WoO HoO! It'S tRaFaLgAR DaY!!

Sunday, October 19th

Another exciting day in London. The girls and I left to go get breakfast at 9:30 this morning, and then Cody and I went over to St. Bride’s Church for mass. The service started at 11:00, and we were about a half hour early, but lucky for us, we happened to walk into another special event. Remember how I said that the British really take Lord Nelson seriously? Well, we happened to walk into the 203rd celebratory mass in honor of Admiral Nelson.

We walked up to the church, and the woman greeting everyone at the door took us under her wing, fell in love with the two of us, and showed us all around, including giving us a lecture of the history of the church. She showed us down to the crypts where we saw old Roman structures, and learned about this history of the newspaper printing that encompassed the rest of the street the church was built upon.

This is the church I mentioned before that is famous for it’s wedding cake like architecture. The interior is just as intricate, and has a mixture of classical and gothic architecture. It has gold gilded decorations, and beautifully carved wooden columns and figures. During the service, an organ sounded with the beautiful voices of a choir, along with a trumpet, notably for the military celebration. I have seen several musical performances, many religious, since I have gotten here, and the combination of these three elements were possibly the most beautiful, elegant sounds I have heard yet. I wish I could record some of this, and I tried a little bit, but I thought it would be rather disrespectful to record in mass… so I didn’t do more than just a little clip, trying to conceal it as much as possible.

During mass, the music was amazing, as I mentioned before. It was interesting hearing the ‘Offertory Hymn’ which is actually the song sung during mass in the movie ‘Titanic.’ The ocean connection I’m sure (‘…for those in peril on the sea’). Also, Britain’s National Anthem is to the theme of ‘Our Country Tis of Thee.’ Cody and I looked at each other and laughed a bit, and said, well, I guess America is kind of British…

After mass, we grabbed quite a collection of brochures from the main area, involving a great variety of music venues which we will most definitely be checking out very soon. Symphonies all over the place. Never a problem!

We got on the tube, and decided to head back toward Hyde Park to catch a bit of the action at Speakers Corner. We went into a souvenir shop to look around for a few minutes, and got lunch at a chain here called “Pret.” I got a wonderful baguette with lots of herbs, tomatoes and cheese, and delicious bread of some flavor. Mmmm…. We talked about all kinds of childhood stories, and the silly things our parents would say or do to get us to do things. I’ve decided I will be equally cruel and entertained by my children when the day comes…. Honestly, Nick didn’t turn out too bad after being convinced that the routine tornado whistle really means that the Boogie Man is coming out to make sure little boys are in bed on time…

We met up with Rachael in Hyde park, and watched some of the crazies again.

There was one new man who was speaking about American politics, so that caught my attention and I decided to listen to him for a while. He brought up some valid points, but like most of the people in the park, contradicted himself at many points, losing most credibility that I had gained for him. He spoke about how both John McCain and Barak Obama would hold no change when elected to office because the subsidiary offices of the government would all be the same, however later, he said that there would be substantial change no matter who was elected due to all of the craziness with what is going on in the global and national current events.

He also talked about immigration, Sarah Palin, and the war in Iraq, however threw out some pretty bold statements without a lot of credibility or information to back them up. What is interesting to me, is that I am finding that American politics IS such a global interest, and you hear more about what is going on in the states, than in the own country we are currently living in.

He talked about the black community and how rappers give a terrible identity, and also bashed Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton as well. These guys drive me crazy, so I was ok with his statements here. His point was that they bring down the black community by making themselves look crazy in the ways that they support it, which really, I think is not too far off.

Lucky us, we got to see Diane, the friendly (or not so friendly) crazy that told all of the immigrants ‘to go back to where they came from’ last week. This week, a crazy old man who was much quieter last week, was up in front of her, singing and egging her on with his senile craziness. The man is rather out there, but was really entertaining to see him revel in her drama with his witty comebacks from every direction. What a silly old man. Anyway, here is a list of a few of my favorite comments of the day:

-Crazy Lady: “God didn’t create the Irish!”
Person from the crowd: “The who did?”
Another person from the crowd: “God only knows!”

-Individual attacks on members of the crowd: “Look at the way you talk! Saying ‘mate’ and whatever! What did your culture ever bring to us? The English brought you Shakespeare!”

-“Don’t be upset with God because he didn’t make you English! Deal with it! You are insecure about your own race! Leave here or die violently!”

-“I’m not here to talk about the holocaust! Take it up with the Jews!”


This lady is hardcore…

Anyway, we watched another battle between two of the guys from last week as well, and left soon after. On the way back, I bought another suitcase to bring back my accumulation of goods so far. It was cheap, cute, and will get the job done. Mission accomplished.

I devoted the rest of the day to working on my 10 page history paper, writing postcards, completing some other necessary tasks, and making a phone call to Job and my brother.


This is a quick look at the church and the opening song this morning.