Well, on Friday morning Sarah and I woke up and left the house at a ridiculous hour to experience all of this and more. We were on the train down to the All England Club at a few minutes after 6:00am, and we joined the Queue at around 6:45. You may have noticed that I capitalized the word queue there - it wasn't a mistake. The Queue is one of the grand Wimbledon traditions, and it definitely deserves to be capitalized. It's an event in and of itself. Now, if you knew that the gates didn't open to the public until 9:30am and that there are around 5,000 general entry tickets each day, you might think that arriving nearly three hours early to get in line, when most of London is either still sleeping or just starting to make their way to work, you might think we were crazy. But you'd be wrong. We were in quite good company (although perhaps we were all crazy!), and there were roughly 3,600 people in front of us!
Wimbledon: one of those quintessentially English things to do. I've watched the tournament on the TV for years, beginning back when Pete Sampras and Steffi Graf reigned supreme in the world of tennis. When Sampras won his seventh Wimbledon Championship, I remember trying to imagine what would it would have been like to be there to see the historic event; even if not on in the stands viewing the match, then at least on Henman Hill with the crowds. I've always wanted to go to Wimbledon to see what's it's all about and to feel the experience of the oldest tennis tournament in the world.
Well, on Friday morning Sarah and I woke up and left the house at a ridiculous hour to experience all of this and more. We were on the train down to the All England Club at a few minutes after 6:00am, and we joined the Queue at around 6:45. You may have noticed that I capitalized the word queue there - it wasn't a mistake. The Queue is one of the grand Wimbledon traditions, and it definitely deserves to be capitalized. It's an event in and of itself. Now, if you knew that the gates didn't open to the public until 9:30am and that there are around 5,000 general entry tickets each day, you might think that arriving nearly three hours early to get in line, when most of London is either still sleeping or just starting to make their way to work, you might think we were crazy. But you'd be wrong. We were in quite good company (although perhaps we were all crazy!), and there were roughly 3,600 people in front of us! The Queue is one of those things that I think Londoners pride themselves on. There are a whole host of "rules" around the etiquette, and an entire web page on Wimbledon's official site explaining "How to Queue." When we arrived, we were issued with a book entitled, "A Guide to Queuing," printed on glossy paper and consisting of about 8 pages of written text. People camp out beginning the day before, as the first 500 people are eligible to purchase tickets for Centre Court & Court No. 1. They are allowed to order pizza and other food to the Queue for delivery, so long as they arrange it with the wardens ahead of time. There are sing-alongs and games of catch and football overnight ... it's probably a hippy's dream ... but one of the coolest atmosphere's that I can imagine. A real, "We're in this together" kind of spirit permeates the entire crowd. The Queue is remarkably well organized; when you arrive on the morning of the matches you are first herded into a series of parallel lines, each about 800 meters in length. Once there are a sufficient number of lines, such that they've reached their 5,000 people, a man walks behind the last person into line with a rather large sign, visibile for all to see, on which is written in bold typeface, "End of Queue." Upon reaching your place in the Queue you are issued a Queue Card, stating the date and your official queue number (place in line) so that you can leave for brief periods to get a coffee, visit the loo, etc. About an hour after the end of the Queue is declared the wardens start creating the "real" line that you then form to buy your grounds passes. They start snaking these 800 meter-long individual lines into one giant line that now leads towards the gates. You end up forming a line that stretches for easily 2,000 yards. How do I know? Because the Wimbledon Park Golf Club has to give up its golf course for a fortnight each summer to make way for the Queue, and we walked over some of the best manicured fairways I've seen since moving to England! (I was quite jealous - it's the closest I'll get to walking those fairways!) So, after a (quite) successful navigation of the queue which took us about 4 hours in total, we finally got our grounds tickets and were inside! We grabbed a coffee and strolled about the grounds, taking it all in. Centre Court, Court No. 1, and all the little courts as well. We met a nice senior citizen, a member of the All England Club himself, who gave us a nice introduction and welcome. He told us where some Canadians were playing and how best to enjoy our day. We toured the shop and saw all the gear on offer, we saw all the wonderful flowers - planted in only purple and white to match Wimbledon colours, and eventually made our way to one fo the smaller show courts. We got excellent seats in the second row and settled in to watch a ladies doubles match. Unfortunately the weather didn't quite want to cooperate and we were forced to endure a weather delay for nearly two and a half hours more; but finally - finally! - at 1:00pm, our match began and the sun came out. It turned into a glorious afternoon, and we really enjoyed the rest of the day. We had traditional Kentish strawberries and cream, another Wimbledon tradition, and after our doubles match was done we sat on Henman Hill and watched one of the matches on the big screen. A very good day indeed!
