So, Wimbledon is here! The first day of the tournament I went with some co-workers to grab lunch and came across this in the middle of the courtyard in the Deloitte campus - so cool!
Of course had to sit down and enjoy the coverage with everyone else!!!
On Thursday, for my birthday, Rochelle and I took the day off of work and went. This is at 5am leaving our flat... exhausted from only 3 hours of sleep the night before but overly excited for the day!
This is "the queue"... it was SO incredibly organised and orderly and thought out. (I don't know why we would've expected anything different from the British?!) The minute you get in the queue you are given a queue card - we were 1,243 and 1,244 in line. Only 500 centre court tickets are given out, 500 court 1 and 500 court 2. The rest just get ground passes. So we knew we'd at least get court 2!
Hanging out in the queue emailing my fam the blow by blow of the day thus far...
Passing the morning in line... (Kates this book is so good I'm almost done with it and it's been a week!)
So, when they got to us, there were like 10 court one wristbands left. We were ECSTATIC!!! Djokovic and Sharapova were on the schedule for the day for court one... court 2 only had no names!
Walking into the park!!
Finally inside at 10am... yay! We stopped to take some pictures of the draws...
And the order of play...
Our HSBC accounts got us into the hospitality tent for some free breakfast...
Resting our weary legs before the match...
The golden ticket :)
We decided to wander over to the practice court area and saw the following coming in to practice:
John Isner - he's GIGANTIC!
Marco Bagdhadis (sp?)
RAFA!!!!!
Andy Roddick!
Jo-Wilfried Tsonga - we got to see him play (see below)
This is when we got to our seats - and this is how we felt about it. They were UNREAL... 5 rows from the front dead center!
We asked the lady behind us to take a picture that showed how close we were to the court/players. She said "I'm getting my masters in photography - of course I'll take a picture - it'll be the best one of the day." Um, yeah right. Really lady? All you actually captured were our nostrils. Thanks.
The first match...
The sun got a little intense...
After the first match, we roamed the grounds. Here's Henman Hill (Murray Mound)... packed with people who only have ground passes.
In front of the actual Club (All England Lawn and Tennis Club) - wow were there some posh people there. I think some of their outfits cost more than my year's salary.
The story of the evening... 3 rain delays. But these guys are quick with the tarp!!!
Really sad that the rain was keeping us from seeing Sharapova....
Enjoying strawberries and cream during one of the rain delays... YUMMMMMM
Freezing, and really wishing Tsonga would hurry up so we could see Sharapova. In the end, her match got cancelled but the Tsonga/Dimitrov match was so fun I'm glad it lasted well into the evening.
More of the same...
The end of the Tsonga match - it was so dramatic!!!
And that's it! It was an absolutely amazing day and seriously the best birthday I've ever had. I think I'll be on a high for the next month. Then to top it all off, on Friday night Chels threw a surprise party for me at a pub near work with all of our friends from work and church. Such a great week!!! And yes, I am still sporting my bright yellow wristband. If I have my way, it's never coming off.
