Horses :)

Last Friday Aurelie and I went to the National Carriage Driving Championships in the Windsor Great Park. You can see the castle in the background. The event lasted all weekend, we were there for just a few hours during the dressage phase. It was as if we had gone back in time about a hundred years with all the horses and carriages and fancy costumes surrounding us.

These ponies were cute. Not like regular ponies, more like a horse down-sized. Very petite, they were.

It was interesting how this horse on the fore right always had his ears pricked, while the others always had them back.

Windsor castle

Aurelie and I went to Windsor castle at the beginning of this month. Actually, we went to Windsor, and then decided to tour the castle as well. It was worth it. Quite a place, really.

These funny faces were all over the walls. Wonder whose idea it was?

The walls were many meters thick in some places!

We got to go inside as well, but no photography was allowed there. Pity, for some of the rooms were something to behold. Whole rooms filled with weapons, armour, paintings, tapestries, gold, silver.. you name it. I was most interested by the things that had been given Queen Victoria a long time ago: weapons and royal garment from far off lands. If only one could board a time machine and travel back to those times to see how life was. History is such an interesting thing, one can't help but be fascinated by it.

That would be a statue of the Imperial Queen herself

Cute guys with a boring job

We agreed that this must be the only place where an ice cream vendor wears a uniform :)

Streets of Windsor

London

Last Sunday the NSA took the new students to London for the afternoon. It was a rather gray and rainy day and I walked around all day in wet shoes and socks.

This is the parliament building on the Thames river

Big Ben with the London Eye in the background

A statue of Richard Coeur de Leon in front of the parliament building. London seems to be filled with statues.

A little dragon in an entryway of Westminster Abbey

The Sovereign's entrance of Parliament building

A random statue

Poor guys have to stand around all day in funny clothes doing nothing.

I felt even sorrier for the horses. What a boring life.

On a dull gray day, the only splashes of color were provided by the guards and the buses.

St James Park had a lot of squirrels in it. They were cute :) One girl put out her hand and the squirrel reached up and took hold of it and looked for food. They look so soft!

Buckingham palace from St James Park

This was a monument in front of Buckingham palace with a statue of Queen Victoria on one side. Underneath her was the inscription Regina Imperiatrix. I had to smile when I heard someone next to me say: "Regina? and is Imperiatrix her last name?"

Statue of Florence Nightingale

Had to include this. It's what London is so famous for!

Here was a larger than life lion (there were 4 of them actually) at the base of Nelson's Column in Trafalgar Square. That's the National Gallery in the background.

National Gallery

A pretty statue of a horse

I like Dali's running clocks

I still need to visit 215 Baker Street

Looking down the Thames