Our morning lecture was a guest speaker from the Michael Palin Centre for Stammering Children. Apparently Michael Palin is one of the original guys who started the Monty Python and he based his role as a stammerer in the movie, A Fish Called Wanda, after his dad who was a stammerer. The talk was very interesting and much better than a lot of the morning lectures we have been having lately. Our presenter had lots of good insight into how clients feel about and deal with having stammers.
During our lunch break, a few of us got Belgian waffles with Nutella from a street vendor since we had seen them many times and wanted to try them out before we left. They were very rich and sticky but so delicious! The waffles were much thicker than any waffle I had ever had before and I’m sure they were not healthy, but it was a great British treat! Haha
In the afternoon, we went to the Royal London Hospital where we started off with a very long-winded tour of the hospital’s museum and medical library (the museum was actually pretty interesting despite the length and of the tour included stuff from the real Elephant Man who had lived the last four years of his life at the hospital). When we were finally done with the tour, we watched a short video about the Elephant Man and then headed back upstairs for a couple short presentations. The first woman talked about how they deal with the multicultural community that comes to the hospital for services (mostly Bangladeshi people in that area). Finally, the second SLP talked to us about her job as a therapist in the hospital’s children’s unit. The talks were fairly interesting, but the room was hot and we were all getting very tired (like usual) so it was a huge relief when the day was finally over.
After class, we headed back to our apartment to regroup and then from there we headed to Regent’s College for dinner. We then went to Abbey Road for about a half hour and took pictures crossing the street (which is actually quite difficult to do when there is a steady stream of cars and lots of other tourists trying to do the same thing) and signed the wall outside of the Abbey Road Studio. It was a fun adventure and neat to be in the spot where history was made and such famous people have walked!
From Abbey Road we went to Trafalgar Square because I thought that the National Gallery was open later today than the rest of the week, but it turns out that my source was outdated and the gallery wasn’t really open by the time we got there at 8:30. However, we got to take some cool pictures of the Square and we even climbed up on the giant metal lion statues on top of one of the monuments in the center of the Square.
We met some British guys there who helped a couple girls get on one of the giant lion statue’s back. Brittany started talking to them and found out that they were actual part of the British Household Cavalry and they invited to show us the stalls where the horses are kept. Of course we were all a bit skeptical and first and very cautious and only agreed to walk with them a half a block to where the stalls were. They took us to this giant gate in the middle of the block between Trafalgar Square and Parliament and they told us to come in. We refused at first, but they brought one of the horses out to where we were and we saw a few men walking around inside in soldier uniforms so we started to feel a little more confident that they were telling the truth, not to mention the fact that we were in the middle of a fairly busy area. There were six of us there and one of us was brave and/or crazy enough to go in by herself, while the rest of us waited outside hesitantly. Once she came back and another girl went in with her and they both came back begging us to go in and see the horses, I finally decided it was safe enough and went in myself. It was so cool! There were probably ten or fifteen men working in there, all dressed in camouflage and military hats. They had also brought out a horse for us to pet and feed. These are the horses that the Household Cavalry ride to the front of Buckingham Palace every day for the changing of the guard. They told us that they carry swords while they are on duty protecting the Queen and the Palace and one of them even got to wear a gold jacket worth 50,000 pounds because he played the trumpet during the procession. It was so fascinating and surreal to see and experience the whole thing! We really lucked out because they said not very many people get to see the stables at all because they actually weren’t supposed to take outsiders in there. What a cool opportunity! After we walked around and fed the horses, took lots of pictures, and met some of the men, we went outside the gate and talked to them about their job a little longer. It was all so interesting but we eventually had to part ways and head back to the flat for the night. That was about it for the day, but it was a very memorable and unique experience for sure!
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