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!