White Hart Lane, Pubs of London, Theater

Today (Monday, May 23, 2016) was the day Aaron had been waiting for. We would take our pilgrimage to White Hart Lane.

Seven years ago, for better or for worse, he made the decision to be a Tottenham Hotspur supporter. As a lifelong Milwaukee Brewer fan, he's used to being constantly frustrated while watching sports, so Tottenham was a perfect fit. For years he's wanted to make it to the Lane, and when we made plans to be in England he demanded we visit it before it was demolished.

Perhaps I'm finally learning to beat jet lag...I slept straight through the night until 7:00 a.m.! We got up and headed to Selfridge's, where we planned to eat in the food hall. But, the guard refused to let us in, even though the website said it opened at 7:30. We ended up at a little cafe down an alley, and breakfast was fine. Then, it was back to the Tube, which took us to the Overground, which took us to Tottenham. We found the Spurs Megastore at 10:15, giving Aaron just enough time to shop and get a jersey lettered/numbered before our 11:00 a.m. stadium tour of White Hart Lane.

Our tour guide was a woman in her fifties with season tickets, who had been a Tottenham fan her entire life. We were a small group (10 or so), and she gave a great tour, which lasted 90 minutes.

Our first stop was the media briefing area, where the titans of Tottenham talk about the beautiful (or not so beautiful) game they've just played. Unfortunately, the Hotspurs had just collapsed at the end of the season and in a two horse race they ended up in third place. Spurs be spursing.

The pitch! The season ended just weeks before, so they were actually regrowing the pitch during our visit. The surprising thing we noticed was how close to the pitch supporters are and just how small everything is compared to stadiums in the United States. 

Poch sits here!

Here is Aaron standing proudly in front of the players' tunnel, where the mighty Spurs enter the pitch to do battle.

We got to spend some time in the home team's dressing room. It's not that large and didn't have all the frills you see in US stadiums. But here's Aaron with one of his favorite player's kit (Dembele). He had just purchased his jersey in the team store. 

Here's the site of the new stadium. They've removed a few thousand seats to start construction. The new stadium will host the team for the 2018-2019 season after the mighty Spurs spend a year away at Wembley.

We wanted to head back to central London for lunch, but I couldn't get my TEP wifi device to work long enough to load a map and get directions. This was the second day in a row of frustrations like this! Ironically, the only ways I could request support from TEP required wifi because I didn't have an international data plan. (We've since used TEP on two other trips and it worked really well. Seems there's just something about London.) Aaron pulled up a location on Google eventually, but it wasn't the location I had thoughtfully chosen in advance to be close to the British Museum, our planned activity for the afternoon. (Why yes, of course I had a personal map of London with everything marked, including where we should eat.)

Day Drinking

We had chosen Herman Ze German because it was reported to have authentic German sausage and a good selection of authentic German beer. It delivered! I had a chili wurst and Augustiner helles, and Aaron had a bratwurst and a new-to-him beer.

We grabbed the last open table in the busy restaurant, next to a man in a suit eating alone. I looked over at one point and noted his water glass was full of a nasty looking, liquid-yet-chunky substance. Aaron then informed he he'd seen him vomit in his glass. Yuck! Why do we seem to attract solo men who are prone to vomiting when we travel? Thankfully, I couldn't smell it.

While enjoying our German beer, I suggested that perhaps I should avoid more ankle swelling and spend the afternoon in pubs rather than walking through a large museum. Aaron was amenable to this plan. We rode our first bus to the City of London and stepped into Ye Old Cheshire Cheese, one of the oldest pubs in the country.

The first floor pub was tiny, with seating for about 12 people. It was completely empty except for the bar keep (an Australian who had started work just a few days earlier) and a female American tourist. We tried quite a few varieties of Samuel Smith beer, including our first cask ale, and surprisingly racked up a tab of only £10.

Talking to the bar keep, we learned that one benefit of her job was the ability to rent a room upstairs (with a roommate) for £44 per week—a steal in central London. After settling our tab we walked a few blocks to the Blackfriar Pub. This had a younger, hipper feel, although it started to fill up with suits around 4:30. This pub served beer from a variety of breweries. I had a cask ale called Dick Firken, which was just ok. I didn't particularly like the atmosphere there. At around 5:00 we left to make our way via Tube to Victoria Station.

Dinner and A Show

We had reservations at Kazan, a Turkish restaurant with a nice pre-theater menu for £15 per person. It started with some focaccia and a citrus olive oil.

Next was the mezze platter.

Aaron chose the Hunkar Begendi for his main - an Ottoman dish of gently stewed spiced lamb, on a bed of garlic mashed potato.

I had the Tavuk Izagara - char grill chicken thighs dressed with lemon and sumac, served with a salad and rice.

Everything we had was absolutely delicious. Aaron's first taste of Turkish food was met with approval. We'd arrived at about 5:45, and left before 7.

It was time to get to the Apollo Victoria, where we were seeing Wicked. I had snagged some seats in the stalls for less than $100 by using London Box Office prior to leaving home. We were packed into the lobby like sardines until they opened the door to go down to the stalls. As we descended, the air rang with the voices of excited children, apparently on a field trip wearing reflective yellow jackets. 

I grabbed a soda (I was feeling sleepy), while Aaron grabbed a beer. Then I quickly got in line for the restroom, as a line was already forming. It moved quickly, but the bathroom was small, had oddly placed stairs, and put off a less-than-pleasant smell! It seems that it may be refurbished in the near future. I certainly hope it is.

The show was excellent. There was some interesting commentary on the state of the world, politics, oppression, and sociology. I liked it much more than I was expecting. Including the intermission, the show was three hours. We saw plenty of tipsy people on the train back to the hotel. I didn't get to sleep until after midnight!

According to the Fitbit, we walked 17,004 steps and climbed 33 stories today.

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