40 - LOVE

The QUEUE..... Wimbledon reserves seats for the main courts as well as general grounds admission for sale on the day (these tickets are highly sought after as it is difficult to reserve tickets as you need to win a lottery etc) To get tickets on the day however you need to wait in a massive queue (long line to the American blog followers) and many camp out over night for a center court ticket. Gates open at 10 am we arrived at 730 am and we were numbers 7817 and 7818 in the queue!!!!!! They even hand out an instruction book on how to wait in the queue called "The Guide to Queueing"...only the British

It was a great day out so we hung out read our books, ate our snacks, and after 5 hours in line were inside Wimbledon :o)

Once we were inside we had an afternoon filled with championship tennis. We enjoyed the traditional treat of strawberries and cream too :o)

Royal Ascot...Our First Event with the Queen

Every year men put on their best morning suits (tails with grey pants and top hats) and women fancy hats to parade around, drink pims and champagne, oh yeah and watch horse racing :o) The Queen and other royals attend each day and there is a special procession were everyone looks at her outfit and matching hat (they even bet on the color of her hat, she wore a blue hat on Saturday when we went which I guessed). We picnicked outside before the races and then continued the party inside...i was in heaven with ALL the people watching :o)

Picture of us at the Royal Ascot 2010

John and some of his ATK colleagues we went with...it was an awesome time even though we didn't win one bet :o)

London Street Fashion

People in London LOVE animal print as shown above in these fab tiger/cheetah pants. I would estimate that a minimum of 1/10 people on the street have some animal print Incorporated into their outfit :o)

Another 10% of the high street population wears REALLY short skirts, usually with leggings but sometimes just hooker boots as seen above:o) very fun to point these ladies out as we walk along running errands :o)

And then there are people like these two nuts dressed in old time garb accessorized either by an axe or ray bans :o)

Quick Recap since last post

Our First Visitor!!!!!! Laurel came to visit for a long weekend in May and luckily since I hadn't started work yet we got to hang out and see the sights :o) This is us after our tour of the Tower of London with Tower Bridge in the background. We went and saw the changing of the guards at Buckingham Palace, the royal band (or whatever their official name is) played English classics like New York New York by Sinatra haha. The police officer did a mini kick line which was an added bonus.

My Parents came to visit in May as well and brought the best weather we have seen since moving to London, it was 80 and sunny everyday of their trip. Taking advantage we were outside the entire time enjoying hte parks and taking in some sun. We went to Hampton Court Palace one of the days which is highly recommended if you are in London more than a few days since it is one of the few places you truly get a feel of how it used to be used back in the Tudor days, kitchens and all. Plus they have a hedge maze which we figured out the secret to on the first time I must say...Gibbels you know :o)

John's Birthday was appropriately marked by the beginning of the World Cup and chocolate cake of course. I was almost blinded by all the light coming from the candles..and they weren't even all on there :o)