A Day in the Sun!

I have a friend Helen who invited me to go to Wimbledon with her this year. So I took the day off to have a day in the sun! To put it in perspective, there are lots of posh people and lots of courts - 18 of them. On a daily basis, there are 40,000 people in the grounds.

There are boards every where with people updating the boards as games finish (all done by hand on ladders).

Every year they have a raffle for tickets. Helen put in for the tickets, but she did not know how good the tickets were. Well, lets just say we started from the top!

Not only were we in Centre Count, we were 4th row from the grass!!!!!

On top of that, Roger Federer was paying the first game. He is number 2 in the world. Here he is coming out to play. Let's just say that the London papers having been making fun of the modern outfit!

A view from our seat. Of course, during this time I was texting everyone I knew telling them I was going to be on tv. :)

The seats were great. Here is Federer getting ready.

Serving - I have tons of photos of him serving.

Helen kept laughing at me because I kept saying "kill it!"

That's me!!!!

Here is Philipp Kohlschreiber who was playing against Federer and lost the match.


In action.

After Federer won, we left Centre Court and walked around the grounds. There were courts everywhere. Here I am in front of one.

After walking around, we met up with my friends Ruth and Lindsey. Here they are back in Centre Court looking for celebrities.

Our tickets were good for the entire day. So we watched the last match of the day, Novak Djokovic (4th in the world) vs. Mardy Fish (American and ranked 25th in the world). Here is Djokovic.


And here is Mardy who lost the match.

The highlight of the day was sitting next to me the whole day. Just 10 feet away from our seats was the BBC booth. The glare was bad, but still I sat next to John McEnroe!!!!!!

I have to thank my good friend Helen for the great day and the great seats! She is sitting next to the empty seat.

Visit from Mum.6

After our wonderful day at Kew Gardens, we walked over to the River Thames and took a hour-long boat ride back to London. Here is a picture of our boat.

The weather was great and we saw tons of people doing crew.

We must have gone under at least 10 different bridges on the way back to London.

We ended the boat trip at Parliament!

The next day we ventured out of town and went to the beach in Brighton.


After visiting the beach and eating fresh fish and mussels at a local restaurant, we visited the Royal Pavilion palace. Here is a shot of the outside of the palace.

On Mum's last day in London, we saw the famous Tower Bridge.

Which Mum got to walk over.

And we ended the great vacation at the Tower of London.

Can't wait until Mum visits again!

Visit from Mum.5

One of the best things that Mum and I did was visit the Kew Royal Botanic Gardens. The Gardens just celebrated 250 years and Mum and I spent the day wondering the 300 acres! They have 3 beautiful Victorian glass houses that feature different plant environments.

Mum and I visited the Princess of Wales Conservatory and we were surprised to see a desert!


We also saw great carnivorous plants. These things were giant!

We also saw ponds and fish.

And lots of orchids of different colors.

The Gardens also have a treetop walk. The last time I had done anything like this was over 10 years ago in Australia. We climbed the 100+ stairs to wonder around in the trees.

We also got to see the wildlife!

The weather was perfect. We had lunch sitting outside the famous Orangery Restaurant and later had cake and tea in the Gardens.

Mum and I could not stop taking photos of all the plants/flowers.


We were actually allowed to walk around the top of one of the Victorian glass houses.

Here is Mum on the way down.

In the end, we had a great time at the Gardens. A great way to spend the day!

Visit from Mum.4

We also spent an afternoon at the British Museum. It has some great artifacts.....stolen from all over the world!

Part of the Parthenon.


Mom standing next to amazing artwork.

Visit from Mum.3

Mum and I traveled outside London on Tuesday to take a guided tour of Salisbury and Stonehenge. We first took a 1 1/2 hour train ride to Salisbury for the morning. Here is a picture walking up to the town after leaving the train station.

Here I am listening to our tour guide surrounded by beautiful countryside. The weather was great.

Our tour guide took us on a small walk in the village. Here is some of the architecture in Salisbury.

We then headed to the Salisbury Cathedral. The Cathedral was built in 1258!

The inside was very impressive and we walked around learning about its history and knights who were buried there.

Another picture from the courtyard.

After our tour, we went to lunch and then met up with our group to take a tour bus to Stonehenge. On our 30 minute ride to Stonehenge, we got to see Sting's house!

We also got to see lots of thatch cottages as we drove through villages.

Another one. So neat.

We arrive in Stonehenge!

Mum and I are one of the few that has seen Stonehenge in the sun! :) Due to the destruction that visitors have done to the stones over the years. You can no longer go up to the stones. They are only open during the summer solstice. Last year, our guide said 300,000 visited on the summer solstice.....so I am glad our day lacked that many tourists. There seemed to be lots of people there, but you could always get a good photo shot.



Surprisingly, it was super windy on the site. Here is Mum getting blow away.

It was a great day and I am glad we did a tour as we would not have learned as much.