Spending three days in London, I had neither the compulsion nor the desire to "do" London as I had "done" Amsterdam in 27 hours (see blog entry "Lowdown on the Netherlands"). Because my number one goal was to see a show each night of my stay, my first order of business after I checked into my hotel (the Strand Palace) was to head to the discount ticket office on Leicester Square. I easily accomplished my goal, seeing three musicals--Billy Elliot, Wicked (I missed this one in the U.S.), and Sister Act. I cannot say which one was the best--I enjoyed them all. The young lead in Billy Elliot (based on the movie of the same name) was fantastic. The role of Glinda, the good witch in Wicked, was ably played by an understudy, but her singing voice was small compared to the greater range and fullness of the voice of the actress playing Elphaba, the wicked witch. Sister Act (based on the Whoopi Goldberg movie and co-produced by Whoopi) was just plain fun. The highlights of the show were the choir's song and dance numbers.
Not having been to a London show in over 40 years (the last time I was in London was 36 years ago), I did not recall any major differences from American theater (besides the spelling of "theatre"). This time around, I noticed that London's live theatre is like going to the movies or a ball game. You can bring food and drink to your seat, and snack stands are set up in the theatre aisles during intermission. No, the hawkers don't throw bags of peanuts half way across a row of seats as they do at the ballpark. The British are more restrained than that (though they come out in force for an evening beer at the pubs) (see photo)!My only "complaint" about the shows is not really a complaint, but rather, a slight inconvenience. With the shows' regularly starting at 7:30PM and lasting an average of almost three hours, my choice was to eat dinner either very early or very late. I chose the former option, which cut into my time for museums, sights, walking, and shopping. I coped. Besides, "dining" in London is an oxymoron, though I did have three decent dinners. Bumbles, a restaurant with an eclectic menu, was recommended to me by a young cloakroom attendant at the Queen's Gallery. Even if the servers had not tried to be pretentious (e.g., making a show of the plate presentation), the food was good. Mango Tree, an upscale (i.e., should have more pretention) Thai restaurant recommended by my sister, Judi, had good food, but when I ordered two appetizers, rather than an appetizer and a main course, the server inexplicably brought both at the same time . The third dinner was at Thai Cottage, a hole in the wall spot near the theatre, which was recommended by the "Rough Guide to London" authors. The place has zero atmosphere and has no pretensions, but the servers knew better than to overlap the appetizer (Chicken Satay, suggested by the Rough Guiders) and the main course! Henry would have loved the place--it was big on hot spices, Henry's favorite.
I did a lot of walking around the city, wandering through several markets (e.g., Covent Garden (where the street performers overshadowed the artists displaying their wares for sale (see photo)) and Spitalfields), walking along both sides of the Thames, 
crossing the Millennium bridge (see photo) (walking only and offering nice views of St. Paul's Cathedral (see photo) on one side and the Tate Modern Museum on the other) and the London Bridge (newly built after an older version moved to Arizona; 
not at all attractive, but it was a convenient place to cross the river and to view the Tower Bridge (see photo)), viewing the Gherkin (an ugly, new pickle-shaped skyscraper (see photo)), 
Big Ben, the Houses of Parliament, and the London Eye (a huge, slow moving (one revolution takes about 30 minutes) ferris wheel that provides panoramic views of the city) (see photo), 
and taking my life in my hands when crossing the street at Piccadilly Circus and Trafalgar Square (see photo). I also enjoyed a stroll through St. James Park and the Palace Gardens (see photo), both of which are hard to avoid once one commits to visiting Buckingham Palace (see photo below).
I opted for the Buckingham Palace tour, since the palace has been open to the public only since the 1990's and then only for two months in the summer, while the queen is residing in Scotland at Balmoral Castle. The agreement to open Buckingham Palace for public tours was reached reluctantly, but money was needed to rebuild Windsor Castle after a fire in 1992 and to continue maintaining Buckingham Palace, not to mention maintaining the monarchy itself! Although the populace is not ready to get rid of the monarchy, the people are now less willing to pay for it.An interesting touch to go along with the Buckingham Palace audio tour is the presence of university students (generally those studying history or art history) who are hired for the summer to act as room monitors and sources of additional information. I talked with a few of them along the way through the approximately 20 state rooms (the other 600+ rooms are closed to the public). They change room responsibilities every half hour, so they they don't get bored, and they are given "cheat sheets" for each room in order to do their best at answering questions. With very question I asked the various monitors (except an older gentleman who appeared to be a veteran in this line of work), out came the cheat sheets! I was impressed, however, that when one of the young monitors did not know the answer to my question, she asked someone else, then found me about 15 minutes further on in the tour, and provided the answer. Now, that's dedication to the job!
I am not sure what it was that gave Buckingham Palace a different feel for me than the palaces I visited in Germany. It wasn't the differences in decoration (e.g., less painting, but more fancy stucco work and gilding on the ceilings) or in merchandising (they all are masters). It also wasn't the revelation that some of the flower bouquets set around the state rooms were fake. I was rather taken with George III's and George IV's (the biggest contributors to the palace furnishings and decor) choices of Sevres porcelain pieces and paintings by the Dutch Masters, but these didn't account for the different feel either. Part of the difference is that I'm somewhat familiar with the language spoken in this palace, and thus was able to read all of the signs! The larger element, however, is that this is one of the few palaces that still serves as a residence and as an official venue for the royalty's entertainment of 70,000 people a year. I'm sure just close friends are invited. Maybe the place is a relic, but at least it's being used.
