Our journey as a pair of Texans learning British way of life.

Monday, July 5, 2010

Wimbledon 2010

Getting the chance to be in London during not only the World Cup when the Brutish band together to cheer on their team (until they stop winning) has been a great experience, and the only thing that could maybe top that is getting to watch a British original the Wimbledon Championships.

Just a 40 minute tube ride and a 5 minute bus ride or 10 minute walk to the All England Club gets you to the site of the Wimbledon Championships.

From there as a 'non-ticket holder' you have to Queue for the right to purchase a ground pass.
Camron, his coworker Kim and myself went in the evening on Day 10 just after they left work. Ticket holders mind you receive their tickets the summer before after entering a lottery system. In the Queue you get a Queue Card and continue on to the ticket office. At a more popular time on a more popular day, you are likely to wait in this line for hours but we were lucky and

On to the gate entrance and to purchase our Grounds Only pass.

We explored the grounds, saw the beautiful flowers, the grass courts that are open seating and have smaller games going on. The hill where us groundlings can camp out and watch what's going on in the three main courts, Cantre, No1 and No2.
But we decided to try our luck at the ticket re-sell box and see if there were open seats to be had. When ticket holders leave for the day they'll turn their tickets in and the Wimbledon staff then re-sell them for 5 pounds and the money goes to charity. We got lucky with again no wait and tickets to Centre Court. We were in the second row with great view of the action!

And we got to watch the men's pairs quarter finals, the winners of this match actually went on to play for the men's pairs final, but sadly didn't win.
After the match was finished we learned we'd be lucky enough to see a second match, but first we had to take part in Wimbledon traditions from the food and drink stalls.
We skipped the champagne to save some money, but were happy to partake in another traditional drink Pimm's and Lemonade. And of course strawberries and creme!Back inside Centre court to see a Women's invitational game featuring Anna Kournikova and Martina Hingis.
These ladies were a joy to watch as you could tell they were having lots of fun. Over all a great experience and I'm glad we went!

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