Ceremony of the Keys

Last night some of us got to go to the Ceremony of the Keys at the Tower of London. My first time at church here, the American Relief Society President told us that we had to do it. Thankfully, Megan (who's in the picture with me) had heard about it from her chemistry professor and took initiative to get us tickets. You have to mail an actual letter to the people telling them you'd like to go, and which dates you're available. You have to do it months in advance, and if you're approved for your dates, then they'll mail you a ticket. So we mailed a letter in back in September, and we got to go last night. It was so cool!

The ceremony has taken place every night at the Tower of London since the 1300s. It takes place at precisely 9:53 pm and it's a ceremony to lock the gates at the tower of London. I did find this little fact on wikipedia though

As with many events of ceremony in the United Kingdom, it takes some significant outside influence to interrupt the Ceremony of the Keys. The one time when the ceremony was interrupted was during the Second World War, when there was an air raid on London, and a number of incendiary bombs fell on the old Victorian guardroom just as the Chief Yeoman Warder and the escort were coming through the Bloody Towerarchway. The shock and the noise of the bombs falling blew over the escort and the Chief Yeoman Warder, but they stood up, dusted themselves down, and carried on. The Tower holds a letter from the Officer of the Guard apologising to King George VI that the ceremony was late, along with a reply from the King which says that the officer is not to be punished as the delay was due to enemy action.

At 9:53 a man comes down the lane with a lantern in one hand and the keys in the other. There are four guards standing underneath the Bloody Tower, three armed with weapons, one not. He takes the lantern and gives it to the guard that is not armed, and they all walk back down the lane and lock up two of the gates. As they come back down the lane, a sentry walks toward them and this goes down:

Sentry: Who comes there?

Chief Warder: The Keys

S: Whose keys?

CW: Queen Elizabeth's keys. (identifying the keys as being those of the current monarch)

S: Pass Queen Elizabeth's keys. All's well.

After this we followed them through the Bloody Tower archway (where the princes were killed in history) into the fortress and halted at the bottom of the boardwalk steps. On the stairs are the guards, and under the commanding officer they present arms. The clock strikes ten and one of the guards plays a song on the trumpet. And they all say

God Preserve Queen Elizabeth. Amen!

We also learned that 130 people live at the Tower of London, and those guards have 48 hour duties at the Tower, Buckingham Palace and somewhere else that I can't remember.

They said it is one of the shortest and oldest ceremonies. Glad I could witness it! Cause the beefeater that led us was making fun of America the whole time- he said that some random American guy buying the London Bridge and putting it in Arizona finally gave our country some history.

Brick Lane

The Saturday before we went to Portugal we went to Brick Lane to get a Bagel or Beigel- as they use the true spelling here. This place called Beigel Bake was so so cheap. I have not seen food that cheap any other time in London. A whole beigel sandwich was only 1.60 pounds. If you got a nice slice of beef on it though, then it was about 3 pounds. The cakes and pastries were all under a pound! So much cheaper than everywhere else. I got a tuna, sweet corn bagel, which maybe wasn't a good idea. It wasn't gross, but it wasn't albacore tuna so that's not my fave.

There's a lot of cool graffiti. And unfortunately, vintage shops. There was a cool vintage shop though that had stuff from the 20's. I like looking at that stuff more than any other era I suppose.

I guess that's why they call it brick lane...

Ballet in Paris

I forgot to post this! While in Paris we went to a Ballet!! It was one of the greatest things. A Parisian Ballet. Earlier that day we got falafel. I'd never had it before, and boy was it good. We went to a place someone on the Paris study abroad told us to go to. The sign said "best falafel in the world." That may be a lofty statement, but who cares cause it tasted so so good.

We had gone vintage shopping for 2 1/2 hours before this. And something that I found out is that I despise vintage shopping. Maybe 4 years ago I would've liked it. But definitely not now. I was not a super happy camper. So I was very happy to sit and wait in line for last minute tickets at the opera house for the ballet. We took some pictures to document our waiting. We were first in line and got tickets for 12 euros!

Katie: "Brooklynn, you really shouldn't sit like that."

Our reaction

The inside was absolutely gorgeous. I was just so happy to be there. It was the perfect thing for me to do that evening. Also- my camera had died, so I only have horrible phone photos.

Other girls from our program had gone the night before and could only see a quarter of the stage. But we got these cool chair seats!! I had to lean on that railing to see the whole stage. Totally happy to.

Sorry, that was kind of a lot of just really crappy pictures.

Last Day in Lisbon

On our last day we went to an outdoor market. It was actually more of a garbage sale. Some were trying to sell old hammers, nails, and even old bottles of lotion. It was literally trash. I did find some painted tiles for 1 euro each. They're real authentic, you can see that they've been torn from a wall and everything! Haha, they were cheap.

But first here we are with Elder and Sister Lund. I'll be forever grateful that they let us stay with them, and that they were so good to us.

I guess this stand didn't have trash, but most of them did.

A cathedral we stopped into.

An authentic Portuguese meal. It was cod with chips. The waiter brought us out bread and cheese before. He didn't say that it cost anything, so we ate it. Turns out he was going to charge us 12 euros for one little basket and plate. And he wouldn't take no for an answer, so we had to pay it. We definitely wouldn't have eaten it if we'd known. Sneaky bad man, there he is behind me.

The cod was really salty.

An open square by the river. I loved the yellow buildings.

Lisbon: Day 2

On the second day in Portugal we went to Belem. We went to a huge monastery that is famous in Lisbon. It looked like a typical cathedral inside. Which made me wonder the real defining difference between a monastery and an abbey. Because this monastery wasn't what I thought a monastery was like.

Then we went to a famous pastry shop, Pasteis de Belem, and got a traditional Portuguese pastry. It was a little custard filled cup that they sprinkled cinnamon and sugar over. It was so very good. They served it warm and it was just to die for.

Even mosaic tiles for the name of the shop! The walkways here are just incredible!

Here's the Lisbon rip off of the Golden Gate bridge. They call theirs the 25 de Abril bridge. Wikipedia says that it was built by the same company that did the San Francisco-Oakland Bay bridge, so there you go. I wish you could tell but it's bright red too. And then there's a rip off of the huge Christ statue in Rio de Janeiro behind it.

Cool marble map of the world by the river. I found and stood on Utah!

Standing by England and Portugal!

This is the tower of Belem, which I really liked. It was a fortress on the river, to defend against enemy ships!