London Day 3 has come and gone...

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London Day 3 is finished…

And what a win by the Patriots! But I get ahead of myself…

It was yet another beautiful day here in London. While we had been preparing for rainy weather, the skies were relatively sunny once again, and we have had no rain to speak off! Perhaps Amy and I brought the good weather with us from DC.

Sunday was not as action packed as the previous 2 days, but we had quite a bit to see nonetheless. We started the day with a visit to the London Eye. The London Eye was built in 1999 as the largest ferris wheel in the world. Situated right on the banks of the Themes River, a seat on this wheel will allow you to see just about everything in the city!

To get on the London Eye, you have to buy tickets earlier in the day and then you come back at a designated time. However, Amy and I were slowed down and not able to get to the ticket office as early as we wanted. Just when it looked like we were not going to be able to get a ticket before we had to head out to Wembley Stadium, a nice Canadian woman sold us hers! Unfortunately for her, her husband was not feeling so well, and she wanted to try to resell her tickets because they are not cheap! Though tickets are only 17 pounds per person, with the exchange rate, they can get expensive for people from North America.

We finally get on the London eye and the views were breathtaking! There are no bad seats or standing spots in the pod they put you in. You are grouped with about 20 other people who all want to see everything as well - so everyone changes places every few minutes. The ride itself takes about 30 minutes to go all the way around, so you have plenty of time to see every part of London. While I was a little skittish about paying for such a tourist trap, I am very happy that we went. This was definitely time and money well spent. But I just keep asking myself, why hasn’t anyone taken this money making machine to DC yet? That developer would make a fortune!

After the ride on the London Eye it was time to head out to the famed grounds of Wembley Stadium for the reason we initially planned this trip: to see the New England Patriots take on the Tampa Bay Buccaneers! Because not too many people drive out here, we took the London underground, or subway, out to the stadium and got some tailgating in at a parking lot near by. It was soo odd to see the English fans get excited for the game. I would honestly say about half had no idea about many of the rules, and even worse, all of these fans found it necessary to wear any football jersey they owned! There were raiders jerseys, bears jerseys, even one for the university of Miami! In fact, I am sure that I saw a jersey for John Elway. Didn’t he retire like 10 years ago? No doubt though that the number 1 jersey represented was Tom Brady’s.

Then it was game time! We headed into the stadium and watched a great game, if you are a Pats fan… a terrible game if you are a Bucs fan. The Pats cruised to a 35-7 victory, and it could have been much worse than that. A few funny things became very apparent: 1) The English fans are not exposed to cheerleaders often, but the LOVE them! Aside from a spectacular play or 2 during the game, the biggest cheers all night came from dance routines by the Cheerleaders. 2) Europeans are obsessed with the wave! At one point, it seemed like the wave went on for 10 minutes. Even players after the game were commenting on that afterwards. 3) Everyone stays seated the whole game! It was great - you could actually stay seated, enjoy the game, and see everything going on.

But we had a great crew out for the game. My law school friends Nick and Theresa Cook just moved out to London, and they came with us, as did our hosts Brian and Emily Bower. To help them all fit in, Amy and I lent Briand and Emily some Patriots t-shirts, while Nick and Theresa wore navy blue and red.
Then it was home by the tube…

Today - since I dragged Amy to a bunch of sporting events, I have the pleasure of sitting through a rousing rendition of Dirty Dancing in the London theatre district. We also plan on heading to the Winston Churchill museum, so that should be fun!

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