Day 7 - Friday 4/22/2011

Today was the final full day of our journey. We had a free day. If you have ever gone on tour with a group of energetic young men you are aware that a full free day has great potential to be chaotic. The kangaroo court (moms on tour with ultimate decision making power) however has been thinking about this free day for the last 3 days realizing that we needed a plan. Getting the other adults on tour involved we had a solid plan by the time we called it a day yesterday.

Another great day! We did breakfast and met at 9 to inform the group of the plans. By 9:30 we were ready to go (yes Tim you have to bring the wheelchair!). The group split with a choice of Churchhill's war room or the Tower of London tour. Dave Tripp took 9 guys to the war room while Drill and Brownie took the rest to the Tower. Kim and I went to the outdoor market in Notting Hill. The plan was to meet at 1:00pm for lunch near St Paul's Church on Fleet Street at Ye Old Cheshire Cheese (a pub frequented by Charles Dickens in his day).

All came together at one. Dave's group returned a bit disappointed because the war room was closed do to the neighboring church painting their floors which cased fumes so bad they would not let people in until some undetermined time after lunch. They instead passed their time in the Tate Museum of modern art. They were real happy to see their travel buddies come 1pm.

The London Tower group said the Tower was crowded. The line to see the Queen's bling was way to long to wait in and they cut the torture chambers short to meet the group - but over all an interesting outing.

We quickly inhabited the lower basement level of the pub and all the guys ordered and ate a good and inexpensive lunch. What a fantastic place! When the guys were finished the afternoon plan of the "London Dingo Dash" was shared. The boys were divide into five teams of 4, which was given a great deal of thought by the parents. The boys had their day pass for the tube, a map of the city and a map of the tube system and had to get a picture at 5 locations in London. All teams had to go to all the same locations in any order except the first stop - each team was told were they had to go first.

After they all got on their way at about 2pm, we sat and talked about what a bad idea this may have been?! Then we thought more and all was good and quite! ENJOY the moment! The boys were to get back to the pub as quickly as possible - this is a race - what could go wrong? We thought 3 hours maybe or a little less.

One hour 40 minutes was back, sweating and out of breath at 26 degrees (nearly 80 degrees for you Americans), free time over for us.

First place - team Chaos - Bryant, Bates, Drill, Hamill

Second place - the Mutes - Dunleavy, D Wilson, Connell, Shaw

third place - MP2 - Burke, Bolembach, Anguilo, Young

forth place - team Drill - Mullineaux, Mallon, Palmieri, Panetti

and the anchor group - team smiley - Dougherty, Erdman, H Wilson, McNeil

Everyone is home, safe and accounted for - thank goodness! You will have to get more details on the race from your boys. But we are all so proud of them, the way they had each others backs, completed the task, learned more than they wanted about map reading, worked as a team and did it all with a smile on their faces.



We then left for Trafalger square in search of all things a Rugby store to get just a few more jerseys before heading home. The boys lead the way now that they are expert tube riders and know their way around all of London. No rugby store to be found but we gave it a gallant try. We boarded the tube at about 6:45pm as we were all tired and hungry for the return to the hotel. 7:30 dinner plans here at the hotel was a great end to the day.

We head out for the airport at 8pm tomorrow morning and are expecting about a 8 hour flight. This is the end of my blogs. I hope that I provided you with some good stuff and you enjoyed the trip as much as me.

Until the girl's tour next year...

Alison

Day 6 - Thursday 4/21/2011

OH my goodness.. the days get better and better..

We left at 9 this morning for Marlow where we had a 5pm game. This is perfect timing by the way for a group of American tourist in London. We stopped at two stadiums on our way to Marlow, one of which was Twickenham stadium.

As you may have gathered by now, Coach Brown is very good at "making deals" and dealed our way into discounted tickets to enter the stadium and tour the facilities. An awesome experience that equates to seeing the Philadelphia Eagles stadium with a ½ guided tour in the States. Mind you it was no easy task guarding the over abundance of unsupervised rugby balls that could have easily been called "Dingo found" by any one of our players!

We made our second stop at the home of the Wasps at Adams Park just outside of Marlow. Here again they were super receptive of us Americans and provided both a guided tour and lunch at a minimum fee. I must say that the rugby community has completely embraced us and we are loving every minute of it.

By the time we arrived in Marlow we had 40 minutes to tour the town and before heading to the game. Our coach driver, Stewart, is unusually talented in maneuvering the Coach and has received a full round of applause in many cases for his abilities. So after many standing ovations we found our way to the Marlow club. The Marlow club - something for the Dingo club to "dream" about - which has 5 pitches, and a club house to die for... proved to be yet another fantastic host.

This group of fine people hosted us in the most inopportune time for them with the most gracious persona. They had a very important club event at the same time we were on sight, but treated us all the same...and what another extraordinary treat is was! Thank you from the bottom of our hearts Marlow rugby club.

So from the pure prospective of the Dingo moms we have uncovered many thoughts:
We need a club rugby players would be good but not absolutely required(because they require tons of work) We must serve beer We could play rugby on site - but it might be better for our health if our boys did not and we just hosted guests?
Just kidding... - thank you Marlow Rugby Club for your support and hospitality for all of us! Your players, coaches, refs., and workers were so fantastic. Great sport, food, fun and sportsmen like contact occurred at the Marlow pitch.

We, by the way, won the after social activity with the help of Coach Brown! (you will have to ask him how) Game wise - we did not win but we had fun...tons of fun, And when it was 39 - 0 they put their all England U18 National player back in to stifle the onslaught. The boys had a true learning experience and will have tails to tell - please ask them.

That is all for now, Cheers to another terrific day, and time for bed - enjoy the night... Big plans for tomorrow, our free day in London. I will be on line just one more time.

Alison