London Calling!

London was what brought me to Europe. Back in January, Jen convinced me to come meet her for a music festival, Hard Rock Calling, as sister Janine works for the promoter, Live Nation. Laura and I had both previously been to London two times, but this time was completely different. We did not visit a single tourist attraction the entire week we were in London. Rather than visit Big Ben, Tower of London, Buckingham Palace, etc... we visited the US Embassy 2 times (Laura needed new pages in her passport), Hyde Park 3 times (for the music festival), Oxford Circus 3 times for the requisite (albeit unnecessary) shopping trip and St. John´s Wood (an area near my friend Josh´s flat) for brunches, dinners and drinks. It was a perfect trip!

Hard Rock Calling:

Thanks to Janine we got VIP tickets for all three nights: The Killers, Bon Jovi, Stevie Nicks and Rod Stewart. My former coworker Terry and his wife, Gwen, also decided to come out for the festival. In typical Lonson fashion, it POURED the first night. After we accepted the fact that we were soaking wet, we ended havign such an amazing night! Of course my lover Brandon Flowers and The Killers helped! But it was also great being all together in such a fun atmosphere. The other two days had beautiful weather and we enjoyed sitting out in the grass and watching the shows!

soaked to the bone!

The Killers played Laura and my song "When You Were Yong" as their last song in the encore!

Jen and Janine sharing a moment

Rod Stewart

Hard Rock Calling

Wimbledon:

Watching the matches while sitting on Henman Hill

Laura is a HUGE tennis fanatic! When I told her that we would be in Lodon while Wimbledon was taking place she was beyond excited. The reason was if we attended Wimbledon, she would complete her goal of attending all 4 Grand Slams. So on Monday, we woke up super early to queue for tickets hoping to get in. Every day, they reserve about 6000 – 9000 grounds passes for people to buy that morning. We got there at about 8am and upon receiving our queue card, found out that we were number 7,552 in the queue. We asked some of the people working there and they said we were right on the cusp and might not make it in…but since we were already there we were determined to wait it out – at least we weren’t in the rain like so many others in the previous days. It was so hot in the line they were handing out free water and coming by with newspapers, tournament guides, and stickers saying “I’ve queued in the sun for the 125th Wimbledon championships” trying to keep us entertained while queueing. (We learned that there have only been 5 tournaments since 1922 with no rain…gotta love London in June!). After sweating in line for 4 hours we made it in just in time for the matches to start! It was such a perfect and beautiful day!! Laura did an excellent job at introducing me to the wonderful world of tennis.

Henman Hill

Ashley:

As luck had it my friend Ashley happened to be in London for work. It is sort of becoming an inside joke that we are having an international friendship as the past few times we have hung out were in London and Buenos Aires. It was great to see her and go out a few nights for dinner and drinks!


The Royal Family:

Laura and I decided we were being stalked by the Royal family, because we seem to have the same schedule. On Friday, we went to lunch in St. Johns Wood neighbourhood and saw the Queen! She was passing by on her way to bless the horses at the barracks. Later that night, Prince Harry was at The Killers concert (though we didn’t see him) and then Wills and Kate at Wimbledon!

Wills and Kate @ Wimby