Soul Searching

So I get to the royal palace and i’m informed that the princess and her husband are running late. About an hour late. So they kindly fired up the dozen Gamelon musicians that make up the royal musicians (there wasn’t a one under 50, and I think most were pushing 80) and let them play. During which a royal guide kept prodding me to take a tour of the palace and its museum. After 15 minutes of constant polite nudging by my friend, I finally acquiesced. (I think the Gamelon guys didn’t really want to be playing but I somehow needed to be entertained, so they sent the guide.)

The tour was pretty lame but the guy was nice and sincere. At the end two smiling men met me in a palace hall and laughed and joked around with me. After about a half an hour of that I was told the royal couple wouldn’t make it this afternoon, but the two guys would drive me to the hotel which had been arranged - kind of.

We loaded into the car and proceeded to back out while my two escorts were chatting away (very cheerily and slowly i might add), at which point we promptly ran over a royal tree! Needless to say this was the cause of another furious outburst of joviality (from in the car and out) and we went on our way.

In the end I got to see the Gamelon, the palace, the museum, and didn’t get to do what i came for…