Changing of the Guard

The bottom right picture is the only one I think needs elaborated on.  Basically the entire changing of the guard is a little story, and at this point one of the guards does an elaborate inspection of the guard houses to make sure no one is hiding in it or next to it or behind it.  It's a little comical, and I enjoyed it.

I made it to the changing of the guard Friday.  I was there over an hour before it started (which is at 11:30am, by the way) and there were already people everywhere.  I managed to find a tiny spot at the fence, luckily, and camped out there for the next hour.  Let me tell you: people get really pushy at these monuments.  If you want a primo spot, you need to be comfortable with people basically stepping on top of your feet (and staying there), shoving their boobs into your back, reaching around you to take pictures etc.  

You also have to be strong.  There was a lady who sent her kid to try and squeeze a spot for her family, and now generally I have a soft spot for kids and let them in front of me but this kid weighed more than I do and was almost as tall as me, so no.  No you cannot stand in front of me when you got here five minutes before the start.  No.  Get here earlier.  But she kept instructing the kid to use their elbows to move me and the woman next to me out of the way and she got really irritated when we wouldn't move aside.  Then there was an American woman who kept reaching over people to tap me and tell me to get down.  Granted, I had stepped up on the cement base of the fence (as had everyone else at the fence) but that was because I had an enormous iron detail on the fence that was as tall as my forehead that blocked my entire view if I got down.

Lesson to be learned: if you want to see anything, you need to get there at least an hour early (or maybe go on a day when it's raining?) and then you need to stand your ground because there are plenty of people ready to rip you from your spot.