London Trip Day 7 (June 8, 2011): Whatever You Do Don't Go on the Grass

Vacation

Jun 18

Written By Joel

I'm going to start sounding like a broken record but once again sleep was not an issue for Jenn and I. We are averaging on the trip about 10-12 hours a night of sleep and an average wake up time of about 11 AM. Today was no different as we got up at around 11:30 and started to get ready to go out to Wimbledon to take a tour of the grounds.

You may be wondering why we would be going back to Wimbledon; haven't we been there before? Yes in fact we have all been there multiple times but have only got to tour the museum never the grounds. So we met Jenn's Dad down at the lobby at around 1PM, walked over to the overground station only a minute or two walk from the hotel, took that one stop and then jumped on the tube to Wimbledon.

Waiting for the Overground To Take Us to Wimbledon

So if you have never been to London you might not realize that one of the main tubes final destination is a stop called Wimbledon. So from an outsider perspective you would think go to Wimbledon station and it would take you to the All England Lawn & Tennis Association but you would be mistaken as we were. You might even think the stop before that Wimbledon Park would be the right one to get to the famous tennis center but you would be wrong as we were. We first chose the Wimbledon stop and realized right when we got off in this very industrial area that we were not on the right stop. We took the tube to Wimbledon Park and asked for directions and took a good 30 minute walk in pouring rain to get to the beautiful grass courts of Wimbledon.

When we got to Wimbledon we missed the tour by 5 minutes and were told we had to wait another hour to get the last tour of the day at 330. So we walked around the beautiful museum (which we all had been to before), walked around the gift shop, and even got some food at the museum cafe. I got a chicken sandwich, and Jenn's Dad got a bag of chips. When 3:30 rolled around we were off to tour my favorite tennis tournament and the place I have wanted to tour since coming to Europe six years ago.

Welcome to the All England Lawn and Tennis Club

Wimbledon 2011

Immediately we were told that it would be obvious but under no circumstances could we touch or even get near the grass. The tour took us through some of the side courts, Henman Hill (that's right not Mount Murray or whatever they are trying to change the name to), Court 1, Press Area, and Center Court. Throughout the tour the sun would pop out and then a cloud would come over and literally just throw buckets of water down on us. The tour lasted a little over an hour and we were back to walking to the Tube and to our hotel.

Standing on Henman Hill

Touring in the Rain

Hanging Out on Center Court

Such a Beautiful Place to Watch Tennis

We needed to get back relatively quickly as we had booked tickets to go see The Lion King at the Lyceum Theater in London. We got back to the hotel, bought Jenn some blueberry muffins, she took a 20 minute power nap, and we took a taxi to the play. Somehow we managed to get center front row tickets to the play for a reasonable price. We got to the theater with plenty of time, picked up our tickets and headed to our seats. I did get a glass of white wine and Jenn got toffee pop corn to eat during the play.

Drinking Some Wine Before The Lion King

All in all we enjoyed Lion King. The music is of course good, the costumes are pretty crazy, and it was just a fun play to go see. We ended up getting out of the play at around 10PM and decided to take the tube back to our hotel. On our way to the tube station we stopped at a restaurant called Maxwell's which was very much an American style restaurant. Jenn and I split a three course meal which included calamari, ribs, and ice cream. Jenn got a shake and a cosmo, I got an Amstel and Jenn's dad got a rose wine and BBQ chicken. After a week without American food it was nice to get a meal that reminded us all of home. We ended up getting on the tube at around 11:15 PM and made our way back to the hotel arriving there at around 11:55 PM with only a few minutes left on our tube pass.