The Time I Saw the Queen...

Since the Royal Wedding Fever has overtaken the world, I feel the need to share what I like to call my "Royal Encounter" with Queen Elizabeth, Prince Harry, and Prince William. Prince Charles and Camilla were there too, but I don't particularly care for them, so I pretend they weren't there.

Here's what happened. One of my best friends, Chelsea, and I were in London in June of 2009. We were enjoying a lovely London weekend, when we discovered the Queen was celebrating her birthday. For those of you who have been following the Royals very closely, you know that the Queen's actual birthday is in April. However, June has better weather, so it is tradition for her to celebrate her birthday in sunny summer weather. Those of you who have been to London in June know that it's not exactly beautiful weather. But you understand. I digress...

Being two girls that were completely in love with the idea of Royalty, we decided we needed to see the Queen during her birthday parade. It happened to be a few hours before our plane was leaving, so we packed our little suitcases and headed to central London. Of course, all the Brits that witnessed the two Americans tugging along their little suitcases and asking where was the best spot to see the Queen thought we were a little off (or so a lovely London lady told us), but we didn't care. We wanted front row seats to see some Royalty. I also knew in my heart that if those yummy looking Princes saw me, one of them had to fall instantly in love with me.

(This is what front row seats look like. This is the Mall, which is part of Kate and William's wedding parade route)

So we waited and waited and FINALLY the parade started. Being the pushy Americans that we were, we made our way to the front of the fences (I needed William and Harry to have full access to seeing my face, just so one of them knew who they'd be marrying some day). It started like this....

Lots of pretty looking soldiers walked by in their bearskin hats. They were very nice...but we were waiting for the main event. Then all of a sudden we were taken by surprised and Prince William, Prince Harry, and that other lady drove by! I was so surprised/excited/about to wet my pants that this is the only picture I took:

That's the sexy Prince Harry sitting alone. William is sitting next to his stepmother (who notice thinks she needs to waive like a queen. Poser). Alas, neither of them looked my way...they were looking at the other side of the street. That explains why the Royal Wedding has Kate as a bride...neither of them looked over and saw me waiving like a crazy girl, screaming "I LOVE YOU" at the top of my lungs. Sigh.

Then the Queen Drove by! It was her birthday, after all, so I forgot about my prince-marrying dreams, and got excited for Queen Elizabeth's celebration! I got much better pictures of her!

There she is! In Easter Egg blue!

And then she was gone. But it was so much fun! After the Queen, there were many more soldiers marching by, but Chels and I had a plane to catch, so we walked through a gorgeous park and stumbled on to some soldiers with their bearskin hats! We asked if they would take pictures with us, and they laughed and said just one each. We got our pictures, but unfortunately, we gained some unwanted attention for them. There was a line of people waiting to take pictures as we left, and the poor guys had to fend them off to get back to their duty. Oops.

Successful day.