Staff trip to London

The Band Staff has returned from London on a trip to preview the trip that we will be taking for the Lord Mayor's New Years Day Parade. This city is AMAZING!!! Even though London is a huge city, it has a very homily feel to it. The buildings have such terrific character, and the streets are very clean compared to most cities. (And it's hard to find a trash can anywhere outside!) The roads are much different over there and the drivers are also...... unique. Thankfully, we don't have to drive. We have ridden buses, trains, and the tube several times on our visit and we are pleased that they are very convenient and clean. Anyways, we'll answer all your questions about our trip to London this week and plans for the December trip when we have our first Band Booster Meeting. In the meantime, here are a few pictures from our trip.

Pictures

Picture 1 - The staff gets upgraded to 1st class for free on their flight from Atlanta to Raleigh-Durham.

Picture 2 - Outside the "Lion King" Musical.

Picture 3 - Big Ben (Actually, the Bell is Big Ben, not the tower)

Picture 4 - Statue in front of Buckingham Palace.

Picture 5 - The "Tower Bridge" over the Thames River.

Picture 6 - Buckingham Palace

Picture 7 - Picture of the Parliament House ad Big Ben from 'The Eye of London."

Picture 8 - The Cliffs of Dover overlooking the English Channel.

Picture 9 - A great picture from the beautiful town of Salisbury.

Picture 10 - Stonehenge. You're just riding out in the English Country side and as you top a hill, there it is. It is simple amazing!

Picture 11 - Stonehenge

Picture 12 - Stonehenge

Picture 13 - Queen Elizabeth the Second! We got lucky and ended up seeing the Queen of England as she passed by to enter Westminster Abbey. Sadly, this is our best picture, but you can see a little bit of her shoulder!

Picture 14 - The band staff posing with the London Town Crier.

Picture 15 - Windsor Castle. (One of our day tour locations)

Picture 16 - Staff picture from Windsor Castle.

Picture 17 - South side of the Parliament Buidling.

Picture 18 - Windsor Castle

Picture 19 - A group of school kids we met on the tour of Windsor Castle.

Picture 20 - Wading in the English Channel.

Picture 21 - Salisbury Cathedral, built in the mid 13th century. This Cathedral contains one of the 4 remaining original copies of the Magna Carta, the first human rights document that was written in the mid 13th century.

Picture 22 - Inside Salisbury Cathedral.

Picture 23 - Warwick Castle

Picture 24 - King's Cross Train Station (from the Harry Potter movies)

Picture 25 - Mr. Hunt trying to get to Platform 9 and 3/4 (in real life it's the column between platforms 4 and 5.)

Picture 26 - Abbey Road

Picture 27 - Abbey Road

Picture 28 - View from the National Gallery looking towards Big Ben.

Picture 29 - The "Eye of London," this structure is over 400 feet tall and it takes 30 minutes to go all the way around.

Picture 30 - Photo Op from inside the "Eye of London."

Picture 31 - Part of the Pipe Organ inside of Salisbury Cathedral.

Picture 32 - Stained windows from Salisbury Cathedral.

Picture 33 - A street picture from Salisbury.

Picture 34 - Our hotel.

Picture 35 - The most dangerous part of our trip: the initial drive into London on the wrong side of the road.

Video

Queen Spotting - Here is a video clip shot when the Queen drove by. I had to hold the camera over other people so I could not see what I was actually recording. As a result, you really don't see the Queen, but we saw her perfectly fine.

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Last updated: 08/13/06.