Sorry it took me so long to post about my trip, I needed a day of recovery….
First off: thank you NFL, thank you, thank you, thank you! I am seriously the luckiest girl on the planet. It was a given that the Patriots would eventually play a game in London when the NFL started its "International Series" three years ago but for the Pats to come the same semester that I am studying abroad in Paris is just awesome. My first NFL game and it's in London at Wembley Stadium….so cool.
I had a wonderful weekend trip to London but boy am I glad to be back in Paris. Part of it I'm sure is just getting back to a city I'm familiar with but Paris is so much prettier than London. Sure London has its pretty parts (Saint James Park was particularly lovely this weekend) but on the whole Paris is beaucoup plus belle que Londres. Going to London for the weekend sure made me appreciate Paris a whole lot more than before my little weekend séjour.
This week is vacances de la Toussant in France so I have a week off from my Reid Hall classes. Most French students have either this week or next week off. In terms of my schedule, it was absolutely the perfect weekend for the Patriots to come to Europe. I left early Friday morning on a 7h13 train from Paris Gare du Nord to London St. Pancras International. I ran into some of the other girls on my program who were going to London this weekend at the train station because they had missed their earlier train. It ended up being the only point in the trip where I saw them. I'll call it a lack of communication and leave it at that….
The train ride through the Chunnel was not as dramatic as I had hoped. Not gonna lie, but I was really looking forward to going through the famous Chunnel. I was half expecting some sort of sign or signal, anything really, along the lines of "We are now entering the Chunnel! You are under the ocean!" From the French side, the only indication that you are in the actual Chunnel is that it stays dark for around 25 minutes instead of 2 minutes like the other couple tunnels we went through (on the British side you can see the highway and border control so you know the tunnel is coming). Yeah, I know…in Boston we go through underwater tunnels all the time but my apologies to Teddy Ballgame, the Chunnel is way cooler.
After arriving in London, I made the required stop at Platform 9 ¾ in King's Cross Station with the other VWPP girls (it's the domestic station attached to St. Pancras International), bought my Oyster Card, and hoped on the Tube to my hostel in Pimlico. My hostel was really easy to find and turned out to be really nice. It was my first hostel experience and I was staying by myself in a 10 bed dorm style room so I was a little nervous beforehand but I didn't have any problems all weekend. The hostel was clean, the staff was really friendly and welcoming, and the other girls in my room were fun to talk to. I didn't spend all that much time there but it made the weekend a lot more comfortable not having to worry about staying at the hostel by myself for three days.
After checking in, I was off! That first day (Friday) I saw Westminster Cathedral, Houses of Parliament and Big Ben, Buckingham Palace, 10 Downing Street, Trafalgar Square, and the London Eye. Oh, I also ran into some Patriots outside Big Ben......!!!!!!!!! Around 8 o'clock I was walking towards the London Eye when I saw a group of big black guys who looked kind of familiar. I went up to them and told them I was from Boston and studying abroad in Paris and that I had come to London to see the game on Sunday. They were friendly enough and happily took a picture with me (Jerod Mayo is the one not smiling. He was a little whiney, even before I went up to talk to them he had a pouty look on his face). Adalius Thomas may have been scratched last week but he was so nice! That definitely made walking around by myself doing my own thing totally worth it.
On Saturday, I got up and saw the National Gallery at Trafalgar Square and then went to the British Museum (talk about imperialism on parade….) where I had my second chance encounter of the weekend (no, it was not more Patriots). When I was admiring the Rosetta Stone (yup, no joke….) I spotted another friend from my program. As it turns out, Elise was also in London for the weekend, visiting a friend who is studying abroad at the London School of Economics. I didn't even know she was in London but it was a welcome surprise. I ended up spending the rest of the day with Elise, including a fabulous fish and chips lunch at an English pub, The Tower of London and London Bridge, and Hairspray in the theater district that evening. Needless to say I was having a great weekend even before my main event on Sunday!
Sunday was the first day of daylight savings time in Europe so I was able to wake up early (8am) no problem. That gave me a whole half day to walk around and see more of London before heading over to Wembley. I saw the Tate Modern (contemporary art museum), the Millennium Bridge (the one the Death Eaters destroy in HBP movie), grabbed a snack at a Farmers Market I stumbled upon near Waterloo, and then hopped on the Tube for Wembley Park. As soon as I got to Wembley, I saw Steve Burton filming a couple bits for Patriots All Access. (I was going to stick around and try to get in a shot but they weren't going to him live for a while.) It was certainly very bizarre to suddenly see tons of people from home and Steve Burton of all people after three months of European living. It is hard for me to judge how many people came from Boston to see the game. There were so many people in Patriots jersey's but a lot of them were Brits! I had no idea so many English people cared about American football. If you watched the game, the national anthem says it all. I was hoping for a loud singing of The Star Spangled Banner but the crowd really was mostly English. I guess that is what the NFL was hoping for so good for them. It was super annoying that the Bucs were the home team. Me and the other Pats fans in my section were annoyed when we found Bucs flags under our seats. There weren't that many Bucs fans in the stands. It may have looked like it on TV but they were just being festive. I saw people in Tom Brady jerseys waving Buc flags. It was painful.
Besides the fact that it was a Buccaneer home game, the game was really fun. The first half was high scoring and big plays by the Patriots so I had a lot to cheer for. My seat was sick. I was row 22, directly up from the corner of the Patriots end zone. I had a blue card during the anthems and was part of the Union Jack. Wes Welker scored his touchdown on my side. The second half was a little boring and Tom Brady got taken out but it was still really cool to be in Wembley Stadium . I read Dan Shaughnessy's column and he seemed pretty cynical about the whole thing but I had a fabulous time.
Although I had a wonderful weekend in London, I was very happy to get back on the train and head back to Paris. It was great to be in an English speaking country (a bit of a culture shock actually, I had to stop myself saying merci a couple times) but I was very happy to step off the train in Paris and expertly navigate my way through the train station past all the tourists on my way to the Metro and my quick train ride home.
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