The Royal Wedding

To go or not to go... After much humming and hawing I finally made the decision to go into London for THE ROYAL WEDDING. Kira (another Aussie teacher) and I got up bright and early Friday morning and headed to the station to catch a bus and then a train. I went dressed in the only red and blue clothes that had made it into my 20kg luggage allowance over here, and Kira... wore her Australian Rail high-vis fluro orange jacket. This was a tactical ploy so that people might think she was some kind of official and let us through. It worked to a certain extent in that a lot of people stopped her to ask her for directions, which she gladly gave them, throwing a few completely off track I'm sure.

Anyway, we arrived in London and walked along the Mall to Green Park which is near Buckingham Palace. Here, we found ourselves a small piece of real estate in front of the big screen to watch the ceremony. The atmosphere was amazing and we cheered and waved our Will and Kate flags along with all the other thousands of people there, including quite a few other Australians and Canadians. The only thing missing from the festivities was a sausage sizzle. We watched the ceremony and the balcony kiss and then decided to head over to Hyde Park.


The Queen arrives



Kate arrives



 

Waving our flags

 

On the balcony



The planes

  

The crowds at Buckingham Palace



When we got to Hyde Park, there was a band playing on stage and this was surrounded by not one, but three giant screens. We went and got ourselves some Pimms, which was clearly the drink of the day... and then another Pimms... and then sat in front of a screen to see them drive away in the Aston Martin.

The majority of the action finally over, we came home and went to a pub to soak up some more of the post-wedding atmosphere.

The next day saw Sally and I going to Kira's house for a Royal Wedding party and then Stephanie (a Canadian teacher) came to our house on Sunday for another party! For both parties, Sally and I whipped up some red and blue cupcakes with crowns on the top. The lesson learnt... never use all natural food colouring! The red food colouring was made from beetroot which gave the cupcakes are rather interesting flavour... Artificial all the way!


Our cupcakes



The spread





Enjoying our cupcakes




Stephanie and Sally trying to open
a bottle of wine





So this, finally, was the end of our Royal Wedding weekend. We do still casually bring it up in conversation however - "When we were at the Royal Wedding..."