Tour de France 2007...in London

Today the Tour de France kicked off in London and we dragged ourselves out of bed to go. This is the first time that the Tour de France has been in London since 1922 (or sometime around then), so we figured that it's probably not going to happen again before we move out of London and were excited an motivated! Plus we didn't want to let Mom and Andy down with the lame excuse that we were tired and wanted to sleep in.

The weather this weekend has been really nice and almost summery (although a little cooler than what we are used to for July). We slathered on our 40+ and soaked it all in down in Greenwich, which is where the Tour de France had its official start. By the time we got there, around 10am, there were crowds of people, but somehow we managed to get a really great spot, within sight of the starting line.

On our way to our fantastic spot, we stopped by a long table of Pain de Chocolate and various types of croissants. Tres bien! We heard an explosion and turned around to see this:

Slightly demonic looking red giraffes and some other interesting characters:

They were all part of the street fete that was taking place all around us
before and after the Tour de France.

Later we saw the giraffes taking a rest and having a smoke break:

When we made it to our incredible spot, there were people all around us.
Crowd control and some bikers.

A guy in a cowboy hat with a Nikon.

The starting line.

And Jim with his new frisbee. (later we saw a little dog carrying his frisbee the same way!)


We knew things were getting exciting when three helicopters flew over us and then the team cars came by with all of the spare bikes!

And then the bikers came flying past! Because we were at the beginning, they were in a big clump and the whole experience lasted about 30 seconds. It reminded us of the Cambridge/Oxford boat race.




And then we saw this guy:

And he was followed by lots of other normal looking people, which led us to believe that once the pros went by, the course was open to any old biker. We cheered for them, too.

After the fanfare, we headed back to the fete. This person was selecting random people out of the audience and giving them really interesting makeovers. One guy ended up looking like he had flowers sprouting out of his green head.

We brought a picnic and wanted to play with our aerobie, so we moved on to Greenwich Park, which was full of like-minded people picnicking and playing frisbee, football (soccer), tennis, softball, and just lounging around in the sunlight (finally!).


The first time Jim threw our aerobie, it landed in a tree. It was very Charlie Brown-esque and we used innovative thinking and teamwork to get it out of the tree. (Jim picked me up and I shook the branch until the frisbee fell down).




After our picnic, we discovered that there was a Merry Go Round set up in Greenwich Park. There were a few adults riding who were not with children and that's all it took to get us on our horses.
Jim got on his own personalized horse:

(Gigem Aggies! Farmers Fight!!!! WHOOP!....as they like to say)

I tried to get my horse--Kelsey--to go a little faster:


It was so fun to ride the merry go round!!!! Almost as fun as the double bike!


We said Weeeeeee!!!!!!!!!!!! for a while and then walked down the hill and back towards the Fete. That's when we decided to take the boat back to Westminster.


We passed Canary Wharf, where Jim works.

We passed Tower Bridge:

Jim was very excited:

We passed all the other major landmarks such as The Tower of London, London Bridge, Somerset House, The London Boys School, The Church of England's Library,The London Eye, The Tate Modern, and Big Ben (which chimed for 3:00 as we waited to disembark).
The Millenium Bridge:

The Eye of London (artistic view):


Summer in London is FUN!

when pad thai goes really wrong

Dinner went terribly wrong tonight. It was supposed to be pad thai, but the noodles desintegrated and left us with some sort of pad thai slop, which ultimately looked like gelatinous vomit.


Although the flavor was ok, the texture was unbearable. Next time we will use thicker noodles.

A night in Shepherds Bush

It's the weekend again and last night we kicked it off with a bus ride to Shepherds Bush. Our friend Tony was in town again playing another show with his band The Gutter Brothers, so Jim and I headed to Bush Hall to enjoy the music. Our bus driver was slightly psycho (and American,we think), nearly missing running over a few teenagers and an innocent looking woman on a bike (who he then honked at). We were a little carsick but still hungry when we got off the bus, so we stopped in a noodle house for a cheap dinner before heading down to hear the band.



The Gutter Brothers are a "skiffle band" and Tony plays the washboard, harmonica, sings and sometimes plays the guitar. There was a stand up bass, lots of percussion, a shrieking woman, a kick ass drummer, and a guy who played some wooden flute-type instrument (think Paul Simon in Africa) with much passion. We enjoyed ourselves and boogied down for a couple of hours before hitting the streets again.

As we made our way back towards the tube, we heard some pretty voices singing "Candy Man" from inside of a pub. We decided to check it out and stumbled into the Den of Drunk Irish Men. DRUNK actually is an understatement. These men (and a few women) were career alcoholics and there weren't just a couple of them...it was as if all the people in London who you see staggering down the street in a drunken stupor decided to get together in this pub. It was kind of surreal. But, despite their wasted audience, the three women sang their hearts out to taped background music and the men and women in the room danced (or something...I'm not sure I could call it dancing. It was more like stumbling around while flailing their arms). Then they cheered for more! At one point the singers sang some sort of military song and one of the few women in the place got up and began marching around. She was in stillettos and an army type outfit and was handling herself really well considering the shoes and her condition. Jim and I looked on in wonder, attempted to have a few conversations with some of the people there,confused everyone and then went on our merry way to the tube, thankful that we had all of our teeth. It was a bizarre experience.

Sadly, we forgot our camera again, so apologies for the lack of visual.