Wimbledon & Tower Bridge

This morning we took a half-day trip to Wimbledon. It is in the outskirts of London so we were able to buy a cheap tube pass to zone 3 and just take the underground all the way there. We had to walk about ten minutes from the tube stop to Wimbledon, but it was a relaxing walk through a cute area that was refreshingly empty of lots a people and cars. We got to the Wimbledon Lawn Tennis Museum and bought our admission, which included a trip to Centre Court where we got to take pictures from the stands. It was really cool to see the stadium up close and personal! While we were there, there were maintenance men working on uprooting the grass on the court after doing a trial planting of the grass for three weeks in preparation for 2012 when the courts will be used in the Olympics only three weeks after the end of the Wimbledon Championship. (Apparently they usually uproot the grass immediately after the tournament each year and replant it to let it grow until the following year.) While it wasn’t perfect timing to see the court as it would be during play, it was really interesting and unique to see the maintenance aspect of it. After we had our visit to Centre Court, we went into the actual museum. It was really fascinating! They had a little bit about the history of tennis, old rackets and balls from previous championships, as well as autographed outfits and the real men’s and women’s singles championship trophies! So cool! When we finished looking at all the stuff in the museum, we went upstairs, did a little shopping in the gift shop, and then headed back to our flats for lunch.
After lunch we had a group meeting with Dr. Cooke at Regent’s College to discuss how everything is going and what our plans are for the upcoming weeks. We stayed at Regent’s after our meeting to eat dinner and buy meals to take back to our flat for the rest of the week.
Once we had all of our stuff, we took it back to the flats and decided to relax for a little bit while it got darker outside so that we could go see the Tower Bridge at night. Around 9 or 10 we finally headed out and took a long tube ride down to the Tower of London and the Tower Bridge where we enjoyed a couple of hours taking pictures and just enjoying the beautiful weather and great sights. It was another relaxing and gorgeous night, just like our night out to Big Ben and Parliament! After that we came back to the flat and called it a night.