A plane, the president and the palace

Exam marking season now underway so what better time to blog about my trip to Brussels a couple of weeks ago?! As with Lyon and Strasbourg, these places are a bally nightmare to get to. I avoided the silly o'clock flight from Dublin and took the plane from Belfast and Eurostar from St. Pancras. Makes for a better travelling experience I thought. And I was right.

Our flight flew right over central London, and had it been a better day it would have been like an episode of The Apprentice. I first noticed when we flew right over a massive train station that looked awfully like St. Pancras, except using my London geography knowledge I knew that St. Pancras was nowhere near Heathrow. It's not, but we still flew over it and turned the wrong way to get to Heathrow. That's why I'm not a pilot. Next thing I know we're over Greenwich and Olympic Park and I was reaching for my camera!

Olympic Park. You can see the stadium, basketball arena, velodrome and village. Never mind those though, where's the handball arena?!

Home of 2012 Gymnastics.

Canary Wharf. I can nearly hear The Apprentice music now...bum dadum badum badum badum badum ba dum dummmm...

Right over Tower Bridge. You can't really tell except for its shadow in the Thames.

Central London. I've picked out a few highlights for you below.

I decided against annotating the plane wing and the Thames. I thought you could spot them yourself.

Whitehall, the London Eye and Big Ben.

Buckingham Palace and St. James' Park.

Finally our jaunt over the hot spots of London was over, things became more residential and less obvious. Except for this place.

The blue seats of Queen's Club!

And off in the distance, Wembley.

I feel the towers would have been harder to pick out that the big arch.

It was exciting that morning to hear that Obama was going to be arriving in Buckingham Palace. I had a few hours before my train with nothing planned. So I headed to Buckingham Palace to see what I could see.

American flags on Pall Mall for one...

and crowds were milling about.

The press porta-cabins for William and Kate were downgraded to gazebos for the President.

The little walk way you can see was left open so I, along with about twenty other people piled across the back of all their shots. I was the only one with a suitcase, however.

The BBC's Emily Maitlis was getting ready to go live.

The Household Cavalry rode past.

There were loads of cameras there. I saw them set up the one on the roof of the Palace, there were big stands and then there was this guy.

The police on duty were deliberating sketchy about where the car was going to be coming from or going to. Understandable I suppose. I had picked out a place right beside the lamp post in this shot only to decide to move closer to the gates.

I picked the wrong gates though and definitely would have been better where I was.

I, and my fellow hangers on, waited. And then we waited some more. And then a little bit more. It wasn't actually that bad, it was all good natured. I got talking to a group of American students were in London on a layover to Kenya for 12 weeks. I took their picture for them after it was all over so they have a nice group shot in front of the Palace. I'm such a friendly sort.

The finally big moment came, the cheers started and the President drove past. I wouldn't actually say I saw him so much as I saw someone waving in the back of the car. I took a video but it's a bit Jimmy White and if I were to put it on you'd really wonder if I saw anything at all. Like I said, I would have been better where I was. Oh well.

It took a while for them to let us out of the area in front of the palace. I didn't understand why. And then it became clear: William and Kate arrived. Ironically they went through the gate I was at, except I had moved to try to leave so all I saw was the car they were in. Not so successful. That said, I doubt I'll ever be closer to Obama or the Cambridges. 

Or Emily Maitlis for that matter.