Well, not that football... what we'd call soccer. The England vs Russia match last night was very well attended: over 86,000 people at Wembley Stadium.
Matt got us all tickets at about 150 "quid" each (brit slang for money; like our use of "bucks"). There were cops all over the place for crowd control. These guys definitely get rowdy, singing God Save the Queen and chanting like crazy. Quite the experience.
After a 7 hour flight, 2 hours waiting in line to get thru Customs (there were hundreds of people waiting in the queue), and a 1 hour car ride to the hotel -- I finally arrived at my room around Noon GMT.
I settled in, unpacked, rested for an hour. As it approached 1:30pm, I decided to make the trek into London for the afternoon. This may be the only "free time" to enjoy.
The local train station is kind of like the NJT, and is about a 15 minute walk from the hotel. Within 40 minutes, I'm on the "tube" (the London subway). Truth be told, I had no idea where the hell I was going... just picked a spot near the Thames to exit and started walking. Not surprisingly, it doesn't take much to bump into the major sites.
Like the Tower Bridge (taken from the London Bridge):
Trafalgar Square:
and Big Ben:
I took many more photos, but those are the highlights. My feet are sore from walking. With any luck, there will be more time later in the week to explore further. I returned to the hotel at 6pm since nothing is really open here on the weekends. Hopefully the weather will hold out as well.
By the way, my phone does NOT work here at all -- cannot even get a signal. Email is best. For emergencies, key numbers are
Hotel: +44 (0)1628 624 394
Office: +44 (0)1628 860 500
