Thursday 27 October 2011

The Queens Visit

Now I am no royalist. I have very little interest in anything to do with royalty. I couldn't tell you how many kids Princess Mary has, or how Beatrice fits into the royal family.  I didn't even know that Prince Charles and Diana divorced until a couple of days ago. However, I unintentionally ended up in the city yesterday watching the Royal visit. 

I had organised to meet up with some uni friends for lunch. We caught the train in to the city and were going to go to St. Kilda, although the Queen interrupted our plans. I knew that she was visiting Melbourne yesterday, but I had no real desire to see her. What I didn't know was that both the road and the tram line to St. Kilda road where completely closed off due to her visit. With no way to get to St. Kilda, we changed plans and decided to go to Greville Street instead.


Unlike me, my darling mother loves the Queen. She took my little brother and sister out of school for the day so that they could go into the city to try and catch a glimpse of the queen. She was that excited that she couldn't eat her breakfast. I'm not even joking, she actually said that.

My lunch finished at about the same time as the queen was due to arrive at Federation square, so I decided that a might as well find Mum and watch the parade with her. By the time I got back to Flinders Street, the crowds were so big that you  couldn't move. People couldn't get in or out of Flinders Street station. Not only was in annoying for people who weren't there to see the Queen, but it was also pretty unsafe! 
This was about an hour before the queen arrived. This crowd more than doubled!

There was heaps and heaps of cops around too, and I had to have a giggle when I walked past to having a word to this old man about his 'protest'. His sign has something to do with how America saved Australia from Japanese invasion, and that Britain had betrayed us. They must have let him stay though, because he was still there when I walked back past later on! 




My friends and I couldn't be bother dealing with the crowds, so I gave up looking for Mum and headed further down St. Kilda road to get away from all the people. We found a nice grassy spot out the front of the arts center, and soaked up the sun while we waited for the queen to pass. 

As we walked down, I had another giggle at this bunch on the Balcony of the arts centre who had come out to see the Queen.  Not your typical royalists?? 



I'm glad that I wasn't particularly interested in seeing her, because the whole thing was a massive let down! When she eventually came past, all you could see was her brightly coloured hat near the front of the tram. It could have been anyone! My friends decided that this lady in the crowd was the Queen, and that everyone was looking in the wrong direction. For all you could see, it could have been this lady in the tram!



I kind of felt sorry for all the people who had waited for hours to see the Queen. You really couldn't see much at all. But Mum was happy. She walked around grinning for the rest of the day, and called me before I went to bed to ask what I had done that day, just do she could hear me say 'I went and saw the Queen.'. Cute. My little brother and sister where pretty un-fussed by the whole thing too. They were more concerned about going to Sugar Station

One of the best bits of the day was a compliment from my little brother that came while he was reminding us to go to Sugar station for the 50th time.  He told us that going there was more important than seeing the Queen, and that it was the most important bit of the whole day. After a short pause, he then added that I was 'a tiny bit' more important than lollies. 

More important than the Queen AND lollies! I must be important! haha


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