Wimbledon II

Trouble with pics, Catherine and I at Wimbledon

So, crazy story. We've been here long enough that we, or at least I, have traditions. The All England Club kicked off the oldest major in the professional tennis. Last year you may remember that we woke up at the crack of dawn and headed down for a day of rainy tennis, but an amazing experience. And now I can say comfortably that I go to Wimbledon every year. It's weird though, having been here long enough to start repeating activities.

This year, the more things stay the same, the more they change. I went with Catherine, except that it was our friend Catherine vs. the other half of the American Couple. Second, they've redone the queuing rules for the 1st t ime since 2001. You can camp in new spots :) And this year, instead of going at 530 am, we went down after work for 530 pm. We queued up as number 13457 and 8, and got into Wimbledon on the returned tickets. When people leave for the day, if you turn in your ticket they will resell it to people like us, and donate the second sale profits to charity. Pretty cool.

Saw a couple of great matches, had a quick beer, and called it a night. We saw an amazing 5 setter of mens tennis - the score says it all 4-6, 5-7, 7-6, 7-6, 6-4. Last match going at Wimbledon last night. Good stuff.Courside, sweet!

Look at those readerboards - manual!

Hell of a serve...5 set match, 3 breaks total

This went 5 sets...

A visit to the Grand Duchy

I had a bit of a crazy week last week. In the course of 7 days I was in four countries. Which, when I say that, sounds pretty cool. As outlined in the previous post Katherine and I want to Nice and Monaco (lame). I was back in London Tuesday, and then flew to Luxembourg Wednesday morning, back Thursday afternoon. Last night, I fell asleep on the couch at something like 9pm.

As everyone knows (hehe) Luxembourg is a Grand Duchy - that is they have a monarch but they're not quite big enough to be a King, or even a principality like Monaco. That said, once you get into the airport you know something is going right in this dukedom. The airport has been open for 2 weeks and is running smoothly and makes sense. The airport is ~10 minutes from the middle of Luxembourg. And then there's the city. It feels almost like a Disneytown downtown because of all the old buildings, trees, the castle walls, etc. History there goes back to the1200's, you can still see castle walls and tar holes that go back to the 1400's. Part of it is a Unesco World Heritage site. It was very cool. And because they are a banking capital (good tax laws) they have a ton of money coming in the coffers so surrounding the old town is a lot of new, good looking buildings.

My companies headquarters are the nicest I've seen. They are way better than the ones here in the UK, and an incremental upgrade from those in the States. Right down in the valley in the middle of the old town, close to the river, a couple of good bars, and they even have their own garden with wireless access.

I was only there for 24 hours and didn't bring a camera. Hopefully Katherine and I will make it back to explore a bit more fully, visit some friends we have living there, and take some pictures!

sunny weekend away

me and andy

Early Friday morning Andy and I hopped on the bus, to the tube, to the train to arrive at the airport to set off to Nice...as we flew over the city towards the airport I was amazed at the blue, blue water! It was an absolutely amazing color, and looked just as amazing once we were walking along the promenade.

andy at sunset

We spent the weekend exploring the different ares of Nice, lounging on the beach, eating lovely food (fish, mussels, scallops, pizza, pastries, etc) and a glass of wine or two. Friday we spent getting oriented and used to the sun in the sky. We explored along the promenade and into old town a bit, called Ville Nice. Saturday we explored a bit more through old town, found a great market, and then headed for the beach! We went to a private beach so that we could get a lounger and towels, as well as food and drink service right to the lounger (they do a great job overall in having some private beach and then public beach all along the waterfront). Dinner that night was seafood all the way down in the port area.

me, working hard to avoid my skirt blowing up in the wind!

champagne on the beach

Sunday we took the 20 minute train ride up the coast to Monaco. I'm glad that we went, but it was not as glamorous or posh as I expected. It also wasn't that pretty of an area. Nice, and some of the small Riviera towns that we past through on the train, were much nicer. And speaking of glamor, Andy "gambled" away 20 euro's in 5 hands of video poker inside of THE casino in Monte Carlo. Very glamorous indeed.

