The Diamond Jubileeeee!

After trying and failing to see anything on the day of the flotilla procession on the Thames, I knew we had to mean serious business on June 5th when Joy and I went Royal stalking. We got to the Mall (street leading to Buckingham Palace) about 7-7:30am. AND I brought a ladder this time because tall people are for always standing right in my way.

So prepared! And festive!

We found a good spot pretty close to the closest we could get toward the palace and just waited til they came out around 10am.

That thing's kinda in the way but there she is!

Once she had gone by, we waited some more. She would be on her way back at 2:30pm so we had a while to go. I went to check out some different spots and luckily overheard a police officer telling people that they needed to be at the opposite end of the Mall when the Queen returned in order to be first to go toward the palace when they opened the street. So Joy and I made our way down to the other end. We got a good view of the return procession and everyone was in carriages this time around.

Okay so this time Camilla and her giant hat are in the way.

Once everyone had gone by and back to the palace...the street was opened. It was madness. We ran for it though, me carrying the ladder and all too. It paid off, though, and we ended up pretty much right at the front. It was such a great view...

Charles, the Queen, William, Kate, and Harry

It was a long but amazing day. I can't believe we managed to get so close. Once in a lifetime kinda stuff...well, ya know. I've seen her six times now but only once has it been the three times in one day and with everyone else as well. So it was a special day.

Coming up next: Short birthday post, Hackney Weekend recap, and whatever else happens in the meantime.

Until next time,
Duchess

Here, have some updates!

The most exciting things lately...

1) Seeing the Queen. Twice! Once when Joy was here for a day and we happened to show up around Westminster when she was arriving for the opening of Parliament. And once today when I was leaving my shift at the Chelsea Flower Show and she was arriving in her car. I was too far away to get a good picture the first time and she was moving to fast today for me to have time to fumble around with my phone and get it ready in time.

2) Work today was quite nice at the Chelsea Flower Show. Our team was serving the VIP tables so we had Alan Titchmarsh. I know his name and know he's famous but never seen anything he's in, I don't think. At least I know he's famous so it's not completely lost on me like that shift with all the famous artists I had no clue who they were. Some people worked an event with Kanye and Kim Kardashian last week. I know them but still don't care. I would've totally interrupted Kanye though if I was there. "I'm happy for you and I'ma let you finish eating and junk but...Duchess is the best waitress-type of ALL TIME." *drops microphone and walks away* Oh! I did see a British dance group called Diversity perform on one of my Battersea Evolution shifts last week (that 11 hour one, yeah). I didn't know them of course, but they were still super cool.

3) I joined a hiking group and had an amazing time with them in Dover a couple of weekends ago:

I spent all day having conversations with strangers. Whaaaat. Yeah, I don't believe it either. Hahaha. Anyway, I've signed up to go on a hike to Canterbury with them in 2 1/2 weeks. Real life Canterbury Tales up in here, what what. I am excite.

4) Super busy for a couple of weeks...Chelsea Flower Show shifts again Wednesday and Thursday (7am starts for both. Why did I sign up for that again?). Manchester for the weekend. Bristol on Monday to see Passenger perform:

Then traversing Cornwall and the countryside in Part II of my Adventures with Joy for a few days. Come back to London, have a few days to recover from non-stop awesome, and then it's the Diamond Jubileeee. I'll take pics of the Queen then. I'll be ready for it.

Wooo! I gotta go not sleep now. Maybe consider working more on this dissertation proposal. I have all day tomorrow to finish it up (and a bit of Wednesday as well).

Promise more updates after my big adventures!

Until next time,
Duchess

Dragons and Sheep Parts....

Seems I haven't updated in ages. I have time for a quick entry though. Been quite busy lately with classes starting back and things getting back into swing. I have started taking all kinds of dance classes too: ballet, salsa, street, popping, anything else that happens to be going on. Won't be getting any dance classes in this week though (or football). June and I are going to Paris in the morning for 2 days. Then I have some catching up to do on Thursday and another packed day on Friday.

Yesterday I went to Chinatown for the Chinese New Year parade. I guess if you're short, you should get to these things hours before anyone else because I couldn't see a thing. I thought I'd catch the parade on its way back down to Trafalgar Square so I asked some people working the event where it would come by and they had no idea what was going on. I'm fairly certain these people were just grabbed off the street and given Yellow Vests of Authority for the sheer hell of it. Ended up missing the parade in all this mess. So went to find a spot to watch the performances in Trafalgar Square. It was over-crowded and I still couldn't see so I gave up and went to this bookstore I'd passed earlier and bought a book. Went to grab some Chinese takeaway and finally saw something interesting just before leaving for home. I got a video of it...


Chinese Dragon from Jessica Smith on Vimeo.

The cultural immersion continued when I got back home. Last night, we had a Burns Night dinner (a Scottish holiday). Katie made haggis with neeps and tatties for us and then Emma brought a sticky toffee pudding with custard. Good stuff.

I should go to bed now. Getting up early for the train tomorrow.

Until next time,
Duchess

Lord Mayor's Show & Hamlet

This past Saturday was a busy day of adventures. I set off early in the morning and got a bus to the Waterloo station, then made my way to the Young Vic to see if I could get tickets for the Hamlet show that night. Luckily there were some left, so I bought one for me and one for June. Then I walked back to the station and had breakfast at the Starbucks there. Y'all should try the gingerbread latte - it was pretty good.

