Day 83

Friday, August 3 -

I went to the Queen's house! She wasn't home. Again. I feel like she may be avoiding me...
I did the Royal Day Out, so I got to see all three exhibits in the palace; Leonardo da Vinci's human anatomy art, the Royal Mews and the State Apartments. Da Vinci's exhibit was super interesting, I had no idea he was into the whole human body thing.

Da Vinci's drawing of human anatomy

Human skulls

Cow fetus!

The Royal Mews were also pretty cool. We didn't get to see much, but they had a lot of the Queen's coaches on display and two of her horses were in there!

The Irish State Coach 

The Queen's Limo 

The Australian State Coach

The Glass Coach

The State Landau 

Stables

The Gold State Coach

It was very elaborate and gold 

The Royal Mews! Employees actually live there 

McCarthy, one of the Queen's horses!

Flint! He's behind the fence

Then we went inside the Palace, through the State Apartments. It was pretty nice! Unfortunately no pictures were allowed. It looked a lot like Windsor Castle, very big and spacious and royal.

The back of Buckingham Palace

The Queen's backyard

Buckingham Palace

I went back into work even though yesterday was my last day, because I just can't stay away. But really I needed to finish up my story package. I'm really happy with how it turned out.

While I was waiting for them to put my package on a DVD a shoot popped up! The bureau chief was like to me, "What are you doing tonight?" and asked if I wanted to go on this shoot. Instead of saying no, I'm starving and I just want to go home, I said sure, I'd love to go on this shoot. It was so worth it!

We went to interview Mary Lou Retton for this story CBS did on Gabby Douglas. Mary Lou Retton is an American Gymnast and was the first non-Eastern European woman to win the Olympic all-around title back in 1984. I'd never heard of her before but apparently it's a generational thing.

The interview was at the USA House which was in some college building by Royal Albert Hall. It was filled with US athletes and other Americans pretty much just having a huge party. I felt very in my element.

USA House

My media badge! I wanted to keep it, but the media lady wouldn't let. 

Interviewing Mary Lou Retton

Mary Lou was TINY, she said she was only 4'9. She was also SO enthusiastic about Gabby Douglas, gymnastics and the Olympics. She kind of made me want to go learn gymnastics and win a couple of gold medals or something.