monaco

The people, food and weather were all really, really lovely in Nice. Something else that was great was the wine - the wines of the area were cheap, but always really good. I wish we had gone for longer than 4 days, it's a place I would go back to. Even though I'm not a fan of swimming or water sports, I just adore the warm weather vacation at the beach (and thankfully, Andy's a fan too)! Next time we go, we'll bring Midnight along, I must have commented on all the cute dogs there about every 5 minutes, it was great!

little maltese on a shop counter

off in search of sunny weather......

will report back about Nice and Monte Carlo early next week....

11pm and the sun ain't down!

Sunday and Monday have been absolutely spectacular. The kind of days that you hope to get in a city that doesn't get sun all year round (which most of you will relate to very closely), where on those sunny days people come out of the woodwork, everyone has a smile on their face, and all seems right with the world.

Today was a work day (seems like in a city like London they should make a day like this a bank holiday. All the bank holiday's could be floating holiday's and government could get together on a Sunday night and declare - tomorrow is a day off, it's going to be too nice to work so we won't even pretend. Enjoy. Anyway). What inspired me to throw up a post though was that as I was walking Midnight at the usual time (11pm, post whichever CSI re-run is on that night, very exciting) it was still bright on the horizon. Pretty cool. Also, I was wearing shorts, t-shirt, and flip flops and perfectly comfortable, which is also quite nice.

Sunday was pretty great too. Met some friends in Regents Park for an impromptu picnic since it was so nice. Sat on a blanket in the sun for a few hours, had a bottle of wine, and enjoyed good company and good weather.

By wednesday it's back to rain, so while summer is here we've got to take full advantage, and just wanted to share it with all y'all.

good weekend

neil, emma, chappers, catherine, tim & andy

andy & catherine

after having a pretty mellow week we managed to have a pretty exciting friday and saturday. friday night i went out with a co-worker for drinks and dinner then went to met up with andy and friends in (at) harlem - an american soul food resturant. they all ate dinner there, from the sounds of it, mostly consisting of fried goodies in different shapes and sizes.

tim, with his towel, on the way for a bath - the door does say Bathroom after all

saturday night andy, catherine and i went for dinner in kensington to the roof gardens - a posh resturant on top (7th floor) of a building in kensington with amazing views to the south and southwest of the city. as the name suggests there are lovely gardens on the 6th floor of the building that for a small fee can be viewed.

andy and the k/catherines

me and andy

great evenings both nights, and really lovely weather during the day, a change from the last few weeks of rain and clouds.

Tube Party!

Our new mayor, Boris Johnson, in his first act in office banned drinking on public transport - particularly on the Tube - from June 1st, 2008. Now a funny thing about this - no one actually knew it was legal to drink on the tube. However, once it was banned, and with May 31st being a Saturday night, you can guess what comes next. That's right - party on the Tube!

Katherine and I, being a little bit adventurous, and a little bit crazy, decided to buy a few beers, wander down and check it out. On the Bakerloo line, not a whole lot of activity. At Paddington we changed over to the Circle line. Yee-Haw! We missed the first train but it was absolutely jam packed. Everyone drinking, smoking, dancing, clothes off, boom boxes, whole train shaking, debauched fun. We got the next train which was actually a total let down in comparison, with just a few people on it. Not to worry, two stops down the line and now our train was party central. We only made it to Baker Street where the party moved onto the platform because they unofficially, then officially, shut down the Circle line. We hoped back on the Bakerloo and went home. Unfortunately, we didn't bring a camera with us as it was a last minute decision to head down. Above you can see the crumpled map of the tube line, normally stuck calmly inside the tube car.

And here is a link to a pretty entertaining article and video. It's of Liverpool Station but it pretty much sums up the feel of the night. Ignore the commentary though, that person is an idiot.