Hello Queen!

Saturday 13th was Trooping the Colour day - a celebration of the Queen's birthday where lots of guards and their horses do lots of parading up and down and generally entertaining the Queen. There's also a flyover by jets and what not. It only happens once a year so I thought I should go check it out.

Got down to Buckingham Palace around 10am; the trooping was supposed to start at 11am but there were already stacks of people about, armed with British flags and all sorts. They're kinda patriotic over here it seems! I got a possie sitting on a very uncomfortable fence thing, but it elevated me up a bit so I stayed there for all the guards' marching and the Queen's exit of Buckingham Palace and down the mall to this amphitheatre thing where most of the entertainment would take place. You could see that as well, but you had to buy tickets, most likely exhorbitantly priced. So I went for a walk instead, around the opposite side to where I was to see if I could get a better position. Had to push through a huge crowd in the process (I hear there were around 20,000 people there) and climb over a fence! but eventually got through the main traffic.

The other side was less busy, and I could even see some of what was going on in the amphitheatre! True, it was mostly just red specks in the distance, but still. Better than nothing! Found a place which was right near a lot of guards on horses and saw the Queen & co come out on the royal balcony and wave her little royal wave. Then she (and the others) left. I was quite happy with that but next thing I knew they'd opened the gate which was right in front of me & I got pushed through to the front of the Palace, where everyone was congregating about 3 meters back from the fence for some reason. Well, I'm not one to go against the crowd, so I stood there too, and lo and behold, the Queen came back out! And we were back far enough that the gate didn't obstruct the view - good old Londoners, they know what they're doing! The planes started doing their flyovers then - quite impressive - especially the last lot which let out the British colours as they went overhead. They got a clap for that.



All in all a good day - got some bonza photos of the royal family up there and then had another wander around the city - did a loop of the Palace, up past Westminster Abbey and Big Ben, across the Thames, past the London Eye and back over the bridge to Trafalgar Square. Really helped me order the city's layout in my head. Was heaps busy everywhere though - the weather was a gorgeous 21 or 22 and sunny and the tourists were out in force! Lots of street performers by the London Eye, some better than others. And it seemed lots of them dressed up as various characters from movies for some reason - I saw Captain Jack Sparrow, Shrek and Charlie Chaplin to name a few. Random...