Hola amigos! I'm alive! I'm not entirely sure how that happened, by the way. I was almost certain Europe had finished me off for good (hence the extended radio silence). But apparently not. I'm back in old London town and back to the (admittedly quite relaxed) grindstone.
Unfortunately I'm not going to regal you with my tales of continental debauchery just yet. Instead I'm going to use this opportunity to jump on the latest bandwagon and put in my two cents about the Royal Wedding! Woohoo! Exciting! Infinite exclamation marks! (I'm really tired)
I was um-ing and aah-ing over whether or not I wanted to trek it into town with all the thousands of other hard core royal lovers for the ceremony this morning. On the one hand, a royal wedding is admittedly a fairly important pop culture event that doesn't exactly come around every year. But on the other hand, I'm not sure I'm totally ok with all that time, money and media scrutiny being thrown away on this one-off event. Case in point, did you know that Alabama has recently been flattened by devastating tornadoes? Because I'm fairly confident that at least 90% of Brits are completely ignorant of that fact, so monopolised have television, radio and print news outlets been by wedding coverage.
Nevertheless, I swallowed my inherent cynicism and casually made my way in around 10 o'clock this morning. By that time Green Park was closed, The Mall was closed, Trafalgar Square was closed, and trying to get anywhere near Buckingham Palace was nothing more than a fools errand. I managed to snag a reasonable spot on Marlborough Street, off Pall Mall (of Monopoly Board fame) and directly parallel to The Mall, along which the happy couple would pass after the ceremony. And while I didn't actually get to see anything, per se, I did hear a lot of cheering. Ha.
To be honest I wasn't too concerned with what I did and didn't see, and I was glad to have been part of the crowds and the atmosphere anyway. Although admittedly not glad enough to try to push my way up to Buckingham Palace for the balcony viewing. Instead I went home and caught the royal smooch on TV. Plus my London family had recorded the ceremony for me, so I got to have my (wedding) cake and eat it too.
As I was watching the ceremony, and later while I was talking to my host parents and their street party friends, I couldn't help but think: Being a Princess must be awful. I mean, Kate and Will are clearly very much in love, which is wonderful, and she's exactly what the royal family needs as a brand
9so much for swallowing my cyncism, huh). But at the end of the day, she's married much more than the man of her dreams.
Obviously she knew what she was getting into, and I'm sure this isn't a marriage that was entered into without careful consideration on both sides. I don't know Kate Middleton or what she wants, and I'm not trying to pass any kind of judgement. But whatever her dreams were pre-royalty, she can pretty much kiss all of them goodbye.
I don't know. Maybe it's just me. I'm not even sure I really believe in marriage, so I'm probably not in the best position to give commentary. They did look very happy, and I honestly hope they will continue to be so. I was also very impressed by the way the ceremony seemed so intimate, despite the fact 2 billion-odd people were watching (don't they lead such bizarre lives?). And I'll admit, I got sucked into the wedding fervour over the course of the day despite myself. It was an undeniably beautiful wedding. I just hope that when my Prince comes along, he does it with a little less pomp and/or ceremony.
Although...the horse-drawn carriage? Wouldn't say no to that.
No comments:
Post a Comment