Rites of Patches

This July, I spent two weeks abroad in the United Kingdom. Two friends and I spent five days in London, followed by seven days in Scotland. The stories that follow are totally true and not in any way exaggerated or embellished.

Day 3

Day 3 was all about Wimbledon.

Step One in the process is not getting lost trying to make it to the stadium. We botched that one, but moved on to step two reasonably quickly.

Step Two is to get into The Queue and stay there for a long time. Sports have some things that are so iconic that they are just “The Something.” There’s The Drive, The Catch, The Shot, and plenty more.

Let me say this: The Queue deserves its moniker. It would take about four Andy Murray choke jobs to get from the back of the line to the front. We gained admission to the grounds a mere two hours later.

The first match we watched was Aussies Lleyton Hewitt and Chirs Guccione facing Americans Rajeev Ram and Scott Lipsky. The Commonwealth must still mean something in the UK.

ANZAC 4-EVAH!

We had to have been three of about seven people cheering for Ram/Lipsky and I’m pretty sure the other four was a family of Indian descent cheering specifically for Ram. Of course, we won in the end, just like America always does, except for all the times we tried to do stuff in Asia.

We closed the day by watching the Andy Murray/David Ferrer semifinal from Henman Hill, which apparently became Murray Mound while we were there. There, Baxter and I had the magnificent choice between sitting and staring at the backs of people’s heads or standing for three hours.

Trick question! Both answers are incorrect.

I think there was a screen above them or through them or something

It was, coincidentally, the Fourth of July, a holiday scant few Brits seemed to celebrate. That evening, we ran into a group of Americans walking along the River Thames. They handed us bags of tea and invited us to celebrate America with them by throwing bags of tea into the Thames.

I attempted to explain that British policy towards the colonists was actually quite reasonable, but it didn’t seem to deter anyone. Damn Anglophobes…

I blame ObamaCare. And also that Barack Obama still hasn’t shown us his birth certificate. And is a secret Muslim. And is a terrorist. And tears the hearts out of babies as a form of ritual sacrifice.

I’m pretty sure that’s not where the heart is located

And with a final, satirical, terrible MS Paint job, we retired to see the sights again the next day.