William and Kate visited PEI!

Right now the royal couple, Prince William and his new wife Katharine, are touring Canada. They stopped in Ottawa a couple days, and Sunday night they arrived on Prince Edward Island, Canada’s smallest province. On Monday morning they visited Charlottetown and were joined by about 30,000 people (including myself.) Since I know the royal wedding was a huge deal, I thought some of you might like to see some pictures from my ‘royal stalking.’

First off, Charlottetown was busy. It’s the capital of the province but only about 30,000 people live there, so the turnout to watch William and Kate ride in the carriage from Province House down to the water was about as big as the population of the city. I went with a friend and we got there about two hours before the event actually started. There were already so many people there that you couldn’t get within five feet of the barriers.

I got lucky and we managed to find a place behind a news platform, which meant that I was looking through that rather than over peoples' heads. Since I’m short, trying to see over people really wasn’t working. As is, I didn’t actually see much, thanks to all the media in the way, but I managed to get some okay pics. 

At around 10:40 the royal couple left Province House and stood outside while the Premier and the Speaker for the house gave a couple short speeches. When they were done, William went up to the podium and talked for about a minute about how happy he was to be here, that sort of thing. Short, but sweet.

After the speeches they did a quick walk-around shaking hands. Kate went around the other side, covered by an umbrella (it was raining a little) so I didn’t get any good pics of her, but William came right around five feet away from me. Unluckily, those five feet were jam packed with people so I didn’t get anywhere near enough to shake his hand, but I got a couple nice closeup shots.

When they were both done, they waited under an umbrella for the carriage to be readied. It was the Governor General’s special carriage, brought all the way from Ottawa. Unfortunately, I didn’t get any good pics of them inside the carriage (thanks to someone shoving their cellphone up in the way just as my camera was taking a pic) but I certainly cheered as loud as everyone else as they drove down the street towards the harbour.

At this point the royals were off to a private function and I went to lunch, not with them, of course. Hence, I have no more pictures for you, but since they were followed by more than 1200 members of the media, you can find plenty of pics online. Here’s a news article that you can check out if you’d like some more information on William and Kate’s Canadian tour. I’ve just got to say that I’m so happy they chose to visit PEI and I was thrilled to be able to see the royal couple, even if it was just for a couple minutes.