London/Paris trip 29Dec - Changing of the Guards

We explored the Kings Cross and St. Pancras train stations after breakfast. Nothing interesting at Kings Cross, but we did find a cool gourmet shop at St. Pancras that we decided to buy stuff from for lunch on the Eurostar to Paris (the Eurostar leaves from St. Pancras) - the funny chalkboard sign about beer belongs to that gourmet place. We picked up some random souvenirs (including a Union Jack bottle opener), but that was it. Then, off to Buckingham Palace for the Changing of the Guards ceremony. We stopped to take a couple of pics and then hit the Mews gift shop. I asked the clerk where to go for the ceremony and he told us, and then asked if I knew what time it started (this was around 10:15), and I told him I knew 11:15 but he hinted that we should get down there and get a spot, so we did. You can see our spot from our pictures, not a great location, but we were there. In the middle of the ceremony, the band started to play random modern songs that seemed more appropriate to a high school band doing a half-time show than a British military band. As I have since learned (from a DVD we bought at the gift shop that explains the ceremony), the band is playing this because there's not much interesting to look at during this lull in the ceremony, so they play stuff to keep the crowd interested. And holy crap, what a crowd! The crazy part is that the guard and bands march up from Wellington Barracks and St. James Palace on the road, so the cops stop traffic, the guard/band marches through and then traffic restarts. The ceremony finished at noon, so that was nearly 2 hrs of standing, with no break. We had lunch and got some trinkets at shops along Buckingham Palace Rd and then took a taxi to the Victoria and Albert Museum (free to get in) and it was mobbed, so we walked around for a bit and gave up. The flagship Harrod's is across the street, so we went in there and walked around a bit, explored the very, very overpriced food department (£10 for 100 grams of t-bone (£40 for 1 lb, and that was the cheapest steak they had) or £3 for a head of lettuce. Then down to the basement and I checked out the cigar room. Prices didn't surprise me, £30 for a stogie, but the stuff they had on display was in really bad shape, dried out and so on, so no Cubans for me from there. We went to the coffee shop in Harrod's and had a great black forest cake and coffee. Then onto the packed rush hour tube and back to the hotel.