Rain, rain and more rain was the forecast in lovely Birmingham. Besides the weather however, Birmingham is actually a great city just a couple hours outside of London. From little cafe’s in Paris to drunken pubs in England is how our transition went.
Where the French are much more reserved, the English on the other hand are quite the opposite. If over priced beer and bar fights are your sort of deal, then England is the place for you…. So I hear.
We stayed at the modern crown royal hotel in the middle of the city. It was so modern I felt as if I was in the movie star wars. Darth Vader was actually serving breakfast. Needless to say we had wireless internet in the rooms so I could check on how well all my stalks were doing on Wall Street. I don’t typically tell people this but I own half of NYC ;) I’m also an inventor. I have plans on inventing the first invisible car and building a Bubble dome on the moon where Mike Tyson will fight Elvis Presley. Elvis is dead you say? Dig him up.
I’ve never seen a city take drinking beer so seriously. It’s almost as if they drink to stay alive? How is this possible you ask? I’m not entirely sure but I do think instead of being breast fed when children, the English are put on alcoholic bottles. It is however a great way to bring people together I have found. The city gathers together and bonds over a drink after work but tends to typically end in a few fist’s being tossed around. Note to self, don’t ever try and reason with a drunken English bloke.
Not only was the weather rainy, it was also cold as $h%T. I felt as if I needed to have my snowboard handy just in case a blizzard hit over night. Urban riding all the waaaayyyyyyyyyyyyy!!! The sun decided to show face randomly throughout the week but it was few and far between. The tennis facility we played at was very proper, 16 outdoor grass courts, a brilliant clock tower and a lovely swimming pool that should have been used as a skating rink. Alright it wasn’t that cold but it definitely seemed like it when you weren’t running around. Aleks had a solid win second round knocking out Olga Govortsova 6-4, 6-4. She adapted pretty well to the grass in the few days of training we had previous to her match. The fitness with Milos also helped her tremendously with her footing on court helping her move around on the slippery surface. She had a tough one against the hard hitting Hungarian Melinda Zink. Alek’s took the first set 7-6 and was up 5-3 match point in the second when Zink turned it up a few notches hitting winner after winner as if she forgot to have breakfast and she was making up for it. Alek’s fought off 2 match points herself in the third to get the break back but wasn’t enough going out 7-5 in the third. The good news was the sun was shinning at the end of her match. I'm just trying to point out the positives here.
I must say that I really enjoy being out on the grass. It’s almost as if you feel like you are at a picnic in the park. I plan on bringing a BBQ on to centre court of Wimbledon and will have a little cook out while I watch Aleks take down her opponents. I want to be the first person to do so. Any suggestions on what I should grill??? Oh I think the most exciting thing all week was the fact that they had the best Thai Restaurant in town which we ate every single evening for dinner while were there. I now speak fluent Thai. True story, if you eat enough Thai food in one week you automatically inherit the language ;)
So now it’s out of the city and on to the beach of Eastbourne for the last warm up tourney before Wimby. I can’t wait to make love to a seagull on the beach.
.gif)
Rain, rain and more rain was the forecast in lovely Birmingham. Besides the weather however, Birmingham is actually a great city just a couple hours outside of London. From little cafe’s in Paris to drunken pubs in England is how our transition went.
clock tower and a lovely swimming pool that should have been used as a skating rink. Alright it wasn’t that cold but it definitely seemed like it when you weren’t running around. Aleks had a solid win second round knocking out Olga Govortsova 6-4, 6-4. She adapted pretty well to the grass in the few days of training we had previous to her match. The fitness with Milos also helped her tremendously with her footing on court helping her move around on the slippery surface. She had a tough one against the hard hitting Hungarian Melinda Zink. Alek’s took the first set 7-6 and was up 5-3 match point in the second when Zink turned it up a few notches hitting winner after winner as if she forgot to have breakfast and she was making up for it. Alek’s fought off 2 match points herself in the third to get the break back but wasn’t enough going out 7-5 in the third. The good news was the sun was shinning at the end of her match. I'm just trying to point out the positives here.