When the Cheshire emerges...

A year ago today I was at London, England to witness the prelude to the Royal Wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton.

At the time in an overview post I wrote the following:
"After Turkey, the Royal Wedding was amazing. Stood for 12 hours straight outside W. Abbey with a family I'd latched onto... saw Kate and Wills both go in. It was mental. Second camp-out in a week was okay. Not sleeping for 40 hours... not so much by the time I got on the plane to Cairo."

That was all I had time to write some time after the event because this was such a whirlwind. With three days in between finishing my time in Turkey and arriving in Cairo for my Egypt tour I had decided to make the cross-Europe journey to London for the big day (somewhat late to miss out on extremely cheap tickets for one leg).

I was in London for something like 30 hours... got there late in the afternoon of the 28th, and the plan was to suss out the route about midway because I didn't think I had any chance of getting near either Buckingham Palace or Westminster Abbey. However, deciding to try and walk that route from the final destination would mean I never got there. Thankfully.

I met two mothers with their kids who were schoolfriends from just outside Suffolk who had travelled for the day. They had no idea where they were going either and I decided to tag along with them to suss out the crowds. It was just insane. Took forever to get 100 metres down the road, the path was often stalled, and then when they got to their chosen spot I wasn't sure what my plan was.

They camped out in a corner hidden from the main view on the presumption others would be asked to put up the tents and they would pounce. Decent plan. They offered to let me camp with them, and the kids liked me so that was a bonus. Figured I'd give it a shot, but there was a small problem. I was only checked in for a night at my hostel.

Fighting the crowds once more, I got back to my base, got my essentials, checked out and put my luggage in storage and off I went. I paid $AUD30 to have someone hold my luggage. But well before the clock struck 12 I got back on the Tube and managed to find them again. Miracle.



The night was interesting. In the one wander I could take I found a Scandinavian journalist who wanted to interview the American lady I'd been chatting to because she'd been there the longest and was a Royal Wedding veteran (number four I think this was). I randomly got to hold his camera for a minute which was cool, I so should've done a runner. But I didn't - I went back and found they'd gone. WITH MY BAG.

I found them. But my heart was still pounding. My PASSPORT was in there. EVERYTHING. I was so lucky they were such good people.

After 10 hours of standing, they came. We didn't see the celebs but when William showed the screams were intense. And then after he went in the chants of 'Kate, Kate' grew stronger and stronger. Seeing her come out was even more crazy. The people in front of me had moved around so my view was ruined. But I still got my money shot.