A Diamond Jubilee

Living in London I have learned a bit about what it is like to have mention of royalty on a near daily basis. I'm not complaining, I think it's pretty fabulous that a country can still speak of King's and Queens and come on, how many of you haven't dreamt of being a prince or princess at some point in your life?! Now I'm not always certain that the Queen does a whole lot beyond visiting schools, planting trees (yes there was a picture in the paper of her holding a shovel and digging in a hole!) and being overall a very kind, well dressed and very respected woman. However, today marks her diamond jubilee, meaning today is the day her father passed away and she came to be on the throne. It also happens to be the day the old barracks in St John's Wood, having been used for 200 years, was being relocated (article here: (http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-24033400-the-queen-marks-diamond-jubilee-with-renewed-pledge-to-serve-britain.do)
So in honor of these events there was a 41-gun salute using old WWI canons in Hyde park and it was INCREDIBLE. 109 horses came running into the middle of the park, the military dismounted and set up their canons and at exactly noon "ONE!....FIRE!" "TWO!.....FIRE!" "THREE!.....FIRE!" and on and on. there were 6 canons total and holy cow were they loud! I got there early enough to get a very good spot right next to one of them and when that first blast when off I squealed just a little, along with the lady next to me haha. I felt like I was watching history though apparently the guns are actually fired pretty frequently in summer for state holidays, birthday etc...
Now I took a video (above) though I'm not sure how the quality came out. Normally when the horses come into Hyde Park they come racing in but because of the snow we received this weekend it was very slippery and during the run through a few of the horses had already hurt themselves. We can't have the royal horses falling in front of a crowd! That'd be embarrassing. Anyways, look to the picture on the left and how close I got to stand to the sixth gun! I'm telling you when they "FIRE"d the BOOM was sooo intense I swear I felt the ground shake and the air pushed right back into my face as the gun exploded. It was so awesome though!
Anyways, on that note....the horses came running back into the park, the military re-mounted and off they went to their new barracks. It was fun and I'm glad I managed to find the place in the park where it took place because Hyde Park is GINORMOUS!

In other news, I have recently joined a gym which I'm super excited about! I spend so many hours a day reading for school and just sitting at tables and desks in Starbucks that I often feel antsy by bed time which causes me to toss and turn a lot. The last couple days that I've gone to the gym I have not only been exhausted and sore after but ready to pass out as soon as I lay down! It's a good feeling and I love feeling like I've been productive. It has also made me much more conscious about the food I'm eating so even though there won't be any drastic changes to my eating habits (sorry, David, I LOVE peanut butter on both sides of my sandwich and sometimes greasy pizza is what I need!) I am incorporating more vegetables and less carbs since that seems to be my entire diet!

No new updates in the school department, just lots of reading as usual and going to try and get a jump start on essays this term. We will see how that goes.

Love from London,
Kristin