First of all, sorry I haven't been posting too often. Traveling and sleeping and recovering from a slight cold have been my priorities lately, but I will try to post more often with some brief stories. :)
So I'm back in Spain after my trip to London, which was fantastic. I feel like I got more exercise there than I did sleep, as the first night I was there I walked around a lot of the major sites (tower of london, tower bridge, globe theatre, big ben, parliament, westminster abbey). Because this was in the evening and also because I had bought a ticket to ride this gigantic ferris wheel that's along the Thames River, I didn't really go into any of these places. The ferris wheel (see pictures) was amazing...it towered above big ben and gave spectacular views of London's skyline--precisely why I went as late as possible to try to catch the sunset. 
The second day (Friday) was my favorite, of course--Wimbledon. Woke up SUPER early, and really, if I hadn't had roommates who just got back from partying and were laughing when my alarm was going off, I probably wouldn't have woken up at all because I was pretty exhausted from all that walking. Anyhow, left the hostel around 4:50 to catch a 5:00 bus to the train station that took me to Wimbledon. From the train station, you have to ride a tram (much like Schlitterb
ahn, except it's a cute red bus) down to the "queue" entrance to the park. This is where I started my queuing experience--around 6:45 in the morning to 9:45 I waited in line, occasionally moving, but most of the time it felt like we were just sitting. They actually have a fairly sophisticated/intelligent way of organizing the queue so that you don't have to stand the whole time...They break the line into sections, and once there is space for one section to be moved, then you all move that distance at one time. Very smart and courteous for the people (like me) who want to sleep while in line. Anyways, this
queue is RIDICULOUS...literally thousands of people (they have 6000 tickets available the day of play for the public as long as they get there in time to claim one) standing in this grassy field. See the pictures I took that can maybe give you an idea. I tried to upload a video, but it didn't work...so just check out the pics.
Once I got into the grounds, I bought a grounds ticket, and thanks to a nice girl from Ireland, Brenda, who's working at Wimbledon,
I knew to go straight to the ticket resale counter at the top of Henman Hill and wait to buy a show court ticket for only 5 pounds that someone who's seen enough tennis has turned back in for charity. Granted, I did have to wait a while, and I didn't get to see Roger play because no one wanted to leave when he was playing, but when all was said and done I got to see two full matches on centre court at Wimbledon, and I was also able to walk around the grounds and watch other players who were on s
ome of the smaller courts (Sam Querrey, Robert Kendrick). Also, I wasn't sitting in
line the WHOLE time because I was able to make some friends in line, and we took turns to go walk around the grounds and look around a bit. Oh and did I mention that I got to see Novak Djokovic play Mardy Fish LIVE?! :)
After I finally got back to the hostel Friday night, it was already about midnight, and I still had to take a shower. By the time I got to bed, it was about 1. I set 3 alarms (knowing myself, and how I really can sleep through anything if I'm that tired), and sure enough, I didn't wake up until 7:30, when I
had originally planned to wake up at 5 to try to head back to Wimbledon for a second round of fun. Once I got to Wimbledon this morning, it was already 9:00, and there were already over 6000 people waiting in the queue, which meant that I wouldn't get into the grounds until 5:00! That's EIGHT hours waiting in the hot sun just to get into the grounds that I had already seen. Anyways, I felt a little down, but I was able to go check out St. Paul's Cathedral, which is extremely cool if you're into beautiful, impressive old buildings, and also took a look at Tower of London. Tower of London's AWESOME...I just didn't have sufficient time to take it all in.
So that's pretty much it for London. I loved the city...safe, nice people, clean (as clean as a giant city can be), and fantastic/easy public transportation--would definitely would go back again.
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