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London and fantasy

TWENTY SEVENTH day of backpacking across Europe with "30-Day Blogging Challenge ON HIATUS"  [13+]

HO, wait a minute Lyn's a Witchy Woman . Did you say train ride? That means UNDERNEATH the CANAL!! I so wanted to do that once in my life and now it is happening. I think this is one of the biggest endeavors in Europe, let’s face it…building a tunnel in the ocean, for crying out loud, how cool is that?! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKVVPVwALbY .

LONDON here we are!! We're beginning our day at Buckingham Palace. We delve into London’s rich royal heritage during a 2.5-hour visit to Buckingham Palace to see the changing of the Guard Ceremony. I have seen those guards at several points in the city, and they don’t blink an eye although tourists will try to take pictures and try to make them do or say anything. But they are trained not to react to anything. I love those guys in their great suits. It’s all very ceremonial.

We get acquainted with an iconic London monument on a 4-hour tour of Westminster Abbey from 1066. I loved Poet’s corner where lots of famous poets are buried. Tennyson, Henry James, Charles Dickens. Wow. All those graves in that most beautiful of all churches. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=afzg6fvI55c

Then it’s time for the Houses of Parliament. I love that too since I used to watch sometimes how the British run their government. With “Mister Speaker” and “Hear, hear!” It’s all very, very British and ceremonial at the same time. Oh, how I love those Brits.

Then, Oh BOY, a musical: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-EoXr07bmAs I be dazzled by the exuberant 'Kinky Boots' musical at the Adelphi Theatre in London. It’s all spandex and shoes in that one. Great atmosphere! I liked our night in town.

It’s great to be back in London. It’s been too long ago since I was last visiting.

Unreal City,
Under the brown fog of a winter dawn.
A crowd flowed over London Bridge, so many,
I had not thought death had undone so many.
Sighs, short and infrequent, were exhaled,
And each man fixed his eyes before his feet.
Flowed up the hill and down King William Street,
To where St Mary Woolnoth kept the hours
With a dead sound on the final stroke of nine.
T.S. Elliot

Prompt: What is your favorite fantasy and why? What about it makes it so magical to you? (BcoFs)

I think the most favorite fantasy I have ever read was by J.R.R. Tolkien: the classic high-fantasy works The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and The Silmarillion, a connected body of tales, poems, fictional histories, invented languages, and literary essays. I loved how he did his world building with a totally new world of hobbits and creatures. It’s been fascinating and I read those books at a very young age. I like the books better than the movies, although those are great too, because you can fantasies for yourself. He is truly the ‘father’ of fantasy literature.

Prompt: "The oak sleeps in the acorn, the bird waits in the egg and the highest vision of the soul, a waking angel." What is your take on this beautiful reflection? (BC)

It’s a beautiful short prose poem. I love the dream-like atmosphere in this short fantasy tale, where you can envision the tree, the bird and the angel in the early morning with a hazy day ahead of us and the wonderful new wonders of the day yet to arrive. The promise of a new dawn!

The oak sleeps in the acorn
the bird waits in the egg and
the highest vision of the soul,
a waking angel.

Day THIRTY FIVE "Give It 100!"