Fairytale Land

Yesterday was a fabulous day! Since we didn't have class we decided to sleep in a bit before eating breakfast and then headed towards the Houses of Parliament to watch the Queen's Parade. Today was the official opening of Parliament. Actually, Parliament has been in session for the past month and a half or so but you know the Brittish and their traditions . . . the Queen has to make her appearance to "officially" open everything. Lucky for us, unlucky for her, she has no say in what she says in her speech. It's written by the Prime Minister.
Bethany, Laura, and Kaitlyn waiting for the parade to start. It was freezing!

This was hillarious. The workers in the florescent uniforms were shovelling dirt onto the street and the parade started before they could get out of the way. They got a lot of glares.

There were so many beautiful horses and they all matched.

The Queen's grand entrance through Horse Guard Gate.

The Queen in her gold carriage passing us.

Later in the afternoon we met up with the rest of the program to visit the Cabinet War Rooms, used by Winston Churchill during WWII. It reminded me of my brother because I remember him coming back from them so excited to tell us all about the interactive museum there. And Nate, it was awesome! I can't wait to see my family!

When we got back from the War Rooms we had a little time to change into dress clothes for a performance of Handel's Messiah that night. And then we headed out to for the Twilight Premiere!

Me in front of theatre in Leicester Square. I was so excited! (P.S. - yes, these pictures were taken starting at 4 pm. It's that dark here!)

We got there a couple hours early, to get a good spot of course, so we were able to see all the setup as well. Here are some of the crew members rolling out the black carpet. Yes, the black carpet.

And then they sprinkled some silver glitter all over the carpet.

And then they decided that it was too much glitter . . . so they vacumed some of it up. After the majority was vacummed up another man came around to sweep it around so it wasn't in little piles. Good work crew!

A partial view of the crowd. We were right across from the press section so the majority of the crowd is behind us watching a big screen of the preview and listening to the Soundtrack. Just imagine thousands of screaming teenage girls. Everytime a camera would flash they would scream in excitement.

Just before the stars began arriving the crew set up their final effects: a big dead tree (so pretty much branches) and some fog machines. The last we saw as problematic . . .

Kristen Stewart was the first to arrive (she plays Bella Swan for all you non-Twilighters). As you can see, the fog was a problem. Everyone was screaming, "Turn the fog off!" but knowing the British there were a few more explitives in there. She's back there somewhere. We got some good views of her but not any great pictures. She is so beautiful!

Then Rob Pattinson arrived and the crowd went absolutely crazy! So, I don't think he's that cute, but he is deffinately more attractive in real life. This is one of the best pictures we could get of him but he actually got quite close to where we were standing before he went into the theater.

Here's a zoomed up view of him being interviewed.

And, just to give you an idea of how they really looked, here is a professional shot from last night. It was below freezing last night and Kristen was hoping around to keep warm in her dress. We had to leave early to make it to the Messiah performance, so we didn't get to see any of the other stars who showed up . . . but that's okay we got to see the most important ones.

The movie actually doesn't open here until the 19 December so I will see it at home before it even opens here. And now I'm not as bitter as I used to be about having to wait so long. So, Avery, even though I haven't seen the movie yet . . . at least I've seen the stars!

The performance of the Messiah was amazing and today we all went out an purchased the new JK Rowling book that came out today, The Tales of Beedle the Bard.

I love London!