If the next five weeks are going to top my first week in Cambridge, I'm in for the best trip I will probably ever be a part of. I have met an awesome group of people that I spend pretty much any time I am out of my room with. We come from law schools at Arkansas, Ole Miss and Texas Tech. I don't even know where to start with this week's events. First, I'll get the boring stuff out of the way. Class with the British professors is great. They love us being here and it shows. They couldn't be nicer. The food on the other hand, is well, below par. All the stories about English food lacking are true. We take odds on who can get closest to what we will actually be having for lunch. Breakfast is the same everyday, including baked beans. Yes, baked beans. I've started to realize the little things we take for granted such as water in our rooms that we can drink and cold sodas. Both are tough to find. As for some of the experiences:
We all managed to find the most popular pub for English fans in Cambridge to try to find the U.S. soccer game. As you can imagine, we failed. However, watching England with these people was a much better experience. We throw hats to celebrate graduation. England fans throw cups of beer when England scores. I'm not joking. I wasn't really sure why our beers came in big plastic cups, but I soon found out why. I got hit by at least three of them during the goal and the victory. My clothes are still drying. We then turned our attention to London yesterday and the ambition of getting into Wimbledon. To sum it up, Wimbledon is what I would consider an athletic Woodstock. When we got to London we hadn't booked a place to stay. We figured, well it's a city of 5 million people, plenty of cheap places to stay. The first place we go to ask, a 5-star hotel. Note, don't ask at a 5-star hotel where the nearest hostel is. We were ran out of the place as they cussed us out the door. However, we managed to find a hostel on the Wimbledon side of London that was perfect. There was six of us and we had a 6 bed room with our own bathroom, which is crucial. I'm not a fan of sharing showers, especially with people I don't know, especially people I don't know from different countries. Gross. Anyway, as we ventured on the town, we must have stuck out like, well, Americans. I don't know if it was the Polo shirts, cologne, or the gazing around like lost dogs. A guy approached us that worked for a place called Zoo Bar (look it up) and offered to let us see the place, which was in a safe, lit area (don't worry Mom), and claimed there were already 400 people inside and he would allow us to skip line and cut us a deal on cover since we were American. We took him up on it, and I'm glad we did. It was great. Perfect way to spend a night in London. Even met some Californians, which, by the way is nice to hear an accent that is much closer to yours.
After a good night's rest (ha) we started our adventure to Wimbledon. Incase you don't know, you can line up (queue) and get day passes on the day you want to go. The only problem, you have to get there 3 hours before gates open and there are already 7,000 people ahead of you. Actually 7, 417. My queue number was 4, 718. After ariving at 8, we managed to stand in line, in the burning sun, but finally got in Wimbledon at 2 p.m. Needless to say, it was an experience that I'm so glad I did, but can't say it's on my list to do again. The area you wait is a gigantic field that everyone brings food, beer, tents, papers, foreign accents, anything you want just about. In fact, some Dutch guys behind us actually bought some beers off us for 2 pounds each. Money in the pocket is better than a warm Fosters any day. And I do mean warm. When you can't feel a cold beer through the box, you know it's warm. Warm beer is common, and I can't say I'm used to it, but it's ok. Kabab shops help keep you fed in a somewhat normal manner and go good with a warm beer. Anyway, our trip to Wimbledon was a success. We got in the gates and picked a court. When we sat down we asked a lady who was playing and she said of all things, Roger Federer is about to have a practice session. We were on the front row. I knew this couldn't be true. The pictures below will prove she was right. Watching him warm up was awesome. I can't imagine what returning a serve from him would be like, much less getting drilled in the hip by one. It would hurt. Bad. What more could you ask for? Wimbledon, VIP club access (sortof) and Roger Federer. Needless to say, it's been an awesome first week. Eight of us will be traveling to Amsterdam next weekend, so I can't wait. I'm about to get a little nap in, but I hope everyone is doing awesome back home. I'm so lucky to be here, and I know it's only going to get better. Talk to you all soon. Miss y'all! Here's a few pics, btw. I'll do another post with all pics! Bye!
Until my next post,
Life's a garden. Dig it.
Woodard
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