He may have been in Jordan on an official tour, but HRH Prince William couldn’t go long without catching up on the World Cup. The Duke of Cambridge, who landed in Amman on Sunday, watched the England vs Panama match from the Beit Al Urdun palace with his host, Crown Prince Hussein bin Abdullah II, following his first day in the nation.
The royals taped the game – which England won six goals to one – and sat down to watch it after dinner in the cosy surroundings. Kensington Palace shared a snapshot of the pair’s evening, offering a glimpse at the Jordanian palace’s interiors, which featured a large screen TV, striped rug, and hand-shaped seat. “Prince William couldn’t watch the England match live and avoided finding out the score all afternoon,” the 36-year-old duke’s official Instagram account told its 6.4 million followers. Crown Prince Hussein also shared the image with his 1.4 million fans, revealing he had “a relaxing evening with His Royal Highness Prince William, Duke of Cambridge, after his first day in Jordan”.
The second in line to the British throne touched down at Marka Airport earlier in the day, where he was welcomed by the 23-year-old Crown Prince. The royals, both graduates from Britain’s prestigious Royal Sandhurst Military Academy, were decked out in sleek navy suits for the first day of Prince William’s five-night Middle Eastern visit. The Duke of Cambridge was whisked from the airport by Crown Prince Hussein, who drove the royal to his first engagement at the TechWorks Fabrication Lab.
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The facility, known as FabLab, is an initiative of the Crown Prince Foundation that equips young entrepreneurs with the technology they need. The pair also visited the Crown Prince Foundation headquarters, where they chatted with a number of beneficiaries from the foundation’s schemes and programmes. Prince William and Crown Prince Hussein even hopped on a digital conference to talk with a number of young Jordanians from cultural and creativity clubs around the Kingdom.
In the evening, Prince William attended a reception at Amman’s British Embassy, where he delivered a short address noting the “historic ties and friendship” between the UK and Jordan. The royal also touched on his wife, the Duchess of Cambridge, who lived in Amman between 1984 and 1986. “Her family remembers very fondly the almost three years she spent here as a child,” HRH said, according to the Daily Mail. Prince William also revealed that the duchess, who welcomed the couple’s third child in April, was “very sorry” to miss the visit to Jordan.
During his tour, Prince William will visit the Roman ruins of Jerash, a spot where the Duchess of Cambridge was once pictured with her family. In a photo released by the Middleton family around the time of William and Catherine’s wedding in 2011, she was snapped taking in the sights with her father and sister Pippa.
Prince William’s tour will take place from June 24 to 28, with Jordan the first stop on his itinerary among other Middle Eastern destinations, including the occupied Palestinian territories. It is also Prince William’s first visit to the region, Kensington Palace said before he departed the UK, with a goal of meeting “as many people from as many walks of life as possible”. “In Jordan, the Duke of Cambridge will be able to build on the strong links that exist not only between the two countries, but also those that exist between their respective royal families who have visited each other many times over the years,” the palace stated. The prince’s whistle-stop visit will also include meetings at the Dar Na’mah Centre, which helps women develop their own livelihoods, Al Quds College, and with crew members of the Jordanian Air Ambulance.
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