Wimbledon - Day 10 - Middle Sunday
The English are very proper, and as such, they schedule their tournament to have no play on the first Sunday. That happens unless there is significant rain, and despite London being notorious for rain, middle Sunday rarely has had play in the 100 plus years of the tournament (OK, those details are likely available on the web site http://www.wimbledon.org/en_GB/index.html but I didn't have the will to go find the links for my readers. Go hit the site and find them yourself.)
So, I got to sleep in. Now, that's a bit of a misnomer, as I had passed out the night before and then tossed and turned as I tried to figure out how to keep cool in a room that was not cool, but it is at least the premise that I had alarm to set, and other than our agreement to meet in the lobby at 10AM for sightseeing, had no agenda for the day. We had hoped to go to a place that had highly reviewed and rated fish and chips named Gaele's but I guess BJ's research hadn't gone as far as mine did, as the website I just posted clearly indicates the place would not be open at 11AM on a Sunday. In the end, we had to abandon our fish and chips for simpler fare and had a breakfast bagel at Great American Bagel Factory and then hit the tube. I had a green tea that could have been tasty if not for the fact that it was tepid, much like the rest of the drinks are in Europe.
We ended up heading to the British Museum. It is a donation site, so you can come and go without issue, though they do ask for a 3 GBP donation. There's no enforcement, so not like that's a hard and fast rule, but of course we did put our coins into the collection tub. The museum is an interesting mix of antiquities, most relieved of the country that was either pillaged by England during its reign, or by simply purchasing them when countries were tearing down old ruins they didn't care about. Most of that ends up being quite controversial, as the Greeks would prefer to get back the Parthenon ruins that were purchased in the 1700s, but England is having none of it.
I would have to say that the crown jewel there at the museum is the Rosetta Stone and I did not miss it. My picture isn't as good as the one on this wiki entry, so I won't post mine. I will however, post one I like which is a picture of a line of tourists taking pictures of the museum entrance.
Yes, they are all Asians. I really wasn't trying to advance the stereotype, but I did find it funny.
We chose to do some walking, and I popped into a shop to purchase my first souvenir for the folks back home. I won't say what it is in case they are reading this blog. :-)
From there, we took a short walk to the theater district. We stopped in at a pub The Cambridge for lunch. I took a picture of the front
It is also a free house, so I got to try more different beer. I probably should not have, however, as I was sweating like there was no tomorrow, and I am sure I was dehydrated. Oh well. BJ chose the spot because the menu indicated Bangers and Mash and that was definitely something I wanted to try. I also got a chance to sample Yorkshire pudding though how it counts as a pudding really escapes me, since it is baked to a crisp consistency. Judy had Toad in the hole, though the picture on this wiki entry doesn't really do it justice.
Outside the pub was a collection of phone boxes, that are the traditional phone boxes you see on television and cartoons. I had to capture a picture of the whole thing, and you can see they are just as stereotypical as television, etc. suggests.
At the pub, we found a map for a variety of pub walks called the Dick Whittington Ale trails. There are 6 or 7 total, and I suspect I am going to try to talk Colleen into one of them when we're here. There are a few shorter ones, and some that are longer only in the sense that they are 15 or 16 pubs deep but are only 3 or 4 blocks of walking. Either way, I am sure I can convince Colleen to have a couple of pints with me along the way, especially since there's a lot of really good shopping to be done in that part of the city.
We wandered to Picadilly Circus, and then I asked a policeman if he could point me in the direction of the Hard Rock Cafe. He wasn't exceptionally polite about it, but he did at least let me know. This was what I had expected London to look like. A massive roundabout not unlike the joke in European Vacation (even if you couldn't see Big Ben or Parliament from there) and a swarm of people walking streets made more narrow by buildings using every inch of space they can along the streets. There were also some of the larger neon signs I had thought we'd see. That implies returning to the circus at night. Fortunately, I understand the mechanics of the tube better now and it won't require much walking at all. There's a tube stop very near the circus.
From there, I asked if we could get to the Hard Rock Cafe in London so that I could collect my next city pin. It ended up being across from Hyde Park, so our walk from Soho was pretty long, and brutally hot. But, I did get my pin, sweet!!!
Back to the hotel and a shower (desperately needed) to get read for the party. The IBM U.K. folks rent a house (next to a Bhuddist colony) and were throwing a garden party there. Getting there was a comedy of errors. First, we couldn't catch a cab, since apparently cabbies don't like to get out of their regular area, and Wimbledon is on the fringes. So, we walked to the tube. On the way, I called Colleen, but I noticed I was down to 1 bar on the battery, so I knew it would die soon. Colleen liked hearing the sounds of the city as I boarded the train. We got off likely a stop or two too early, and then couldn't find a cab. We got onto a bus because we had already done a ton of walking, and then we found we got off the bus a few stops too early. It was a joke because in the end, we didn't get to the house until after 5 PM on what should have taken about 30 minutes altogether.
The dinner for the evening was part of the IBM U.K. house party. I wanted to show I was open to new things, so I tried the pork pie and that was a complete mistake. It is without question the worst thing I have ever eaten in my life. I do NOT want to go through that again, and I will not let anyone else that I am around experience it unless they are a veteran consumer. I did have a Scotch egg though I personally think they'd be better hot. For the most part, I stuck to traditional ham, pulled chicken, and salad. We did get to have a few beers, and since it started at 4PM, I was pretty loaded by the time we got back to the hotel at 11.
Spoke briefly with Colleen. Because the cell phone had died, I had to call from the hotel room, and pay 99 pence for a local call. She actually had called me first because somehow my Yahoo message when she was offline showed up two days late, but it was still good to hear from her, even if it costs a few bucks for her to call directly. Bed before midnight was an amazing concept, and it turned out the problem with the air conditioning was corrected as the room was quite comfortable the rest of the night. I slept like a baby!
