Sean and Shannon's Blog: 2012

Monday, November 12, 2012

London tourist attractions

Had a few days of work to spend doing some touristy things around London with Dani and Thommo. Managed to visit the Wallace Collection, the Houses of Parliament and St. Paul's Cathedral.

London Paralympics - Athletics and 'Muderball'

Windsor and the Castle

Had a lovely day trip out to Windsor and the castle, the preferred weekend home of the Queen.

We were very lucky with the weather, managing to avoid the showers that were around. The crowds weren't too bad either, considering it was a Saturday.

Standing in front of the south wing of the Upper Ward.

St George's Chapel was a definite highlight. Construction was started in 1475 by Edward IV. So much detail inside, unfortunately we couldn't take any photos in there, so you will have to visit to check it out for yourselves.

The village of Windsor is a lovely place to wander around of an afternoon.

Long weekend in Belgium

Dani and Thommo arrived in London and the following day the four of us headed over to Belgium on the Eurostar for a long weekend in the sun.

We stayed just around the corner from the Gravensteen, a castle built in 1180.

We spent a lot of time around the Graslei, in the old city centre.

The weather was great, if a little too hot. nice to have some sunshine though!

The boys certainly weren't short of choice when it came to beers.

We had some lovely evenings sitting down by the river people watching.

St. Nicholas' Church, building commenced in the 13th century, and further up the road to the right is the 91-metre-high belfry of Ghent and Saint Bavo Cathedral (yellow).

We also went to Bruges for the day. This is the Belfry in the Markt. We decided to make our way to a brewery for lunch, rather than climb the 366 steps to the top.

The view from the roof-top at the Halve Maan Brewery.

Sean enjoying a Straffe Hendrik Quadruple

Our final day was spent in Brussels.St. Michael and Gudula Cathedral, which has a quite impressive interior and stained glass windows.

The lovely ceiling at the Royal Galeries of Saint-Hubert.

The Zinneke, dog, yet another peeing sculpture in Brussels!

The Town Hall of Brussels is a Gothic building in the Grand Place, opened in 1420.

Other buildings at the Grand Place, the central square of Brussels, which is a UNESCO World Heritage site.

More Olympics

Our second visit to the London 2012 Olympic Park saw us watching hockey and basketball.

Eddie Vedder - Hammersmith Apollo

Shannon was lucky enough to get a ticket to see Eddie Vedder play a solo gig at the Hammersmith Apollo.

Here is a review from the gig:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2012/aug/01/eddie-vedder-review

London 2012 Olympics

Finally the Olympics came to London Town!

Saturday, July 21, 2012

Ladies Final Day - Wimbledon 2012

Shannon luckily got tickets to watch the Ladies Final at Wimbledon.

Sean in front of the draw

Shannon enjoying strawberries and cream in front of Centre Court

We attempted to see Mansour Barhami and Henri Leconte vs Patrick McEnroe and Joakim Nystrom on an outside court before hte Ladies final stared, but most of our time on Court 3 was spent in the rain.

Finally the rain stopped and they took the covers off

Got the court set up,

and the players came back to a warm welcome. I think Mansour Bahrami saw me taking pictures of him and smiled directly at me for this one! ;)

Bahrami is such an entertainer, here he is looking for a lost ball.

We moved over to Centre Court for the main event and this time were sitting undercover.

Camera envy.

Serena Williams and Agnieszka Radwanska walking on to the court.

Spotted 'Sir Charles' Barkley sittting in Serena's players box.

Initially it seemed like Serena was going to win very easily, but Radwanska fought back, tkaing it to three sets. Serena, in the end, won her 5th Wimbledon title (6-1, 5-7, 6-2 ), equalling sister Venus.

Serena showing off her trophy.

Radwanska with her trophy.

After the ladies singles match we got to see the mens doubles final. The Brisith player Jonathan Marray and his Danish partner Frederik Nielsen eventually won in five sets, 4-6, 6-4, 7-6(5), 6-7(5), 6-3. An amazing result, the crowd was so loud, everytime Marray and Nielsen won a point you'd think they had won the entire event. Marray became the first British player to win the Wimbledon men's doubles final since 1936, Marray and Nielsen became the first players to get to the final and to win the Men's Doubles on a wildcard at Wimbledon and Nielsen became the first Dane ever to win a Wimbledon Championship title, his grandfather, having won the Wimbledon Junior Championship Boys' Singles title in 1947.

Serena then returned to Centre Court to play in the Ladies Doubles final with sister Serena against the sixth seeds Andrea Hlavackova and Lucie Hradecka.

The William's sisters were too strong in the end, winning 7-5, 6-4.

Rock Werchter - Belgium

A group of us caught the Eurostar over to Belgium for a long weekend of music and Belgian beer.

After arriving in Werchter, finding James and Julie at the campsite and setting up camp we headed down to get our festival passes and enjoy the tunes There was quite a line up initially and it was very hot!

No wonder us Londoners were feeling the heat!

We hadn't seen much sun in London of late, so this was a great change.

One of Shannon's first stops was to check out the Pearl Jam merchandise.

The Pearl Jam Rock Werchter edition poster.

Blink 182 were amongst the highlights on Day 1.

Day 2 some more lovely sunshine. This appears to be sunbathing 'Belgian style'.

One of the bike parks outside the festival site. A bike would have come in very handy to save on the walking between the camp sites and the festival site.

The Pyramid Marquee

A definite highlight, of course, Pearl Jam. This was the fifth time Shannon had seen them. They still didnt play Indifference though, so will have to wait until next time.

Deadmouse closed out Day 2.

The Barn Stage.

Other highlights of the weekend included, Elbow, (Justice, one of Madonna's highlights), Kasabian, The Editors, Chase and Status, Noel Gallagher and the Red Hot Chili Peppers, just to name a few.

The official napkin or 'wapkin' was it was named, has 32 Rock Werchter 2012 band references included on it, can you find them all?

A great weekend was had by all. The festival was very well organised and the toilets were lush, compared to other large festivals we have been to in the UK. It only took us 1.5hrs from leaving our campsite to get back to Brussels, amazing, barely any queueing!

We checked out some street art once back in Brussels, on our way to check out the tourist attractions, have some 'mussels in brussels' and hit up a beer garden.