We started Saturday by meeting Carmens Aunt, partner and couple of their friend at Green Park, next to Buckingham Palace. It was of course the Queens birthday. And they hold their annual 'Trouping the Colours'. Unlike in New Zealand there is no public holiday for her birthday here. The 'Trouping' consists of a parade of a few hundred soldiers all dressed in old ceremonial military costume, i.e. plate armour etc, all riding horses, pulling old canons with some of the royals in tow. They pile out of Buckingham palace in file, do a parade around some streets and then go back, before Queenie stands on the balcony and does the royal wave to us minions. We got to see her and the rest of the misfits, before watching a demonstration of how quickly the cavalry could dismount, undo and arm the canons and fire a few rounds. Of course I took my camera, with the full intention of taking hundreds of photos, but managed to forget the memory card rendering it useless =(

After the Trouping, in true English style, with nothing to do, we followed our group of people to a pub. The general conversation goes along, person 1: "what shall we do now?" person 2: "I don't know" anyone else: "lets go to the pub". This seems to be the trend no matter what company you are with. So we caught a tube to Covent Garden, this is the Art centre of London, apart for the fact it is infinitely larger. Many loony people doing acts, trying to make people laugh, children cry and generally entertain the masses, all in the name of begging for money. After partaking in a few drinks at 'The Punch and Judy' pub established in 1778, we strolled down to watch the D-Day celebrations at Leicester square.

As the evening drew closer, we remembered one of flat mates had 'booked' the lounge and kitchen for a curry party he was throwing for some of his friends. We feared both his friends, and the after curry bowel rebellion. SO looking for something to do, we strolled towards the West End in search of a production to watch. There are approximately 30 different productions on at any one time, we they all generally start at 7:30, and it was nearing 7 we couldn't be to picky. We went for the first and cheapest one we could find, Fame. Our tickets cost us £15 each and we were in the restricted viewing area. The tickets only cost a tad more then a movie in this area of town which were going for £10. There were about 10 - 15 seats from the good seat area which weren't filled, so as soon as the curtains drew back, we were off down to some of the best seats in the house. These tickets were being sold for approx £50 each. So we had a fantastic evening. The show was very good, and was much more entertaining than a movie.