The Royals Visit to St. Vincent

The newspaper (comes out once a week), friends, and neighbors here had been telling us about how Prince William and Kate were coming to visit here as part of celebrations to mark the 60th anniversary of the accession of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II to the throne — the Diamond Jubilee.  This country is among several former British colonies in the regions that still hold the Queen as head of state, with a governor general acting as her representative.Naiyah and I were ecstatic....well, she was after I told her their story and showed her their recent wedding pictures.  What little girl doesn't get excited about a young princess? 

We live just blocks from the airport, so by 6 am we were up watching the airplanes....no new airplanes came except the smal commuter flights....and knew they would be in something nicer!  By 8:30 we decided to drive around and see if anything was different on the Island and well....we got caught in this huge line  of traffice of everyone trying to get to the dock to see them come in by ship.  All the streets were lined with St. Vincent flags and full of people.  We talked with some security who told us we would be able to get into the botanical gardens (which are the oldest ones in the Carribbean) and that was a private ceremony where school children would sing and dance in a program and they would present the royals with an award.  So, we hitchhiked 2 miles across town.  And they let us right in.  I guess they thought we were guests, who knows. 

Naiyah had wanted to wear her fancy dress and tiara from her Aunt's wedding....so as we walked in all the kids waiting started waving their Vincentian flags at us and cheering and wanting pictures.  We were laughing and telling the kids to smile and wave back.  THey brought us right to the front of the ceremonies.  I am not sure who they thought we were, but at this point I thought for sure we would get to an autograph of Prince William and Kate and at least shake their hands. 

Here are some of the school children lined up ready to sing.

Here is Nai unsure why kids are handing her flags and things.

Pictured above is Prince Edward.  Brice says he can see the family resemblance, at this point I still wanted it to be Prince William and Kate.  More royalty info...he is the brother of Prince Charles if this helps. 

Finally at about noon (we have now learned royalty are on Carribbean time too), the newspaper had said award at 9:28am- the convoy arrived.  And out stepped......The Earl and Countess of Wessex — Prince Edward and his wife Sophie Rhys-Jones.  What?   We were a bit disappointed....okay a lot.  We must not know our royal history, as we had not clue who these people were.  We have since learned Prince Edward is 7th in line for the throne.  But, there had a been a switch up and Prince William was not accepting the award and  here this day.  Bummer....