The Mall, the broad avenue leading to the Palace, is there chiefly to embarrass tourists, since nobody will ever pronounce it the "right" way (not to be the Ugly American, but this is one of three instances where the ignorant American pronunciation is infinitely preferable to the proper English one, clerk and lieutenant being the others). It's also lined with palaces, built by the nobility but now largely occupied by lesser royals.

There are a few parks surrounding Buckingham Palace that used to be part of the palace's grounds but are now open to the serfs. St. James' Park is the prettiest, and provides the best vantage point for photos as well. We didn't tour Buckingham Palace because it's only open during the summer, but I've done it previously. I would definitely recommend it but mainly because you'll feel like you missed something on your tourist checklist if you didn't. But it's not really that interesting. It's grand but not over the top enough to be memorable, and it's scrubbed of any sense of someone actually living there. There was a tv show about the real life at the palace, and people working there would talk about the queen eating cereal out of tupperware containers and stuff like that. Now that's a tour I'd like to take.

On Sunday, we walked around Westminster, the heart of tourist London and probably very familiar to anyone with a passport. You would think that would dissuade me from babbling on about these overly familiar landmarks, and you'd be right. For example, this is Parliament and Big Ben, which as you all know sits atop Parliament. There are many centuries of history on this site, which started out as part of the main royal palace but was rebuilt several times after fires, with this majestic faux-old building housing Parliament for the last couple of centuries. Lots of weird and wonderful things happen all over London's ancient sights, but talking about them at length would take the focus of us, which would be a shame. So you'll have to google up the history stuff, because the spotlight will stay relentlessly on Bromchai (like Brangelina, get it?). But since Sunday was also the only sunny day on the whole trip, there will be lots of photos about this area coming up.