Last Days in London; Soccer Stadia and Matchs

Well, the trip to London is over. My Dad flew back to LAX yesterday morning, and I took a train back up to Durham. I have been too busy during the ending of the trip to provide another update, so here is a summary of end of the trip.

The last two days of the week, Friday and Saturday, were possibly my favorite two days of the trip. On Friday we toured Arsenal FC's Emirates Stadium, and on Saturday we went to an England international football match in Wembley Stadium.

Arsenal are on of the most successful Football (soccer) clubs in Britain. They have a long and decorated history of success. They are one of the dozen or more clubs that make their home in London. In fact, their home ground was only about a mile from our apartment in North London. For nearly a century they played in Highbury Stadium, but in 2006 they moved to a much bigger state of the art stadium- The Emirates.

Because there were no club matches last week, we settled for a stadium tour rather than a match. However, the tour was way better than expected- in fact, it probably was better than going to a match. We learned alot about the club, it's history, it's manager and got to see lots of behind the scenes areas. We got to go into the directors box and see their plush seats, we got to go into the players parking lot entrance, we got to see the locker room, we got to go through the tunnel to the pitch, and into all the media rooms. For a big soccer fan like me, it was amazing.

(The tube stop)

(The tunnel)

(In the locker room)

The following day I finally went to my first soccer match in England, after being here for months. We went to see an international friendly, England vs. Slovakia. The game took place in possibly an even cooler stadium than the Emirates: Wembley Stadium.

Wembley is another brand new arena, built as the home ground for the English National team. It seats 90,000. It's a bit out of town, and took about 30 minutes on the subway to get there. But it was well worth the trip. Everything about the game felt like a world cup atmosphere.

(The packed walk to the stadium)

(Dad with his England Scarf)


(During national anthems)

(Kick Off)

(We were sitting in the upper deck, but still had good views)

(England won pretty easily)

(It was pretty much chaos after the game, everyone trying to get to subway)

(Waiting for the train)

And so that was it. The next morning we packed up and headed out. It really was an amazing week; I can hardly believe all the stuff we saw and did. As promised, I'll post even more pictures in the next few days.