SUNDAY, JUNE
28 2009
London (again and again)
by
mike
Hey all,
As you may be aware, Kings has been living in London for the past couple of years and as such m&k.com hasn't really been getting much love of late. But with him (and many other friends) living on this side of the world it gives me the opportunity to occasionally visit (as moving is pretty damn tough!)
So just shy of 2 weeks ago I flew out of cold, wintery Perth into slightly less cold summery London...althought the weather the past 5 days has been outstanding! I think I may have even got a slight tan.
Both Kings and Andy have been working during the week so I've rediscovered my love for London with many long walks all over the city, visited some old favourite spots and caught up with friends. Some highlights so far:
- Funday last Sunday with Dion, Kings, Ayesha & Andy; starting at The Church in Kentish Town at midday before heading to Covent Garden and some Blueshi's action before 2 for 1 cocktails at b@1 and topping it off with a couple shots and more beers and cocktails at the Gen. I think I'm getting too old for 12 hour drinking sessions!
- Catching the tube over to Camden, wandering around (no funky records) for an hour or so then walking all the way down to the Thames (about a 40 minute walk), along Embankment to Westminster & Parliament, past the Abbey, through St James's Park, past Buckingham Palace, through Green Park, Piccadilly Circus, Leicester Square, along Tottenham Court Road, down Denmark Street (With all the guitar stores - heaven!), past the British museum, thought Russell Square and back home. That's one hell ass long walk
- Catching the tube to Bank and walking along to London Bridge, up to the Tower of London and across Tower Bridge, all the way along the Thames to the Tate Modern for some lunch, across the Millenium Bridge and up to St Paul's Cathedral, down along Chancery Lane to High Holborn and all the way down Gray's Inn Road back here, a walk i've not ever taken, it was really nice.
- Dinking up at The Big Chill in Kings Cross with Ayesha and meeting up with Jim, my old team mate for Quiz night (and room mate for god knows how long) at the Gen. Kings (and eventually Andy)came and met us and we had dinner at La Porchetta when Scottie, another old Generator mate and quiz parnter met us for a drink. Kings, Andy & Ayesha headed home so the old Gen crowd headed to, where else but the Generator for an old school drink in the bar. Reliving old times, so much fun!
- Dinner, drinks and a quick poker game with former Generator owner, my old boss and good friend, and now professional poker player Louise at her place. We chatted for hours about everything and nothing, London really does feel like coming home again (though unfortunately Louise beat us on the poker front, though not surprising since we are far from professional). She's now in Vegas competing in the World Champs - good luck Lou, kill it!!
But by far the highlight was Friday when I FINALLY made it to Wimbledon. I've wanted to go to SW19 for the Championships since I was about 6 years old, so I woke up nice and early, jumped on the train and made my way to Southfields station and to the ground. Unfortunately, 9187 people thought to do this before I did, so at 9.30am I was the 9188 person in line. We were told initially we'd be in by around 1pm, I thought cool, I can hack that. But 1pm came and went and we'd only moved a little closer, not even inside the grounds. As I was by myself I made friends with those around me and actually had a pretty decent day waiting, listening to the commentary etc.
When we finally made it inside the complex (not the grounds of the championships, just the surrounding) we realised it was still going to be a long wait - there were signs saying "you're now only 600 yards from the turnstills"...and we moved at around 150 yards per hour! But time passed, conversations continued and finally at around 5.30pm, after waiting a little over 9 (yes NINE) hours I made it inside Wimbledon. I'd made friends with Emma (from Sydney) in the line so we decided since her friends had left (at the 6 hour waiting point) and we were both there alone why not hang out for hte evening. We grabbed some Pimms and headed over to watch some of hte outside matches; doubles & a mens singles match before trying to brave it in the 're-sale' line for the main courts.
Basically, when people leave their seats are resold by Wimbledon for 5 pounds, with proceeds going towards tennis charities. And since we got in after 5pm our tickets for ground entry were 6 pounds cheaper so we were still up. We jumped in line for Centre Court, and about 6 minutes later had our tickets, fantastic tickets in fact, about 20 rows back from the court. We grabbed another (I think our third) Pimms and ran into Centre Court to catch the last 2 sets of the Fish vs. Djokovic match (which Djokovic took out 6-4 6-4 6-4).
This was also the last match of the day on Centre Court so headed out to grab a beer and to watch some Mixed Doubles on Court 18 (sitting almost on the Court, it was awesome). That finished up so we bought one more Pimms, walked over to the Hill and watched the Haas vs Cilic match that had been going for about 2 hours. It was slowly getting darker and at 2 sets all, 6-6 they stopped play due to low light. Was so very annoying!
But all in all it was an amazing day, I got to live out a childhood dream and was so happy to have finally done it! Now just to see the other 3 grand slams.
I have a heap of photos that I'll hopefully get around to uploading (probably on facebook.com/traveldeskguy though) but i'll post a note when they're up.
And now we're off for the final Sunday session as I leave for Bali on Tuesday for a couple days then over to Jakarta to visit my sister Em who's living there. Dee & Steve are coming in to London to catch up (also old friends from the Generator) so we're sure to make a good day of it!
But for now it's off from me, I keep saying I'll update this more so maybe I'll give it a crack at a weekly update - there's been a fair bit going on so who knows.
Until then...
mike
|