London Notes
Wimbledon, Harrods, and Chips ... Oh My!
This has probably been the best travel year of my life. Not only did I attend The Masters and met Rory McIlroy, but I also went to London for the very first time and attended Wimbledon. Two huge events checked off my bucket list. Did I mention I met Rory McIlroy? (p.s. yes, he is lovely).
If there was main takeaway from the London trip, it’s that London is very expensive. The second one would be, do not watch the movie The Substance on a flight while you are being served a traditional British breakfast of sausage and baked beans. (Seriously. I want to throw up a little right now just thinking about it.)
But beneath the surface, there are a few other things that stood out, from an American perspective:
The Brits know how to name things. We are grown adults yet we couldn’t help but giggle like stupid teenagers when we heard that we were on the eastbound train to Cockfosters. That being said, I love the cheeky and sometimes unconventional thought that goes into naming local establishments.
For example, this chain of pubs:
Next, this breakfast place:
Third - and unfortunately I didn’t get a picture of this one - “After School Cookie Club”. Brilliant! Are you kidding me? Sign me up for a membership! I want to show them some love based on that name alone, so here is a link to their site: After School Cookie Club
The Brits love a good queue. If I had one complaint about Wimbledon, it would the queuing. Lines, lines, everywhere lines. It started with our first line at 4:30 a.m. We were not rich enough to buy actual Wimbledon tickets ($2000 a ticket, anyone?), nor lucky enough to win the ticket lottery. So that left option three: The Queue. Not surprisingly, we opted to not camp out overnight for the possibility of actual reserved tickets, since well … I don’t actually camp in real life, and I wasn’t about to start now. Besides, I don’t think that camping would translate into my best Wimbledon self. I had a cute dress to wear for the occasion, for Pete’s sake.
Anyway, we waited in that queue from 4:30 a.m. until 11 a.m., when we finally got our grounds passes. Surprisingly, the wait went faster than I expected, and it was all very organized and orderly. But then the rest of the day seemed to be spent in other queues. Queue to get re-sale tickets. Queue to get strawberries and cream. Queue to get into a side court. Queue to get lunch. Queue to get a Pimms Cup. Queue for the merch. It probably didn’t help that London was experiencing record high temperatures, however I do think that the folks at Wimbledon just let too many people in, as it was way too crowded and hard to maneuver at times. By the end of the day, we were done with lines. But props for the “orderly fashion” part; I do appreciate that.
The Brits love their pub culture. I know, I know … this is not exactly a huge revelation. But let’s just say I loved walking around London at happy hour time, because every single neighborhood pub spilled outside with hundreds of people enjoying pints after work. For whatever reason this just gave me joy … but it was even better when we took the train to Richmond to see where Ted Lasso was filmed. Let me preface this by saying that I am a HUGE Ted Lasso fan, so you better believe I fan-girled all over that place. However, we were pleasantly surprised to find that the pub was actually filled with locals and not American tourists. After a while of standing outside with our pints, a picnic table opened up where we were soon joined by three retired chums from the broadcasting industry. We spent the next few hours chatting with them as if we were old friends … and that became one of my three favorite days in London.
Nobody knows what side of the sidewalk … er … pavement to walk on. So from what I could gather, Londoners walk on the left side of the pavement … I think? I’m actually not quite sure, because London sidewalks are a royal mess. Everyone is from somewhere else, so some people walk on the right, and some on the left.
I guess you could say it’s just one big Cockfoster.
