Day 68

July 1st

What an exciting day today! We had our regular 10am parade and also the Canada Day Parade for the Queen :) Here is a youtube video that summarizes things nicely: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=An9G7JX_PiE We marched out from the East block of Parliament at 11:45 to get in position for the Queen's arrival at noon. We waited for a bit and I think the Prime Minister arrived first in a black car of some sort. Then the horses came and apparently they got a bit freaked out when they walked past the guards because they could smell the bear skin and hear the clicking of the boots as they came to attention. I could see a bit of disorganization, but it was corrected quickly. Then the Queen got our of the carriage and we played God Save the Queen followed by one inspection tune as she walked through the Guards ranks. Sadly she did not approach the band :( Oh well, we also played O Canada in there somewhere too lol The crowd was huge and apparently some ppl were grabbing at the musicians who were in the outside ranks! We marched off soon after the inspection and avoided horse poop on the way out :P All together a really fun parade and there were so many ppl there! We didn't march through the streets at all because it would have been impossible. When we got back to Carleton we were dismissed for the day! We had lunch and those who had to work tomorrow did their boots and such. I lounged around and skyped with Dustin :) Around 4:30 a group of us went downtown to start looking around at what was happening. There were a lot of ppl and a lot of garbage. I feel sorry for the clean up crew. We walked around to see what was going on and eventually met up with more CG ppl, had a bit of supper and chilled on the Hill while waiting for the fireworks to start. They started at 10pm and went for about 20mins. Not bad, but I think I'm sick of fireworks and they all seem the same to me now. At this point the streets were packed full of ppl everywhere. We decided to walk back to Carleton because it was waaay faster than taking the bus. I hung out with Brian in his room while we waited for more ppl to come back for a shack party, but apparently the party was at a pub somewhere. Oh well, I learned a lot about the band and previous members and such instead. Also, I learned that the band used to have 2 monsters that would torment the band while on parade. Basically band members on their days off would wear this monster suit and follow the parade downtown. There are all kinds of pictures on facebook too! All together a great day, Happy Canada Day!!!