When I was in London over 40 years ago with my father, we watched the "changing of the guard" at Buckingham Palace.
This time around, I watched the changing of the horse guard (see photos). My memory from years past is that nothing could twitch or sway the guards. 
After watching the horse guards and individual foot guards (now, with what looked like machine guns, rather than muskets(see photo), I'm convinced that the Royal Guard School (or whatever it is called) is not graduating quite the same caliber of guard as it did 40 years ago. Some of today's guards actually moved their eyes and changed their facial expressions! My! Oh, my! 
In any event, the two guards standing on the palace grounds near where the palace tour ended were definitely fakes. Neither held a sword or a machine gun, and neither was able to hold the proper pose. I assume they were two of the many students hired for the summer at the palace and were costumed for tourist photos. One of them appeared especially pained by the experience (see photo). I was pleased, however, to see that not all of the horse guards where white males.I was happy with my selection of four museums to visit:
1. Queen's Gallery: more treasures from the Royal Collection; currently showcasing its wonderful collection of Faberge eggs and porcelain flowers (these were real fakes!), and other Sevres porcelain.
2. Sir John Soane's Museum: a museum situated in the former home of the chief architect of the Bank of England 200 years ago; includes a motley collection of antiquities as well as other "period" items; in many respects, the house was modeled to fit the collection, rather than the other way around.
3. British Museum: probably best known for the Elgin Marbles (Parthenon sculptures brought to England by Lord Elgin in the early 1800's (see photo); I think I saw more of the Acropolis Parthenon in the British Museum than I did in Athens) and the Rosetta Stone (the piece of stone which allowed researchers to decipher Egyptian hieroglyphs); given the size of the British Museum, I'm glad I rented the 50 or so greatest hits audio tour, so as not to miss the museum's most famous holdings.
4. National Gallery (see photo): another huge museum; rather than see it all, I spent more time with my preferred periods and painting styles; these included a special exhibition of late 18th and 19th century French landscape paintings and their influence on the impressionist paintings of the later 19th century, the Dutch Masters of the 17th century, and the impressionists (no surprise to anyone who has read prior blog entries!).A few more miscellaneous observations:
1. For those of you who are wondering, "The Ashes" referred to in the title of this blog is the trophy won in certain test cricket matches between England and Australia. During my visit, the final of 5 test matches between England and Australia was the big event for pubs all over London (see photo). My apologies to Elizabeth George--she authored a novel about the murder of a cricket player, called, "Playing for the Ashes". If you like mysteries, I highly recommend almost all of her books.2. I got the feeling that the Commonwealth is the United Kingdom's way of believing it is still an Empire, and the queen holds that Commonwealth together. Woe to the Commonwealth when the queen dies.
3. Although London theatre is less pricey than Broadway theater, and a number of the great museums (e.g., British Museum and National Gallery) are free, tourists can pay a pretty penny (i.e., lots of them) for some of London's popular attractions (e.g., Buckingham Palace (16.50 British Pounds (GBP), which currently equates to almost 27 USD); Tower of London (17 GBP); London Eye (17.50 GBP)). Yes, admission to Disneyland is quite a bit more, but at least one can spend the entire day there!
4. Yes, Karen C., London does have trash containers along the streets (see photo)! When Karen Crawford and her entourage came to visit us after visiting London (see blog entry "Friends from Afar"), they insisted there were no trash containers on the streets of London. 
Actually, Karen, the problem was that you were looking for trash containers instead of rubbish containers (see photo). I concede, however, that I was hard-pressed to find either a trash or rubbish container when I needed one at the theatre.
5. 
Brits post funny signs, such as "Mind the Gap" (there really is a gap between some of the older underground trains and the platform!), reminders to "Look Right" and "Look Left" at most crosswalks, and "Give Way" instead of "Yield". I was surprised, however, to see "Subway" next to "Underground" (see photos).
6. My favorite sign was on an ice cream truck--"Often Licked Never Beaten" (see photo).7. Many more people jaywalk in London than in Munich, Berlin, or Zurich. Perhaps, this is partly because most visitors aren't used to looking right first, instead of left, when crossing the street. Also, although traffic circles work pretty well elsewhere, they seem to add to the traffic in London.
8. Unlike the Swiss and Germans, the operators of the London Underground do not apologize for delays on the "Tube". After walking along the Thames for a while, I decided to take the Tube to my next destination in order to save some time. What would have been about a 15-minute walk ended taking me about 30-40 minutes on the Tube, because of a "signal failure". Given that I could actually understand the announcements, because they were in English rather than German, I could tell they were purely informational, without any tone of apology.
9. Especially in the areas of traffic flow and the subway system, London has a long way to go to be ready for its hosting of the 2012 Olympics. The Underground is especially unfriendly to visitors with luggage. In some of the stations, with either no or no convenient escalators, it is extremely difficult to lug one's luggage up and down steps. (Duh, I guess that's the reason luggage is called luggage.) When I first arrived via the Underground, from the airport to one of the stops near my hotel, I saw a huge crowd of people waiting for an elevator. Little did I know that the circular staircase I took instead of the elevator would be the equivalent of about eight flights of stairs, with no place to exit except at the very top! Other stations are not as daunting, but still require the use of steps. Does this mean I'm getting old, or just feeling it?? Hoping that it's neither, I sometimes opt for the steps just to prove that to myself!
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