In which we find out I would make a terrible royal...

You may have heard, either from me or other places, that London is in the middle of a heat wave. In fact, London is about the same temperature as the sun, give or take a few degrees (the temperatures here are reported in Celsius, so my math may be off a bit, but you get the idea.) This has meant a couple of things. 1- I am coming with an amazing tan. People are going to think I was in the Caribbean for three weeks, not London. 2-My very cute rain coat, brought specifically for this trip, has sadly sat in my closet with no use. 3- It has been entirely too hot for tea. Until today. Today, we went to Kensington Palace, where we toured the open part of the Palace and then went to have High Tea in the Orangery.

You may also have heard that there was a royal baby born yesterday. Said baby's home is also Kensington Palace, and so this was the scene outside of the Palace.

 This was a little surprising because there is actually nothing happening at this entrance, since this is where the tourists go. Either way, it was very cool to see where the baby will grow up. The palace is home to so much amazing history, but I was again so impressed with the way that the information and the history is presented. So much material is hands on, with costumes to try on, quotes written on walls, and a box of toys traditional to the time of Victoria for children to play with. It is again a reminder of the importance of engagement and hands-on exhibits when teaching.


To that end, when you first came in to the Palace there were four chairs (one in each corner), for each of the exhibits that are taking place at the time. These chairs matched the tone and theme of the exhibit. I decided to take the opportunity to practice my royal portrait pose. Take one:

Not bad. But it was pointed out that royal portraits are usually very formal. No smiling. Maybe some smirking. Right, I saw that the Portrait Gallery yesterday. No smiling, smirking. Ok, got it. So this is what my no smiling, smirking photo looks like:

Thank goodness I am good at being a librarian. 

Now, once we finished touring the Palace, it was off to high tea in the Orangery. There are few things in life that I am certain of. However, one of those things is: if you go to high tea at Kensington Palace, it is perfectly acceptable to wear a fascinator. And so, here I am, with my lovely, lovely flatmates and our fascinators: 

The tea was exactly what I expected it would be. The china alone was quite pretty, and worth 8 million photographs. 

And while wearing my fascinator, I, Melissa Iamonico, had high tea at Kensington Palace. Bazinga.