After breakfast, I walked across the Thames and made my way to the parade route for the Lord Mayor's Show that was taking place that afternoon. I found where it was going to pass but had another OMG-why-is-this-city-so-complicated moment when I spent the next hour and a half looking for a bathroom. It shouldn't be that difficult. Finally ducked into a pub and then made my way back to find a good spot along the route to see the parade. June found me soon after the parade started. It was a good parade. Lots of horses and military people and military people on horses and bands and stuff.

There was a procession for the Lions Club International. I was really excited to see it! They even had a guy in a lion suit. Yay Lions Club! It made me miss the Georgia Lions Camp for the Blind and all my GLCB people.

At the end of the parade there was a golden carriage:

Fancy...

We had dinner at a restaurant back on the other side of the Thames and watched the fireworks once we were done. It was not as impressive as the ones we saw the week before on Guy Fawkes Day. It was only like 10 minutes of fireworks. Laaaame.

We slowly made our way to the theatre for Hamlet, which is one of my favorite Shakespeare plays (go watch the David Tennant version if you haven't seen it). It was an excellent show and a very interesting interpretation. Michael Sheen played Hamlet and he was absolutely magnificent in the role. The play was set in a psych ward and it was weird how well the play fit into that setting. It makes sense if you think about it though. The theatre was quite small so it all felt very intimate - the actors were right there in front of the audience. We had seats up in the gallery but they were still very close to the action. We have tickets to see Patrick Stewart portray Shakespeare himself in a play called Bingo at the same venue in a few months. I'm super excited for that one as well.

Until next time,
Duchess

Adventure Update

I've been neglecting my blog. So sad. I've been busy and I tend to procrastinate like whoa. What have I been doing in my free time, you ask?

A few weeks ago, I went to a boat party along the Thames at night. There were some great views of the city at night, as you can see. A couple of weekends ago, I went out to Portobello Road Market and bought some antique trinkets to send back home. A lot of that stuff they try to sell is EXPENSIVE. Luckily I found a dude with random old shiny things more in my price range. After wandering around the market - and having a little ham sandwich and a cupcake for lunch - I passed by a book store and got two more books. I really need to stop buying so many books. I just...we don't have bookstores in Waycross and naturally I have to go in any I see...and of course I see something I just have to have in every one. I might need a support group for this.

After the bookstore, I walked to Hyde Park and spent a couple of hours wandering around. I'm not really sure what the statue thing in the picture here is all about but it was huge (and pretty) so I'm just gonna leave it here. I took a little reading break in the park because my feet were starting to hurt. Unfortunately, the tube system was partially down and I couldn't find a functional bus stop either so once I got from the Marble Arch station to Bank, I had to walk all the way home. That's like 30 more minutes of walking. Uphill. In the snow.

The weekend after that, June and I went to Brick Lane. It was nice. Lots of "vintage" clothes and such and lots of Indian food (which we didn't partake of since we were once again on a quest for pizza - which my phone helped us finally locate...we have a history of not being able to find pizza). Bought another book that day! It was Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. You can't pass that up.

This past Saturday, we had lunch at a French restaurant with June's mum and Barry. Then we had some amazing adventures traveling on the over-crowded Victoria and District lines, and also great fun trying to find work clothes for me (I gave up). At one point we had to cross the road but there was a fence/barrier and the light turned green for oncoming traffic. What did I do? The most logical thing, of course: ran screaming across the road and jumped over the barrier. June did the safe thing and waited for traffic to pass, then walked around said barrier. On our way back, we stopped in King's Cross station and found Platform 9 3/4. I look like a dork here, but that's okay. I own it. We rode Boris's bikes home. Oh my heartattacks. I obviously don't do well with a heavy bicycle in heavy traffic. Uphill. I survived though. Maybe I'll forgive all the cyclists for nearly killing me all those times. It's harder to be a cyclist than a pedestrian. Definitely an adventure, that one.

Later Saturday night, we went to Ministry of Sound for Basement Jaxx. It was fun. Not so fun getting there. The tube was out and so were half the bus stops. We had no problem getting back home though, thank God. Maybe you just need to do all your traveling at 4am. Good to know.

Buckingham Palace and Westminster Abbey

Buckingham Palace

Changing of the Guard

Last weekend, I went to see the Changing of the Guard at Buckingham Palace. It was really crowded and I had trouble seeing past the tall people but it was an interesting ceremony. There was a man on top of on one of the columns beside the gate the whole time. He was protesting about something but I'm not sure what. They still went on with the ceremony as usual though. Afterward, I spent a few hours just walking around that part of London and taking in the sights. I stumbled upon Westminster Abbey. I didn't go in as the line was too long but I got some great pictures of the outside, which is absolutely beautiful.

Westminster Abbey

I took a close up of the front because the detail is just stunning:

From the above picture, I made some alterations in Photoshop and I'm really pleased with the result. I think it looks even more beautiful, if that's possible. I'm thinking about taking some more of the pictures I take and fixing them up like this. What do you guys think?

Until next time,

Duchess