Busy Weekend (lots of pictures)

We saw lots of British culture this weekend. Saturday we went to see the Lord Mayor's Festival, which has taken place every November for over 800 years in London. It is to show the new Lord Mayor to the people after he is elected and when he swears allegiance to the Queen. The Lord Mayor is different from the Mayor because he is only responsible for the "City" area of London, which is the financial heart of the city (where Bobby goes to school). There's a big parade with over 100 floats. Our favorite was with the little kids below on the Great Fire of London float - all the kids were dancing to "Light my Fire" when they went by us! There's also a picture of the Lord Mayor getting sworn in at the Mansion House. You can barely see him in the middle... he's the one in the white wig.

Afterwards, we qued up for a free historic guided walking tour of the "City" area of London. Our guide was fantastic. We learned that this area was the original "London" back in Roman times and a lot of the architecture was destroyed by either the Great Fire of London or WWII. A couple highlights are pictured below: seeing the old office of Edwin Waterhouse of PwC, Bobby in front of the Roman wall remains and our tour guide in front of St. Pauls' cathedral. While we were walking back, we caught more fireworks over the Thames.

Then today we went to Windsor Castle. Its beautiful and the view is fantastic. There's a flag on the tallest tower that lets the public know whether or not the Queen is in residence. When we went into the tour of the state apartments, it signaled that she was away, but when we came out she was home! I can't believe we missed her coming in. Here's a picture of us in front of the main tower and the second is a picture of the part of the castle the Queen actually lives in.

We're trying to do as much as we can before it gets too cold and we don't want to leave our flat! Next weekend - Barcelona!