Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Looking Backwards....

Today, England's very own Queen Elizabeth II celebrates her 83rd birthday! Horray for her! But how, might you possibly be asking, do I remember that today is the Queen's birthday? Well, today, Tuesday the 21st of April, also marks three years since the last day we spent in London for our awesome Winter 2006 study abroad! And something happened THAT day, that would forever remind me of the dear Queen's birthday. Because the 21st of April 2006 is the day of our illegal trip down into the vault of London's Hard Rock Cafe!

Okay, so in our defense, we didn't exactly KNOW that what we were doing was illegal. We wandered into the cafe (which is very cool, by the way) in search of only one thing: the vault. We found the stairs leading down into the basement... and what do you know... nobody was standing at the top of the stairs making sure unwary tourists didn't wander down the stairs and into the vault. No rope, no guard, no nothing. So what did we do? We went down the stairs! It was practically a must anyway... Riley was about ready to wet her pants because she was so excited to see Jimi Hendrix's guitar.
And it wasn't until we actually got down INTO the basement that we realized that we could quite possibly have gotten shot for wandering down there with out the guidance of a faithful tour escort. ESPECIALLY since--as the angry body guard informed us--it was the Queen's 80th birthday. Oops!

The story has a happy ending, though! Riley got to see her guitar: The scary body guard named "Jimmy" decided NOT to cuff us and haul us off to the Tower of London for torture, but instead became my new boyfriend: And we got to see a whole heap of other cool stuff in the vault used by many famous and telented musicians...

Other things happened that day too, of course, like.... one last trip to the Nash Ga: Trafalgar Square: The London Eye for Wonder Waffles: Taza's for schwarmas: Westminster, Big Ben and Buckingham Palace: We also took one of my favorite photos of the whole trip (look at what the street says...):

However, despite all the other things that happened on this fun filled day, breaking into the Hard Rock Cafe vault takes the cake, hands down! From now on, it will be really hard for me to forget April 21st as Queen Elizabeth's birthday!

So in the spirit of this wonderful April day, long live the queen!! I miss you, Londoners ( :

10 comments:

alexandria said...

Im seriously going to cry looking at those picures. In part because I love and miss London and secondly because I had tried to forget how bad I looked by the end of that trip! Oh well, they were some great times!!

Julie said...

Join the club, darlin', on both accounts!! Heehee! On this particular day I just HAPPENED to be looking okay... but trust me, you looked FAR better than me on most London days, as photo evidence can prove!! Oh well! ( :

Larkin Family said...

Oh the memories! I can't believe it's been three years! Geeze how fast time flies. What an amazing semester we had in London, we will cherish all of our crazy fun memories there forever.

Steph said...

we were all so little! holy crap.

good times....

Sondra said...

You guys all look so young! Well those of you I know... I wish I could have gone, I love your pics!

Sylvi said...

Ha! I can just imagine you guys doing that! Ha! But hey you got some great pictures!

meagan said...

I've never even seen a lot of these pics! Love it.

Farnsaki said...

DUDE!!! EPIC!!!! I wanna hit up the vault of the Hard Rock! Jealousy....

Nat-a-baby said...

I wrote up a thing on London yesterday too!! I vaguely remember this story about you and Riley seeing those famous guitars. I loved the pictures... except for the fact that I'm not in ONE of them! Where was I?

Julie said...

I have NO idea where you were, Nat! It was the last day and we were all hitting the town. I'm sure we invited you... but I have no idea why you weren't with us, I can't remember! Its sad, though! We clearly missed you!!!