Today was simply glorious! We got up early, ate a yummy free breakfast at our hotel, and walked a block away to the Mall (the street between the arch and Buckingham palace, which of course rhymes with pal or shall) for Trooping the Colour. We got there around 8:15am and we got a place right up front. We ended up next to these two adorable old ladies that took a coach in from Birmingham and a lovely gentleman from Edinburgh named Peter.
The celebrations started around 10am. The amazing bands came down the mall (The Irish troops played bagpipes). There was a band and a regiment for each of the five home guards. There were also guards who lined the street. It was interesting watching the guards along the street. They stood rigidly the way we're used to seeing palace guards stand. But every so often we would see one march over to another and they would stand face to face, then one would grab on to another's hat. The ladies were explaining that the sergeants would do that to relieve their troops--they would grab the hat to take the weight off their heads for a minute. We even saw the sergeants put something into the guards' mouths sometimes, and we saw them joking around and smiling, while still standing rigidly and at attention. The police also lined the street, but they were much more relaxed than the guards.
We then saw saw the Royal Family go past in horse-drawn carriages. Camilla, Harry and Kate were in the first one, followed by two other carriages with other royals we didn't recognize. Then came the horsegaurds (hundreds of them!) followed by the Queen's carriage with her and Prince Philip (whose birthday was yesterday and he turned 95!). We were so close to both of them! Right behind them were Charles, Princess Ann, and William - all in full military garb (hard to see William and Charles' faces because of the big shaggy hats called Busbies or Bearskin).
Then, once all the troops and royals had passed, we had to wait another hour (they go to horseguards, near Whitehall, where the stands are and the Queen inspects them). Around 12:15, they all over back down the Mall toward the palace. At this point, the ladies had gone and we were just there with Peter. Once everyone passed again (we got great pictures!), we headed toward the palace with Peter. As we walked down the mall, we heard the 41 gun salute in Green Park to our right.
At 1pm, all the Royals came out on the balcony for the flyovers. Peter, who has a big interest in military, told us all about the Spittfire and some other ones. There were a dozen or more planes that flew over in different groups, including several vintage planes from both world wars. Then the final flyover was a group of fighter planes in formation with red white and blue jet streams that flew right over the palace. It was awesome. The whole day could not have been planned better. We saw the crowd that was in the stands. It's probably good we didn't get tickets as they were all decked out in hats, top hats, tails, and canes and umbrellas! Everything was timed exactly, super pomp and breathtaking. As Peter said: "That's one thing our country can still do really well." It's true. It was insanely marvelous.
When all was said and done, it was around 2pm. We walked back to the hotel and watched first the news and then a special on the monarchy and Buckingham Palace. Tomorrow there is a giant picnic down the mall for the birthday celebrations. The whole road will be inaccessible and representatives of the 600 charities the Queen supports will be invited. Marks and Spencer put together a very posh picnic basket for each attendee.
We left the hotel around 4:30 for dinner. We ate at a salad place called Tossed on the way to the theatre and then walked around Theatreland for awhile before getting in the queue to get into Harry Potter. The queue wrapped around the entire block more than an hour before curtain! It was crazy. The girl wearing a Marauder's Map dress wins my favorite outfit.
Harry Potter Part 1 review: I will follow J. K Rowling's request to #KeepTheSecrets, but here are the things I feel I can say: The play opens at the train station with the same scene where the book ends. And the moment they all run through the barricade, everyone on stage spun once and were immediately in their Hogwarts robes. And the play continued to amaze. The staging of the magic was fantastic. The Crowd was hot and gasped, clapped, and cackled appropriately. Everyone is amazing, though I'm not a huge fan on the guy who plays Draco. He seems too confident, large, and gruff for the little whiny character we're used to. Harry is just as brash as always and so is his son. The story is really about Scorpius Malfoy and Albus Potter. Lupin's son is never mentioned, which I found surprising. The magic was great, as mentioned, but the actual wizarding duals ended up a bit hokey, which was actually really surprising because none of the other effects seemed hokey at all. I also cannot imagine only getting tickets to Part 1. It obviously ended on a big cliff hanger and there wasn't even a curtain call. The lights just went up. And even though you sort of knew where the story was headed and you were totally interested in it getting there, when it did, it was kind of disappointing... so I'm excited to see Part 2. The play is staged on a giant rotating stage which helped with the amazing choreography of scenes. It really was magical.
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