We're Practically Royal

Yes that is the Queen in front of Buckingham Palace, and yes, that is the rest of her family on the balcony.  And then look, there we are!  I mean, we're practically royal!

Yesterday while exploring we saw a sign for the Trooping of the Colours - an annual parade for the Queen.  We looked it up last night to find out that we would be able to see her and then the entire family!  After an hour delay on our planned schedule this morning from bad sleep after adjusting to their schedule and an untimely cleaning lady blocking off the showers, we got to downtown around 9:45.  We followed the crowds and ended up along the road for the procession to the soldier/horses arena for the presentation part of the celebration.  We saw numerous bands and soldiers before waving to the royal family in their carriages and then eventually the queen!!  Afterwards, we wandered to find coffee and were trying to leave the park when we got blocked off and stuck on the wrong side.  Lucky us, that put us in a place where we had almost a front row view to the street where an hour later the parade came back to Buckingham Palace and we could see the entire royal family!!!  After being blocked from crossing for about another hour, we ventured out to Hyde Park, which is HUGE.  There we saw Kensington Palace at a distance, the Princess Diana memorial fountain and other remarkable statues and buildings along with beautiful trees, paths, and a large pond where you could paddle boat or canoe.  On the way we also got to walk under the Wellington Arch.  However, our luck didn't stop with the royal parade.  Before making our way to Hyde Park, we heard sirens and saw people running up to the road.  Not sure what it was, we followed slowly, to eventually find ourselves watching hundreds of nearly or completely naked people riding their bikes and waving to the crowd!  On our way back to the subway station, we ran into the crowd finishing at the park.  One of the officials directing them told us it's called World Naked Bike Ride (the London ride had over 1200 participants) and is to raise awareness for cyclists safety and getting noticed by cars sharing the street.  On top of that it's just to show people who are proud of their body, whatever it may look like.  During it, we tried very hard to imagine how that would be accepted America, while here everyone cheered and waved to the bikers, we aren't sure New York or Chicago would be as thrilled.  Now we're chilling at Starbucks waiting to get hungry enough to go get dinner and giving our legs a much needed break.  After that we'll head back to the hostel and go to bed.  Tomorrow we have a boat tour scheduled that you can hope on and off of all day and during it we get to ride on the London Eye, the large ferris wheel, should be another exciting day!