Brussels, London, Wimbledon and The Wimbledance

It has been a while since the last blog and we have been up to quite a bit. 

June 27 Andrew and I spent a night in Brussels. We didn't really do that much, just walked around the main square and of course watched some World Cup Soccer.

June 28 we caught the Eurostar (train through the Chunnel) from Brussels to London. Once we arrived we checked into our hostel, got some groceries, cooked dinner (it has been a long time since we had hot food!) and went for a stroll in Kensington Gardens.

June 29 we decided that we were really going to be tourists and see all the sights that we could possibly see because we anticipated spending most of the week watching tennis matches at Wimbledon Park. So we first went to Trafalgar Square,

then we went to Buckingham Palace to watch the changing of the guards (much better than in Monaco), 

had lunch at St. James' Park, 

went to Westminster Abbey, 

saw Big Ben, 

the Tower of London, 

Tower Bridge,

took a river boat to the London Eye, went back to the hostel for dinner and then back out to go to Hyde Park to read and play some crib. 

June 30 we had to get up early to make it to Wimbledon to stand in line for ground tickets. Just as we got our tickets and got on the grounds we turned to our left and I spotted Federer warming up for his match. Andrew and I were so excited to see him!

After our encounter with the Greatest player of all time, we went and setup our blanket on the Hill to watch the matches on the big screen. Andrew went wandering before the matches started and he ran into Nadal who was on his way to warm up for his match. 

So we had a great day at Wimbledon (even though Roger lost... he was injured). These guys below really helped make our day. They were 4 of them (one is missing from the picture, obviously). They were getting smashed watching the tennis matches, cheering for Andy Murray. They were all dressed in white tennis gear (which is mandatory for the players at Wimbledon). They were constantly standing up and doing this weird dance thing, which was really funny. They would point their hands out to either side above their head, and then pump them up and down. After the last match of the day we saw them and were about to walk right by them when Andrew said "Heyyyyy" and started to do their dance. This really got the guys excited and they wanted a picture of them and Andrew doing the dance. They called the dance the "Wimbledance", and were quite certain that it was "going to catch on next year". Hopefully we will see them again Sunday for the finals.

Yesterday (July 1, Canada Day), we went to the British Museum. Andrew really enjoyed looking at all the really old stuff, while I preferred to scout out benches and to admire from afar. The museum was really neat, I can't believe how much stuff the British stole (even though in the description of what the object is it usually said something about how the Brits "paid" for the article or saved it from being demolished, etc.). Then we spent the afternoon at the Camden Market. We were on the hunt for a few pieces of clothing... but left empty handed even though they had a thousand stores there!

Then last night we went to see Billy Elliot (I couldn't convince Andrew to see Grease or Dirty Dancing, both of which are playing in London). It was a really good musical and we really enjoyed ourselves.

The Last of Paris and Beginning of Wine Tasting

Sunday (June 6), after Nadal WON Roland Garros Andrew and I went for a walk to the Moulin Rouge. We were both expecting it to be kind of a big deal, but it was really just this:

 

Monday (June 7), Andrew and I left Paris for Bordeaux. We put off wine tasting until yesterday (June 9) because I have been recovering from a cold and I wanted to wait until I got my taste back. We did some wine tasting in a small town called Saint Emilion, just east of Bordeaux. As soon as we got into this town, I fell in love with it. It was so quite, clean and beautiful. There were vineyards everywhere, it was like Alberta in that respect, but instead of the fields being yellow they were green.

This town was filled with vagabond cats that were really cute and some were really friendly. We saw that a lot of houses had left milk out for the cats, like this one shop.

We went on a tour of one vineyard... "chateau" as the French call it. It was really neat because this town had underground caves linking the vineyards together.

They had SOOOO much wine in these caves.

We learned that there were many different sizes of wine bottles. The regular 750ml bottle is the second from the left, although I have seen the Saints each polish off a bottle the size one of the right, almost every Sunday.

After our wine tasting and tours I still don't think that we know a "good" bottle of wine from a "bad" bottle of wine. Oh well, we will have to keep experimenting.

Tomorrow (June 11) we are off to Avignon.

Pathetic

Yes we are.

So today is the semi finals for the men's singles at Roland Garros (French Open, tennis). Andrew and I have been looking forward to watching these games (the semis and finals) for a really long time now (even though Roger didn't make it to the semis and we are slightly crushed - thank goodness for Nadal!). So today we get into our shirt and shorts, put sunscreen on, get a blanket to sit on, and bring our hats and sunglasses to watch the game on the big TV outside of l'Hotel de Ville (in city centre). It was so hot out (27) that we only lasted a couple of hours, not even seeing the first of the two matches. Andrew and I were actually asked to play a match of tennis with these other "semi pros" or ex semi pros behind where we were watching (they have a clay court in the middle of city centre set up), but we had on our flip-flops and were too hot so had to decline. We were so hot we had to go back to the hostel and watch the games from there. Here we are in the forum.

Before we went to the games we went to the top of l'Arc de Triomphe and took a few pictures.  Here is the Arc from below. It is big.

View from the top.

When we got to the Arc (and we have been warned by scams that start like this), a foreign woman approached us and asked if we spoke English. I put my head down and kept walking. Andrew looks her in the eyes and says to her, "Nope! I'm sorry!". I thought that this was pretty funny.

Tonight we plan on going back to the Arc after dark to see the city lights and to see the Eiffel Tower light show. We'll post some pictures when we get back in from that.