Blogmas day 17, 2014: Change of the Guards and an incredibly comfy chair

Halloooo!

As I had to go into town today for some shopping (no, no Christmas presents, mostly orders from friends and family of stuff you can't buy in Belgium), I passed Buckingham Palace on my way to Piccadilly. I've passed that palace countless times and I have never seen the Change of the Guards. And let me tell you, it is an event.

At 11:15 the Guards with the bands arrive. At 11:30 the official Change takes place and by 12:00 the official ceremony ends. In the meantime a huge amount of people is gathered around the fountain and in front of the gates. And that was a Wednesday, I do not want to see the place during a weekend. The 'road' is kept clear. And at times you are not allowed to cross the road, so you just have be patient until the Guars have passed.

The whole thing takes up over an hour. The preparations, the actual Guard ceremony and then the clearing. Insane. This event takes place every other day during winter. But in summer this goes down every single day. Man, to keep those tourists happy.

It is not like I saw a lot of the actual change. First of all because my view was blocked by many tourists. And second of all I had no idea what to look for: a lot people marching and standing still. But there are a lot of guards and I couldn't help but wonder how one becomes a guard and why someone would choose that profession.

A lot of people

When I finally made it to Green Park I was well on my way and I was able to purchase everything on my list. After that was done, I treated myself on a hot chocolate and sat down in St James's Church, before someone "kicked" me out. Never happend before, but I guess it was because there was a free concert at 1:10pm and they want to prevent others to bring in beverages and limit the risk at a mess. The lady who asked me to leave looked very sorry, eventhough it wasn't that big of a deal :)

Instead I went to Leicester Square to read, which after 20min was too cold, so I went to Waterstones instead and found the most comfortable chair in the history of chairs. Unbelievable how comfy that chair was! As I wanted to get home before rush hour I was home by 5pm where I gladly finished reading my book. Those last 100 pages of a book are always soooooooo good you just want to keep and keep reading x) And I started reading the fifth book in the series immediatly after :) I just love it when a book series is this good.

So that was my Wednesday 17th December :)

Thanks for reading!
xo - Sara