Cheers!
So, I got to sleep in. Now, that's a bit of a misnomer, as I had passed out the night before and then tossed and turned as I tried to figure out how to keep cool in a room that was not cool, but it is at least the premise that I had alarm to set, and other than our agreement to meet in the lobby at 10AM for sightseeing, had no agenda for the day. We had hoped to go to a place that had highly reviewed and rated fish and chips named Gaele's but I guess BJ's research hadn't gone as far as mine did, as the website I just posted clearly indicates the place would not be open at 11AM on a Sunday. In the end, we had to abandon our fish and chips for simpler fare and had a breakfast bagel at Great American Bagel Factory and then hit the tube. I had a green tea that could have been tasty if not for the fact that it was tepid, much like the rest of the drinks are in Europe.
We ended up heading to the British Museum. It is a donation site, so you can come and go without issue, though they do ask for a 3 GBP donation. There's no enforcement, so not like that's a hard and fast rule, but of course we did put our coins into the collection tub. The museum is an interesting mix of antiquities, most relieved of the country that was either pillaged by England during its reign, or by simply purchasing them when countries were tearing down old ruins they didn't care about. Most of that ends up being quite controversial, as the Greeks would prefer to get back the Parthenon ruins that were purchased in the 1700s, but England is having none of it.
I would have to say that the crown jewel there at the museum is the Rosetta Stone and I did not miss it. My picture isn't as good as the one on this wiki entry, so I won't post mine. I will however, post one I like which is a picture of a line of tourists taking pictures of the museum entrance.
Yes, they are all Asians. I really wasn't trying to advance the stereotype, but I did find it funny.
We chose to do some walking, and I popped into a shop to purchase my first souvenir for the folks back home. I won't say what it is in case they are reading this blog. :-)
From there, we took a short walk to the theater district. We stopped in at a pub The Cambridge for lunch. I took a picture of the front
It is also a free house, so I got to try more different beer. I probably should not have, however, as I was sweating like there was no tomorrow, and I am sure I was dehydrated. Oh well. BJ chose the spot because the menu indicated Bangers and Mash and that was definitely something I wanted to try. I also got a chance to sample Yorkshire pudding though how it counts as a pudding really escapes me, since it is baked to a crisp consistency. Judy had Toad in the hole, though the picture on this wiki entry doesn't really do it justice.
Outside the pub was a collection of phone boxes, that are the traditional phone boxes you see on television and cartoons. I had to capture a picture of the whole thing, and you can see they are just as stereotypical as television, etc. suggests.
At the pub, we found a map for a variety of pub walks called the Dick Whittington Ale trails. There are 6 or 7 total, and I suspect I am going to try to talk Colleen into one of them when we're here. There are a few shorter ones, and some that are longer only in the sense that they are 15 or 16 pubs deep but are only 3 or 4 blocks of walking. Either way, I am sure I can convince Colleen to have a couple of pints with me along the way, especially since there's a lot of really good shopping to be done in that part of the city.
We wandered to Picadilly Circus, and then I asked a policeman if he could point me in the direction of the Hard Rock Cafe. He wasn't exceptionally polite about it, but he did at least let me know. This was what I had expected London to look like. A massive roundabout not unlike the joke in European Vacation (even if you couldn't see Big Ben or Parliament from there) and a swarm of people walking streets made more narrow by buildings using every inch of space they can along the streets. There were also some of the larger neon signs I had thought we'd see. That implies returning to the circus at night. Fortunately, I understand the mechanics of the tube better now and it won't require much walking at all. There's a tube stop very near the circus.
From there, I asked if we could get to the Hard Rock Cafe in London so that I could collect my next city pin. It ended up being across from Hyde Park, so our walk from Soho was pretty long, and brutally hot. But, I did get my pin, sweet!!!
Back to the hotel and a shower (desperately needed) to get read for the party. The IBM U.K. folks rent a house (next to a Bhuddist colony) and were throwing a garden party there. Getting there was a comedy of errors. First, we couldn't catch a cab, since apparently cabbies don't like to get out of their regular area, and Wimbledon is on the fringes. So, we walked to the tube. On the way, I called Colleen, but I noticed I was down to 1 bar on the battery, so I knew it would die soon. Colleen liked hearing the sounds of the city as I boarded the train. We got off likely a stop or two too early, and then couldn't find a cab. We got onto a bus because we had already done a ton of walking, and then we found we got off the bus a few stops too early. It was a joke because in the end, we didn't get to the house until after 5 PM on what should have taken about 30 minutes altogether.
The dinner for the evening was part of the IBM U.K. house party. I wanted to show I was open to new things, so I tried the pork pie and that was a complete mistake. It is without question the worst thing I have ever eaten in my life. I do NOT want to go through that again, and I will not let anyone else that I am around experience it unless they are a veteran consumer. I did have a Scotch egg though I personally think they'd be better hot. For the most part, I stuck to traditional ham, pulled chicken, and salad. We did get to have a few beers, and since it started at 4PM, I was pretty loaded by the time we got back to the hotel at 11.
Spoke briefly with Colleen. Because the cell phone had died, I had to call from the hotel room, and pay 99 pence for a local call. She actually had called me first because somehow my Yahoo message when she was offline showed up two days late, but it was still good to hear from her, even if it costs a few bucks for her to call directly. Bed before midnight was an amazing concept, and it turned out the problem with the air conditioning was corrected as the room was quite comfortable the rest of the night. I slept like a baby!
Cheers!
posted by Derek Botti at
11:24 AM
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