Merry Wedding Day!

I've been in love with London (and England as a whole. Hi, I'm Sarah and I'm an Anglophile.) since I studied abroad there in the fall of 2003. Definitely miss it since coming back to the States. As of yet, I haven't been able to get back there. When I found out Prince William and Kate Middleton I was so excited. It's time for a ROYAL WEDDING!!! I wasn't born for Diana and Charles' wedding but my grandmother LOVED Princess Diana and would tell me about their wedding. I've been waiting for this wedding to happen. William and Kate seem like a wonderful couple. She is so classy! I love that she is (was) a commoner too. For Prince William, he always knew this huge day was going to come. For Kate, it's really a fairy tale come true! I think it has a lot of little girls (who am I kidding, grown up girls too!) believing magical things can still happen. Maybe that's why I love it so much.

My friend (and co-intern at Legal Aid) Rebecca is from England and her parents were actually flying back for the wedding. Since we couldn't go and Rebecca's mom knew how excited both of us were for the wedding, she sent us out for dinner at their family's favorite British restaurant in the city, Tea & Sympathy. It was like being back in the UK! For dinner I had the Chicken and Leek pie which was delicious with Ribena to drink. Of course we had to get dessert too, but since we were so full we decided to share. We got Treacle pudding to split. YUM. All the people who work there are Brits and there is a great store next door which has tons of British teas, biscuits and loads of other great things. Faaaantastic, can't wait to go back!

For the actual wedding, I wanted to do something more than just wake up early and watch on my couch. I found out TLC was hosting a Royal Wedding Viewing Party in Times Square starting at 5am on the 29th. Yep, sounded like an adventure to me! Friday morning I woke up at 4:07am and took a train uptown. Loads of people beat me there! So many, in fact, that there was no more room for people to sit on the red steps. I ended up standing right where they were filming Randy from Say Yes to the Dress. Some people were dressed like they were actually AT the wedding. Others, like me, rolled out of bed, threw on some jeans and a hoodie and went. I don't know why they felt it was a good idea for me to be in the front row, but whatever. One guy next to me was trying to get on camera so I was glad to let him stand in front of me. They weren't actually broadcasting the audio in Times Square - we all had these little radios and headphones:



Everything was so beautiful! When Kate finally got in the car and people saw her dress, everyone clapped and cheered! She looked so gorgeous. I stood for most of the ceremony but about 3/4 of the way through, a PA said she could take about 30 people to go sit on the red steps. Immediately I raised my hand - I was a bit tired and ready to sit for a little. She handed me a a pass and let me go find a seat. About half way up the steps I found a nice spot and got to rest my feet for awhile.





The steps got a little hard after awhile so when William and Kate got to Buckingham Palace, I figured it'd be a little while before they made the balcony appearance since they had to take pictures. I headed home, picked up some breakfast and as I walked into the apartment, Liz (who was watching on the couch) yelled "One minute until they come out on the balcony!!!" Sweet, perfect timing! We watched until they went back inside and I went in my room to take a much needed nap. Then it was time to meet Rebecca and our supervisor, Sheneka, for lunch.

Sheneka wanted to take us out because our internship is wrapping up. We decided on The Standard Grill. When we arrived there was a half hour wait for a table inside but no wait for seating outside. It wasn't too chilly out so we took an outside table. Lunch was great! We all got the Standard Burger and then ended up with different desserts. During dessert, Rebecca said "Famous person! Famous person! Famous person!" Sheneka and I looked and right on the other side of our table was this guy...

B.J. Novak aka Ryan from The Office

He was trying to catch a cab. Apparently Rebecca wasn't the only one who spotted him. Very soon two girls walked up to him, freaked out and asked for a picture. He was so nice and said of course. Sheneka snapped a picture:



After that a cab pulled up but it was too late, he'd already been spotted by more fans. They all wanted pictures and while the cab waited, B.J. took pictures with every single person who wanted one. It was great to see he wasn't a big jerk about it and so patient with everyone. Smiled the whole time and thanked them all. I did get a little sad seeing him because it was the night after Steve Carell's last episode and I may have shed a few tears at that.