Worst/Best Day of my life thus far!

Today started out as an optimistic day. Class and then going to a movie premiere. The premiere was supposed to be in Leicester Square for the movie "How Do You Know" with Jack Nicholson, Reese Witherspoon, Owen Wilson, and Paul Rudd. As it turned out, the premiere was cancelled...

Us girls then, of course bummed about the cancelled premiere, turned to some lunch for comfort. I tried an original 

British dish "Bangers and Mash". Although this dish sounds pretty foreign, its simply made up of brats and mashed potatos. They brought me out THREE BRATS!!! and some mashed potatos for only five pounds! It tasted fabulous!

It was kind of ironic that the pub we stopped at was called Nicholson's, when Jack Nicholson himself, who we were supposed to see, ended up not being there!

After our lunch, a few of us split up and decided to get a more up close and personal look at Buckingham Palace. Shown above are the palace gates from the road that surrounds it. Look how small I am compared to them!!!

I had been wanting a cape since I got here and I was cold one day, so this is my steal of the trip so far! It's wool and absolutely one of the warmest pieces of my wardrobe here :) 

Me in the front of the palace

If you want to see a guard walking around, click play on this video. I thought it was really interesting to learn that their shifts last for 24 hours! 

A traditional guard with a sword chatting it up (I thought they weren't supposed to do that!) with a modern cop who has a machine gun.

Another view of the front gates where the Queen enters.

A standard looking police car (They are BMW's!) Usually they are silver, bright yellow, or bright orange. If you look carefully at this pic or zoom in on it, you'll see that the cop was posing for me :) He waved and made a goofy face :)

Traditional post office box with the initials of the Queen (Elizabeth Regina II).

Traditional phone booth :)

We're going to see this play "Billy Elliot" in a few weeks for our theatre class! Elton John wrote the score and it should be absolutely fantastic!

I would love to see this show while I'm here!

The old facade of the Victoria Rail Station. 

This is the beginning of where my worst day turned into my best day! I had the opportunity to go to the Apple store of all place in Piccadilly Circus to see Colin Firth-the man who just won Best Actor for "The King's Speech" at the Golden Globes give a Question and Answer speech with the director James Hooper! 

It was truly one of the most amazing things that I've ever been to! Just the fact that he recently won a Golden Globe for his extreme talent in the film was awesome, but the fact that he'll 99.999% be nominated for an Academy Award is sooo cool!

He seemed like a very intellectual man and thought hard about his answers. He looked really tired though from traveling around promoting his film.

I had the idea to go around the corner to the back exit of the store! We waited about 5 minutes and he came out!!! He was one of the nicest people I have ever made small talk with and said that he wanted to sign everyone's things. I had him sign my journal :) Everyone else had photos, but I thought it was cool that I even had a piece of something for him to sign!

I then went up to him and asked if he would mind taking a picture with me. A bunch of guys were waiting in line and then he pointed to me as if saying, "ladies first :)" I'm happy with how the pic turned out being that A) I took the pic myself, B) my hands were convulsively shaking, and C) I was on a time limit to take it before he hopped into his Mercedes car :) 

After standing for 1.5 hours in a hot, pushy crowd, I was absolutely exhausted from all of the standing and excitement and therefore decided to rest in a huge Dr. Seuss-like chair in Anthropologie :) 

The moral of today's blog may just be; it's worth waiting in the cold and having a miserable day, because you may just get your picture with the incredible Colin Firth :)  

I love you all and miss you very much :)