Saturday, June 30, 2007

Wimbledon


Call me crazy but I went to Wimbledon today. I unintentionally woke up at 5:45 this morning and couldn't go back to sleep figured I might as well go and queue at Wimbledon. The process is very well run and given the inclement weather today the queue wasn't that long. At 7:30 when I arrived I received number 1341 . Many people camp out overnight in order to get tickets to the courts where the big names play - centre, 1 and 2. I knew I wasn't going to get tickets to that but grounds tickets would do just fine. With the grounds tickets you get access to courts 3-18 and standing room at court 2.

Once I got in they unfortunately delayed the start of the matches as a result of the rain. All the courts were covered to prevent the lawns from being ruined. While the matches were set to start at 11, they actually didn't start until almost 3, during this time I wandered around the grounds, spent some time in the gift shop, ate, drank and socialized with others in the rain. Some of the die hards who wanted to make sure they got a spot at a certain court took seats or spots in the standing room for court 2 at 11 and didn't leave. To me they are missing out on the atmosphere and experience of Wimbledon. Watching and talking to the different types of people there is just fascinating. There are people dressed in suits and dresses typically the VIPs or people with debentures and right along side are the people that have been camping there all week to be first in line to get tickets to either center court or court 1 each day.

Once play finally started I headed off to court 2 to see if I could find room in the standing room only section to see Venus Williams play and luckily I did. I managed to squeeze myself into a spot right at about center court for the hour or say that play occurred. When the rain came down again they were in the second set. Venus had won the first set and was losing the second set 4-1. When play stopped I decided that was a good time for me to make my departure as well. I would have loved to have seen more matches but that did not look good I did fully enjoy myself and may do it again next year.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Great picture of Venus. She is off the ground. And she is clearly identified by the hair and backside.

For those interested:
debentures -- Unsecured debt backed only by the integrity of the borrower, not by collateral, and documented by an agreement called an indenture. One example is an unsecured bond.

Anonymous said...

that sounded like fun. I enjoyed your pictures too. See y ou soon. Love mom