April 2009

It was an unusually sunny day in London today and with Stephen in Australia, i thought i needed to do something to occupy my mind and get me out of the house.

I jumped on the tube and headed towards Camden, before doing the ten minute walk from Camden Town to Regents Park - and to the London Zoo. The London Zoo is the worlds oldest scientific zoo, and opened in 1828.

Toucan

Though it is the last weekend of the school half term holidays, and the sunniest day in weeks - the lines and crowds were manageable (much to my surprise). The entry into the Zoo is not cheap however once in, i was able to wander around in my own time checking out what London Zoo has to offer.

The London Zoo was a far smaller than i expected it to be. I have not been to a zoo in a few years however i do strongly feel that Melbourne Zoo in Australia is much much bigger that this was today. Some of the bigger animals like the Rhinos and Elephants, i am pleased to say, have been moved out of London Zoo to a bigger one in Bedfordshire (Whipsnade Zoo)

There were a wide range of animals on display - some stranger than others, and i managed to get around to see most of them. The lack of clear signposting and route planning within the zoo makes it easy to miss areas altogether - so i never did manage to find the otters or meerkats (shame - I love Meerkats).

Red Panda - my favourites!

Monkeying around

I enjoyed wandering around the Zoo, it was a great day out in the sunshine and an opportunity to check out another London sight i had never done before...

Wednesday night brought our first ever World Cup Qualifier - in the magnificant new Wembley Stadium.

Over the past few weeks more and more people we know were slipping into conversation that they had tickets to see Ukraine vs England in this World Cup Qualifier, and we started to wonder why the heck we had not tried to get tickets for this. Anyway, the final straw came two days before the match, and Jen logged on, went through the process to become an Englandfan (the only way left to get tickets) and puchased two for us to go for our first ever major game at Wembley.

Walking from the Tube Station towards Wembley

The walk down from the Tube to the Stadium was insane, a sea of football fans singing and kicking footballs, loading up on overpriced pizza slices and hotdogs (just like at home!) on the walk towards this massive stadium.

Our seats were quite high but allowed us to see the entire ground clearly, even if we couldnt see the players sweat covered faces! Just like playing on Playstation - we could clearly see the passages of play - all we needed were our controllers. The atmosphere was amazing, we learnt a few new football chants during the course of the game and its impossible not to get caught up in the emotion of an international match.

Ukraine and England Teams enter the Ground

Stephen Checks Out the View of the Ground

The Flags Come Out

God Save The Queen

England looked very sharp early on, and were rewarded with a goal by Paul Crouch at around the 40 minute mark. Then they switched off. It appears that the English play football much like a workday... A bit at the start, not much through the day, and then a bit at the end. Suffice it to say, as they were relaxing in the middle, Ukraine managed to steal a goal to equalise (we could tell they had scored by the deafening silence of the crowd). Instantly, England switched on again. They brought Beckham on, without about 20 minutes left in the match, his impact was felt immediately. A couple of free kicks gave us the chance to see him Bend it Like.... well... him. He delivered a corner from the far side and John Terry sent it into the back of the net. the crowd sang "two-one.....two-one....." followed by a standing rendition of "You're not Singing Anymore" whilst pointing at the small section of Ukraine Supporters.

Chanting Crowd

Game Play

A few minutes later the referee signalled the end of the game and we began the crush back towards the Tube Station. Lines of Mounted Police prevented too may people getting into the station at one time, and it actually went quite smoothly. We were home by 11:30 and are now dedicated followers of the World Game.