Back in the UK

Trip Start Sep 01, 2005

163

Trip End Dec 04, 2006

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Flag of United Kingdom London, United Kingdom
Thursday, July 6, 2006

Catching up on sleep was great and we kept the long yarns with Nancy to a minimum as the following day we had to leave at the crack of dawn (again!) to line up for semi-final tickets to Wimbledon. Arriving at 6am we placed 78th in the queue and were pleased to find out that we had secured a ticket for court no. 1 for the day (centre court tickets were not available for the last few days of play) and that the queue today was dismal considering the hundreds upon hundreds who have lined up the week before. The hours ticked away meticulously and the sweet old man in front of us was determined to stand up the entire time he was lining up even after offers of seats were given to him. We however happily sat on the floor and just as soon as we got comfortable the line started moving and the security checks begun. I could not believe that I was finally going to Wimbledon after all this time and all those years watching it way past my bedtime on the TV and that today was going to be the day. We ended up scoring tickets in Gangway 30, row A and we did not realise how good the tickets were until we had a quick squiz on court no.1

. There must have been some kind of mistake as we were situated in the first row and just to the left of player's chairs. How exciting! We then wondered through the grounds admiring portraits of past champions when midday hit and everyone was frozen paying their respects with a 2 minute silence for the victims of the 7th of July attack in the Tube exactly a year before. Rain had come and gone and the announcements suggested that the cloud cover would stay, but after 3 long hours play was going to commence and we made our way into Court No. 1. The 1st game was between the Bryan brothers (seeded 1st) against Nestor and Knowles. You could feel the intensity, taste the history and smell the sweat of the players when they sat in their chairs from where we were sitting! A ball had even gone our way and when I had caught it, it was hard to throw it back!

Henman hill is actually called Aorangi Hill and that is where we saw Nadal play against Bagdatis from Cyprus (who claims he has no game plan). But Nancy had an appointment with a 30 ft yacht this weekend and had to leave me on Henman hill alone with a few hundred people =). Unfortunately for her she missed out on the 3rd match of the day on court no. 1 when Venus Williams partnered up with one of the Bryan brothers to win their mixed doubles match. I must have taken a million photos and videos during that match!

Faced with staying home on a Saturday night, which I was more than happy to do, I was invited to the family dinner of EJ for her brother's birthday. I had met EJ in Antigua, Guatemala and she was the one that convinced me to study at the Spanish school and later we ended up sharing the same home stay. It was great to see her again but I was sad to learn that her partner (who was in Antigua as well at the time) was not in London and fulfilling a dream of attending a hardcore kung fu camp in Thailand (he is already an accomplished black belt) where the master takes nothing but perfection for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Anyhow whilst he is in Thailand roughing it, we dined at a restaurant and it was a pleasure to meet EJ's loving and humorous family (the boys decided to give the dad some chilli and pretend it was salad and mum laughed herself silly when the chilli had hit him!). Had you ever done that to your parents? Hrmm.............