And Now for the Main Event…Queen’s Jubilee!

After 5 crazy weeks with at internship, it was finally time for the main event, the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Festival. The whole staff met at the headquarters to have a quick meeting about finalizing plans for the day, including the different docking stations, the various performing sites, and the scheduled route times.

After the meeting, we made our way to the city center to start piecing together the 70 giants for the parade. One thing that caught me off guard was not only the idea that there were 60 gigantic statues of the Queen parading through the city, but the fact that there were so many different community groups that were represented in the festival. They had everything from Rugby Club groups, Boy Scout and Girl Guide groups, various schools, and many, many more. Since there were so many groups, that also meant that there were many Giants that I’d never seen before. One of the great things about working for this company has been seeing the amount of creativity that these different groups have. They had everything from a pop-art bust of the Queen, to a green alien version of the queen (I think she was supposed to represent spring, but the alien nickname was more appealing).

Another great thing about the day was that I got to see my parents after 6 months. They decided that they would come and visit Chester for the weekend, along with visiting some of our family that is spread throughout England. This is the first time they’ve been to England in 20 years, so it’s been interesting, and pretty funny to see their reactions to how much England has changed since then.

To open off the festival, there was a local percussion group called Karamba Samba that would lead the Giants through the streets. There was an audience of nearly 60,000 people that would clear a path as the Giants walked by. I would have never imagined seeing that many people in Chester in my life. I wasn’t told this until after the festival, but apparently the crowd was so huge, that the Chester police sent a helicopter to fly over the event because they thought that a riot was breaking out in the city (you would think that they would have gotten the heads up about the event ahead of time, but oh well). I was also told that aside from the Queen’s Jubilee Festival in London, Chester held the second largest festival for the Queen in all of England (yeah, it was kind of a big deal).

After we made our first lap around the City Center, all 70 of the giants and the crowd met at the Town Hall to hear a speech that was being given by the Lord Mayor. While that was going on, Zoë and I were given the chance to be interviewed by the local radio station Chester Dee 106.3. We got to talk about our experience with the Giants, and give a brief history about the company. Along with that, we also had some small talk about how great the weather was for the event. Looking back on it, we really did luck out weather wise. The day before the event was a complete washout, but thankfully the day of was completely “normal British weather” free, but sure enough, the next day was another downpour. After the Mayor’s speech, we did another lap around the city center, and then docked them in the town hall.

During our break, me and a few of the others decided to see all of the things that were going on around the city. Many local bands were performing, along with many street performers that are usually in the city. Many of the local businesses and pubs were cashing in on the festival by having discounts on clothes, pints, and food as well.

Near the end of the afternoon, we took the Giants on 2 more laps around the city center, and then called it a day. It was without a doubt one of the longest days I’ve had at work in a while, but it was definitely worth it.  Afterwards, we got to join our supervisors at the Marbourgh Pub for a pint, while getting to watch the live stream of the Jubilee in London.

2012 has definitely been a solid time to study abroad in England. It’s needless to say that having the Olympics, the Diamond Jubilee, and (despite it probably not the happiest thing to celebrate) the 100^th anniversary of the Titanic all in one year, has absolutely made this a very memorable year for England.