Day 10

Day 10 The long and action packed days were taking its toll on us and Sandra and Joe’s accommodation was making it easy for us to lie in bed and read. This was very different from France where we were up and adam by 6:30. Today is the day where the excitement has been built up since we bought our Spurs vs Stoke tickets on line. For those of you who don’t know who it is. I is a football match at White Hart Lane. Jonathan is an avid Stoke fan so this was a major highlight for him but he had to keep is excitement under wraps as we were sitting in the Spurs fans side and they take their football very seriously. If you are caught supporting opposition who knows what amount of damage you could suffer, whether it be emotional or physical. We set off on our journey after wonderful conversation with James and Hayley while we were waiting for Joe to take us in his Jaguar to the train station. This seems to be an everyday occurrence, not that I mind. Following the crowd made it easier to find the station, thankfully it held 35 000 people and we were all heading in the same direction. WHITE HART LANE home to the Tottenham Hotspurs Football Club. Once we were standing outside the stadium on this overcast miserable day, everyone dressed in their winter woollies, beanies, scarves, Spurs jerseys over their thick coats, food was on the agenda. Talk about being well organised! We stood in the queue for not even 5 mins for our hamburger and chips. These they don’t sell inside the stadium which I thought was strange as we stand for hours to get our hotdogs when we went to Soccer city in Johannesburg to watch Linkin Park. These hamburgers were the biggest that I have ever seen or tried to eat, my mouth couldn’t even get a quarter of the way when I tried to bite it. Once that hit the spot Jonathan asked for some cold drink, so he took out his wallet for some pounds and Brian pipes up “ Gee Jono you have a lot of money, you must be rich” at the top of his voice. Talk about a silly thing to say and that is asking for riff raff to come and mug you. This definitely proved that Brian was a tourist novice. Now I definitely felt like a sheep following the heard into the stadium, going into slaughter, especially when you had to enter into the stadium. The vertical gate is only 50cm wide so it was a struggle for me to get in even when I was turned sideways. I don’t know how Jono and Brian felt squeezing in to the stadium. One thing I did notice is that they don’t sell any alcohol 15 minutes before the game has started. This is to stop all the hooligans during the game and causing trouble with the opposition. Our seats were stunning but the field was a lot smaller than on TV. The chorus of “COME ON YOU SPURS” resonated around the entire football pitch. Brian and I were wearing our newly acquired Spurs caps to try and blend in and screaming at the top of our lungs, while Jonathan just sat there soaking up the atmosphere wearing his Stoke city jersey underneath his closed jacket. There were some great shots and pretty talented individuals but unfortunately the result was 0 – 0. So I was a little disappointed that we never saw a goal. The experience was well worth it though. Only next time I would love to see my team Man United play at the Theatre of Dreams. When it came time to depart, the sun had set so the journey back to the train station looked very different. Needless to say we just followed the crowd again but to our dismay the crowd was not going to the train station where we arrived from. Eventually after walking in a rather dodgy area we realised that they we taking us in the wrong direction through Enfield. This area is not safe at night and it has a lot of let’s say interesting people walking around. This is where common sense had to play a major part in our survival. Thankfully we found a train station and caught the very next train out of there without any scary stories to tell and managed to make our way back to Sandra and Joe’s. Next thing on the agenda for the evening was for us to pay Sandra and Joe back for all their kindness shown to us throughout the past few days. They wanted us to go to a Fish and Chip shop for an “English” as Brian was going on about an “English” since the moment the plane touched down. It was a stunning fish Restaurant visited by plenty of famous people over the years. I know exactly why, their food was stunning and to die for. I even tried some and that says something as it was fish with chips and traditional mushy peas. A typical English meal and it was very well priced considering France and especially Paris. Conversation flowed and reminiscing about old stories from when my parents were first dating was on the topic of conversation. Great laughs and memories certainly filled the spirit for the night. Another action filled day came and went.