Happy Birthday Queen Elizabeth II!

Today was Queen Elizabeth's formal birthday. She was crowned queen 58 years ago! They had a huge parade in honor of her. They had all of the royal soldiers, band, and horsemen march through The Mall and into Buckingham Palace. We were able to see the Queen and the royal family wave from their balcony!

It was quite an event... There were canon shots in St. James Park and an air show at the end! Thousands of people flooded the streets hoping to get a glimpse of the parade and the Queen.
I love how London is filled with living traditions and history!


The air show!!! Everyone stood in awe :)
This is where the parade started. All of the stands and streets were filled with people.
They have such ornate uniforms... even the drum gets a special cloak. haha
Entrance to Traflagar Square :)
It still amazes me that they use horses all the time.

Here's part of the parade with Buckingham Palace in the background :)

Later, we went to Tower Bridge! Most people think that this bridge is the actual London Bridge. It's probably my favorite bridge I've seen in London. :) We walked across the Tower Bridge and the London Bridge! I was soooo exhausted after all of the places we went today.


I love the colors that all of the metal is painted.

There's me eating icecream on Tower Bridge. It was delicious :)


This guy cracked me up... He kept directing a random asian guy to take his picture. I don't really know what he's supposed to be. haha

We also went to the Tower of London! I had no idea how big it actually was... I was expecting a single tower and a moat. It had an inner and outer wall, and it has 20 towers total!

There's the Tower of London. There are so many different buildlings within it that date way back to 1077. It is also the oldest building used by the British government today. Here we saw the crown jewels!!! I didn't know that there were real diamonds that big! It was bigger than an egg! haha The crowns were so detailed and sparkly. I think one of the crowns had over 6000 diamonds on it. These crowns are still used for crowning the queens and kings of England.


The guard in front of the Crown Jewels Tower!


Between the inner and outer walls.

This was our tour guide. He is an active Yeoman Guard at the tower. The E II R on his uniform means, "Elizabeth the II is Regina" (regina is queen in Latin)


Last shot of the Tower of London!

Tomorrow we are going to Stone Henge! I can't wait!