Saturday. Moved to ridgemount hotel in seven dials to begin 2nd half of london exploration. Met up with mark in park at Gordon square, and walked down to thames and around blackfriars/waterloo bridge area. After mediocre sandwich for lunch, took the tube to Olympic park for sox-yankees. Mark did a run in the park (temp near 90) then watched yankees jump on top of sox 6-0 in top of 1st. Not to be outdone, sox came back - after an hour, and 1 inning it was 6-6. final score 17-13 yankees 5 hours later (we made it 3 hours). More like cricket, than baseball. One fenway flashback here - troughs on the mens room. 16 miles.
Sunday. The "village" of hampstead may be geographically in London but is a world away. Did a tour with david of this hiilly, incredibly green (btw london, with its many parks, is one of the greeneset cities in the world) town with grand old homes and cool alleys & passages. Definite highlight is the heath, with its ponds and views. Ate too much 'sunday roast' then headed to greenwich to see the royal observatory, home of the prime meridian and historical telescopes, and clocks developed to solve greatest problem of 18th century- determining longitude to enable navigation. An amazing story solved by an amateur clockmaker, outsmarting astronomers, scientists and others looking for a solution in the orbits of the moon and stars. Overall pretty cool, as I've wanted to visit here since i was around 12. Also visited national maritime museum, learning about British empires global dominance at sea. And the issues it caused- namely wars and slavery. Finished the day watching a comedy show aboard the Cutty Sark, historic ship in Greenwich. 10 miles.
Monday at Wimbledon. Day started at 6am, so we could get in the queue to get into Wimbledon. The process to get in was, in summary, "orderly". Took the tube and got in the first line around 7.15am where we were handed numbered queue cards (#6935). Decent coffee was on site and after 2 hours we moved to a second line across the field. 2 hours later, we were moving through security and into the grounds. Nobody pushed, dodged the line or was at all impolite. Got super close to 5 different matches, including seeing #4 seeded Kevin Anderson, and some Canadians (on canada day!). The formality of the line judges, umbrella holders and the ballgirls (scooping up and giving out balls) was so British. Tennis quality was great - game is mostly won, or at least setup, on the serve. Ate strawberries and cream. 10 miles.
Saturday. Moved to ridgemount hotel in seven dials to begin 2nd half of london exploration. Met up with mark in park at Gordon square, and walked down to thames and around blackfriars/waterloo bridge area. After mediocre sandwich for lunch, took the tube to Olympic park for sox-yankees. Mark did a run in the park (temp near 90) then watched yankees jump on top of sox 6-0 in top of 1st. Not to be outdone, sox came back - after an hour, and 1 inning it was 6-6. final score 17-13 yankees 5 hours later (we made it 3 hours). More like cricket, than baseball. One fenway flashback here - troughs on the mens room. 16 miles.
Sunday. The "village" of hampstead may be geographically in London but is a world away. Did a tour with david of this hiilly, incredibly green (btw london, with its many parks, is one of the greeneset cities in the world) town with grand old homes and cool alleys & passages. Definite highlight is the heath, with its ponds and views. Ate too much 'sunday roast' then headed to greenwich to see the royal observatory, home of the prime meridian and historical telescopes, and clocks developed to solve greatest problem of 18th century- determining longitude to enable navigation. An amazing story solved by an amateur clockmaker, outsmarting astronomers, scientists and others looking for a solution in the orbits of the moon and stars. Overall pretty cool, as I've wanted to visit here since i was around 12. Also visited national maritime museum, learning about British empires global dominance at sea. And the issues it caused- namely wars and slavery. Finished the day watching a comedy show aboard the Cutty Sark, historic ship in Greenwich. 10 miles.
Monday at Wimbledon. Day started at 6am, so we could get in the queue to get into Wimbledon. The process to get in was, in summary, "orderly". Took the tube and got in the first line around 7.15am where we were handed numbered queue cards (#6935). Decent coffee was on site and after 2 hours we moved to a second line across the field. 2 hours later, we were moving through security and into the grounds. Nobody pushed, dodged the line or was at all impolite. Got super close to 5 different matches, including seeing #4 seeded Kevin Anderson, and some Canadians (on canada day!). The formality of the line judges, umbrella holders and the ballgirls (scooping up and giving out balls) was so British. Tennis quality was great - game is mostly won, or at least setup, on the serve. Ate strawberries and cream. 10 miles.
No comments:
Post a Comment