing about Angela is she kind of made disparaging remarks (I’m sure not trying to be rude about it) about all the cameras/picture taking going on. You’d think she didn’t realize we were all tourists. I mean, isn’t that her job?

It was kind of weird.

Anyway …. Because of the protesters, we had to alter the walk a bit (but since I had never done it before I didn’t really know the difference) ….

We walked down past Parliament … learned a bit about the government, a bit about the history of the government …

ex (and I’m paraphrasing from my memory): recently the British realized that it’s not very democratic to have a House of Lords that is passed on birthright (rather than elections). So, they’re starting to change that and part of that means only keeping SOME of the ‘Lords’ on…. and something about them all having to write a letter explaining why they should stay … . and one woman (Lady or Honorable or something or other) wrote that she should stay because she always brought fresh flowers from her estate and kept the House of Lords looking so fresh and pretty ……

…. and she got to stay.

We also walked through a nearby neighborhood … with gorgeous old, expensive homes (where MPs* live for the most part because it’s 5 min from Parliament)…

(throughout the UK there are these blue circles that mark where famous artists/writers/people lived/were born/etc …. Miranda said they were everywhere in Edinburgh.)

Lovely, no?

Thinking about buying myself one of these when I’m a multi-billionaire.

I don’t know exactly how old these buildings are … but in a couple spots you can still see the signs directing people to the (WWII) designated bomb-shelters in the basements of a couple of these homes ..

We took a walk across one of the bridges to the other side of the Thames …. and saw this gorgeous sight ….

The last part of the walk is supposed to go all the way around to the other side of Parliament and the Westminster Bridge, but that’s where the protesters were ….

(I kept thinking of ‘V for Vendetta’)

So, then it was back to Waterloo station and back to Egham ….

We had to take a long walk around to the station (since the bridge was closed) … but saw the London Eye lit up …

And a couple more WWII memorials….

(someday, I’m going to make a book JUST of photos of WWII memorials around Europe…. and watch ‘Band of Brothers’ while I’m putting it together)

*note: for the longest time growing up when I was reading, I didn’t know what MPs meant. I knew that in some contexts it was ‘military police’ but that didn’t seem right for other books that mention MPs. …

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