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Friday night saw Sarah and I at the Tower of London to witness the ceremony of the keys. It is the nightly ritual of locking up the Tower that has been carried out, uninterrupted and following the same pattern, for the past 761 years. That's right - seven hundred and sixty-one years. It was a very cool thing to see and to be a part of. We were ushered into the Tower at night by a warder (beefeater) and it began with just our group (which was surprisingly larger than we imagined it would be, but nonetheless ...) which was an odd feeling. To be inside the Tower with only 50 people, at night with large shadows looming on the cobblestones, it was unique.
We had the ceremony explained to us by the warder, and then were joined by two other groups. One was a group of retired service personnel, and the other appeared to be a small portion of people who had stepped away from their black-tie affair that night. All in all about 80 people were there to watch with us, we figured. Then came the chief warder with a very traditional ring of keys (remember the dog from Pirates of the Carribbean? That's what this key ring looked like); he picked up his armed escort, and then they all marched past us, on their way to lock up the tower. They were all dressed in ceremonial kit, with their bearskins on - except for the cheif warder, who wore a Tudor bonnet with red, white, and blue. They locked up the outer gate, and then the inner gate, and the proceeded to head for the main yard. But they were challenged by a sentry! "Halt! Who goes there!" he shouted! "The Keys!" shouted back the the chief warder. "Who's keys?" challenged the sentry. "Queen Elizabeth's Keys!" answered the chief warder. "Advance, Queen Elizabeth's Keys, and all's well!" replied the sentry. He stood aside and allowed the escort to pass. They went to the foot of the broad steps, and were saluted by the night's guardsmen. The chief warder shouted, "God preserve Queen Elizabeth!" and was immediately answered by a resounding "Amen!" from the guardsmen. The last post was played while the chief warder went to deliver the Key's the Queen's apartment, and that was it for the ceremony. It is the world's oldest ceremony of the keys, and the shortest. From beginning to end it lasted only 7 minutes. It was a very cool to have seen. It was oddly romantic and reminded you of a simpler, older time. We first found out about it when reading a book from the 1926 that mentioned it: H.V. Morton's The Spell of London. I've copied out the section if you care to read it, on the Things We Like page. Enjoy! The first weekend in June, London played host to the Queen's Diamond Jubilee celebrations. A huge party over four days to mark Queen Elizabeth's 60 years on the throne; the fact that Queen Elizabeth is the second longest-reigning British monarch in history. The period will very likely come to be known as the Elizabethan era! Now, the entire year has celebrations and events to mark the Jubilee; in February the Queen made Greenwich a Royal Borough; in March she saluted all four branches of the armed forces at Windsor Castle; she's had the cavalry from all Commonwealth countries come over and ride past the dais; but the weekend of June 2 - 5 was the Big One. It began on the Saturday with street parties all over the city and everyone generally getting into the festival attitude. And then on Sunday the real big things began. The was a flotilla down the Thames that was made up of 1,000 boats - the largest flotilla on the Thames or anywhere, ever! The Queen, Prince Phillip, her family and close friends rode down the river waving to millions of Britons for over two hours. It was a spectacular sight to behold. We watched her from right beside Battersea Park, and saw her and the Prince get onto the Royal Barge and then set off on their tour. We also saw all the Commonwealth boats head past (there was one for each Commonwealth country), the man-powered boats, and the beginning of the Dunkirk boats. At that point Chris had had enough, and we were getting weary of the weather (in typical British fashion, it was raining), so we headed for home. It was a great celebration. There were loads of people waving their Union Jacks, and we met some people who had been down to London for her coronation 60 years ago - it was great! On Monday there was a huge concert at Buckingham Palace. They created a stage around the Victoria monument/fountain, and tens of thousands of people were lucky enough to get tickets through a free raffle. We put our names in for the draw, but weren't lucky enough in this case. No bother, we watched on the BBC. At the end of the night, we could actually hear and see some of the fireworks from our flat - amazing! They must have been really loud for those people on the Mall! Then on Tuesday morning the Queen attended a special Church service at St. Paul's to once again commemorate her 60 year's on the throne. It was a lovely service, and afterwards she hosted a lunch at the Palace of Westminster. She then took a carriage ride home to the Palace through the streets of London and hundreds of thousands were out to line her route and wish her well. She had her famous wave out in full force, and genuinely - throughout the entire weekend - looked appreciative of all the well wishes that the crowd was giving her. It was a fantastic time to be in Britain! |
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