Bittersweet Symphony

Some of you blog readers may know this game (and the rest of you will probably think the next section is quite bizaar):

Yay, Boo, Yay, Boo, it's lots of fun to do! I say YAY! And you say BOO!

Gas from Conoco - YAY!
Gas from Taco Bell - BOO!

Going to London to watch the Broncos play at Wembley Stadium - YAY!
Watching the Broncos lose to one of the worst teams in the NFL - BOO!


So my trip to London was bittersweet. It was WONDERFUL to visit a city in a country I have never been to, see the amazing architecture and watch my favorite American football team play at Wembley Stadium...however, it was rainy most of the time, so crowded you could barely walk down the streets, and the Broncos lost the football game.

Now before you think I'm Debby Downer, let me tell you that I had s ton of fun and if I had to do it all over again I would still buy tickets to the game and book the trip. It is only a one hour flight to London so basically you reach altitude and are already on your decent.

When Estella (my cousin) and I finally arrived at St. Pancras Station in Kings Cross we had to find our Hostel - and I admit I got us a little lost. You know me, I think I have it all figured out but then I am quickly humbled by my lack of street smarts (literally, I couldn't figure out where our street was). So we eventually got to our Hostel - Clink to be exact - and we checked in to our all girls 10 bed room. So I know that the stereotype is usually that girls are cleaner than boys and that may be true in some instances, but a hostel is not one of those exceptions. Luckily our room didn't smell bad (until the morning but I won't admit it).

After we checked in we hit the town - and let me tell you, Halloween was in full force! The main difference between Halloween in the USA and Halloween in London is that Londoners actually make Halloween scary as opposed to picking an occupation and trying to make it sexy. I've never seem more fake blood in my life. So after walking around for a while we went back to the hostel to discover that our own hostel had a bar and was throwing a Halloween party...so of course we went to people watch. I won't go into detail of what we saw, but the highlight of the night was seeing a girl walk into the party with about 2 feet of toilet paper stuck to her high heel. And she had no idea. I almost spit up my beer when I saw her [side note - she's on Stella's team}.

So on Sunday (Halloween renamed "Game Day") morning, Stella and I went to Hillsong London. What an amazing church! I loved the music, the sermon was amazing, and I was pumpped for God and football.

After the service we wandered around London a little more and found an office supply store so I could make the best football sign EVER (refer to pictures).

London

Now about the football game:

WEMBLEY STADIUM IS HUGE! It can hold 90,000 people and it was about 95% packed that night. I was the only fan that made a sign so you'd think that I would make it on TV or the Jumbotran or something, but no. They only showed 49ers fans! It was totally teamist and for that I am a little angry. One of the best parts about sitting where we did was that in the row behind us there were about 10 Australian guys that were all dressed in cheerleading drag for Halloween. And they came complete with cheers. It didn't take long to convert them from 49ers fans into Broncos fans so we could help each other out to get on the big screen, but alas, it never happened. I'm sure most of you watched the game so I don't have to recap what happened but it didn't end in favor of the Broncos. After the game was over there was a mad rush of about 80,000 people trying to get on the same subway as Stella and I, so instead of wating 3 hours and dealing with very angry police wearing hats we couldn't take seriously, we decided to take a bus 30 minutes in the wrong direction to connect to a bus that took us over an hour back home. We then hit a pub and went to bed.

On Monday our tourist side came out in full force. We hopped on the double decker red tour bus and saw everything there is to see in the city of London. I won't go into details because it's all on the picasa photo album (click on the picture above). So ENJOY! I know there are about a million pictures in the album (most of which are architecture - hello, I'm an interior designer), but if you've never been to London it gives you a really good image of what the city looks like. And for people like me, it's architecture heaven :)

Well, that's all for my trip to London.

P.S. It's 11.11.2010 today. Next year will be 11.11.11. How fun would it be to be born on that day? I guess it's too late for you though, huh.