Londres – Dia 2 (Fleet, Hampton Court, and Reading F.C.)

Our adventures got underway quickly. The first morning we (Hannah and I) spent in Fleet included a scrumptious English breakfast (of course, with fresh milk off the door step) and a trip to Fleet high street. While Simon attended to some optometry business Hannah and I explored the streets and open buildings. I found it surprisingly difficult to navigate the streets, not because there was an overwhelming amount of traffic and not because I couldn’t read the signs, but rather because of the unnatural flow of traffic.

I found it amusing that while standing on a corner waiting to cross a street I found it hard to predict the speed of on coming cars, which way they were turning, and if they were going to stop. It was even more strange to observe a car was stopped in the left lane at an intersection waiting to turn either direction and then to see it take off into the completely wrong lane (or what feels like the wrong lane). The change really just made me very cautious while walking around Fleet and London – I’m very glad I had an experienced tour guide to confidently navigate through the city.

Besides the driving on the wrong side of the road there were two other notable differences that I feel warrant a comment.

A famous complicated roundabout located in Swindon, England.

 First, the amount of round-a-bouts are incredible! I’d have to say that the majority of what would be intersections or interchanges in the U.S. are instead roundabouts. The roundabouts can sometimes be very confusing and/or intimidating (especially to foreign drivers) but they really do seem to keep the traffic flowing smoothly. Whenever or to wherever we would be driving it seemed as if we hardly ever came to a complete stop till we reached our final destination. It would be really neat to see more of these in the U.S. (Springfield, MO is beginning to implement some more of these) but as I told Mr. Treacy, I don’t think that American drivers are courteous nor careful enough to navigate them efficiently.

Speaking of being courteous on the road the other thing that I wanted to comment on was how the British implement crosswalks. Take a look a this picture:

The painted words "look left" in front of a cross walk in London.

Yes, on almost every cross walk in London there were two large painted words: “Look Left.” I imagine this is done simply because of the large amount of visitors strolling the streets suffering the same confusion as to why the British drive on the wrong side of the road and often forget to look the correct direction. What is neat about this though is that when you step up the cross walk and actually “look left” the oncoming traffic will STOP! Its incredible – the first time I saw Simon and Rich (Simon’s friend who accompanied us to Hampton Court) do this I was stunned. It seemed as simple as pressing a button. Literally, you walk to the cross walk, turn your head and smile and the drivers slow down to let you cross. Again, another thing you will never see in the U.S. We Americans need our lights and signs to tell us when to go and when to stop for pedestrians.

Anyways, enough about the traffic and more about the destinations. We decided to spend Tuesday in Hampton Court and then go to a football game Tuesday evening. Hampton Court is a palace built in the early 1500’s by powerful Cardinal Wolsey. It than became the main setting for the royal court of King Henry the VIII and his six wives (of which two were beheaded, two more divorced, one suffered an early death to an illness while the last one survived). The place was very well kept and offered a lot of interesting history. We toured the castle, the kitchen quarters, the garden, and the maze.

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Hampton court made for a fun filled day and when we arrived back at the Treacy’s we scarfed down a scrumptious dinner (kudos to Mrs. Treacy) and then we hopped in the car to drive to Reading. I was particularly excited about this event because I have never been to a professional soccer game outside of the U.S. For the past two years Reading F.C. played in England’s premier league but the last season did not go so well and the Royals were relegated back down into the champions league. They have two American players – Bobby Convey (a midfielder who happens to be one of my favorite national team prospects) and the goal keeper, Marcus Hahnemann.

Many things made this match between Reading F.C. and Sheffield Wednesday exciting! Namely the final score –> 6 – 0 Reading! The crowd was great as the stadium was about three-fourths full. The fans really have themselves put together. They cheered and acted as one big well rehearsed chorus (granted their intonation didn’t have the best blend). We got to experience all sorts of cheers because of the number of goals. I thought it was a little harsh when towards the final minutes of the game (it was probably 5-0 at that point) the crowd started into a chant that asked the visitors “CAN WE PLAY YOU EVERY WEEK?” But don’t think that I’m complaining because whenever American goalie Marcus Hahnemann made a good save (which he did several times) the crowd would break out into glorious chants of USA! USA! USA! I enjoyed those moments to the fullest because I imagine that is one of the few places you’ll hear patriotic chants outside of the states. 

Side note: Bobby Convey hasn’t been playing very much for Reading for two reasons. #1: He’s suffered a series of back to back injuries including a ACL tear. #2 Reading’s star player, Stephen Hunt, plays in Convey’s position and so usually before Convey plays Hunt has to be tired, injured, or Reading is up by 4 goals (which happened to be the case this evening). Bobby was subbed in around the 65th minute and quickly got to work. He made a terrific run up the left side and played a beautiful  cross into the box where his teammate smashed into the net to make it 5-0. It was really cool to witness a key part of a physical and emotional come back one of my favorite players. You could tell it was a big deal for Convey because after the game they played all of the highlights on the big screen in the stadium – even after all the players had gone into the locker room – Bobby stayed out on the field to watch his assist.

That made for a very exciting and eventful day in England and Hannah, Simon, and I were all pooped. That didn’t stop us from getting up the next morning and marching off to London…