Too Much Excitement to Handle

Yesterday was a day of days.

I got up at 8, which is early here ( apparently people in the UK don't go into work until 10?) and made my way down to Westminster. I wandered around until I found a throng of people gathered around in front of Westminster Cathedral. There was a giant television screen and something like 2500 children sitting on the ground in front, apparently waiting for the pope to address them. Apparently, you needed tickets to get into the actual mass, so there were just hundreds upon hundreds of people in front of the Cathedral to watch mass on TV. I wandered for a bit, talked to some fanatics, it was great. I must say that I was quite disappointed by the fact that I did not get to see the Popemobile (and yes, that is the official name of it), but I did see the man himself very briefly which was pretty exciting.

After the mass, I called in my "vox pops" which are pretty much just quick quotes from the people that I had talked to, and made my way down to Hyde Park, where a giant "Protest the Pope" rally was taking place. I walked with them for a little bit, but mostly ran up and down along the march talking to people and figuring out why they were protesting. I kid you not when I say that there 12,000 people! The march stretched all the way from Hyde Park to Westminster. I know that doesn't sound far, but go check out a map. It's ridiculous.

So I hung out with the protesters and called in some quotes, then hung around for the rally. There were a lot of people from the States, which was pretty cool. Some of what they were saying I could understand, but some of it was just too intense for me and I thought they might have crossed the line a bit, but overall it was a really exciting and rewarding experience.

And the best news of all! My quotes were used in two stories on Yahoo! and my byline is right at the bottom!! Apparently the story was also picked up in the States and in Australia!!

Today we went to the Victoria and Albert museum to check out the Raphael Tapestries and Cartoons exhibition, which was pretty cool. Now I just have a bunch of catching up on work to do, so I should be getting on...

Cheers!