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tennis love, chalk cliffs, castles and tunnels
<-- A weekend journey with my Canadian friend Megan took us first to the Wimbledon tennis club. I will admit that tennis is not my favorite sport.. but the tour we got was so cool! The tradition of tennis was very intriguing to me. It helped, too, that our tour guide was very interesting and told a lot of good stories about the athletes and experiences at the championships over the years. One of the things he told us that I found interesting was that Wimbledon is not really set up to house the loads of people that come for the championships every June. They have very few hotels and definitely nothing to the standard most world class athletes usually like to stay in. So what the residents of Wimbledon village do it rent out their houses for the couple weeks! The houses around the tennis club were impressive houses, and our guide told us that owners usually rent their homes for 25,000 pounds for the couple weeks of summer! 
<--Megan and I at the desk where they do the press conferences. The Wimbledon facilities were nothing less than state of the art. One interesting thing we learned was about the Wimbledon club's finances. I'll tell ya, the place reeked of money. Everything was immaculate and construction was being done to improve the grounds simply for the sake of improvement. Our guide explained to us that the club was not ran by the super wealthy necessarily and that it only cost 100 pounds a year to be a member at the club (However, it was an elite crowd because you have to be invited to be a member). They make all their money off of the championships and have been successful mainly because of really good decision making by the board. Court one and centre court where the championships are held are only used once a year for the championships and they're making an exception in 2012 for the Olympics. It was all very interesting!
<-- I have to laugh because I know it would take hours to cross the state of Iowa... well Megan and I crossed all of Wales and England to the east coast in only 5 hours rail! Saturday evening and Sunday we spent in Dover, "the gateway to England." Now I'd heard of the white cliffs of Dover but I had no idea why they were white or anything else about the quaint coast town. I was pleasantly surprised! The cliffs are white because they are chalk, and there is much more to Dover than just the cliffs!
<-- Dover castle is situated behind me. It was a massive castle with parts of it dating back to the 1200s. Even more impressive than the castle, though, was that they had dug out tunnels in the chalk cliffs under the castle. Some of the tunnels dated back to the Middle Ages, but most of what is in them is from WWII. There was a hospital, barracks and offices all situated below ground. 6 miles of tunnels at three main different depths! This was where Admiral Ramsay strategized his plan to evacuate the thousands troops from Dunkirk, operation Dynamo, and many of the meetings leading up to D-Day took place. They still had the maps and tables set up with data from the war on them (but you weren't allowed to take pictures in the tunnels.. sorry!). The deepest set of tunnels that people weren't allowed to go down to because of health and safety reasons were set up in case of a nuclear attack. They "Dumpy level" (what they called the lowest level) was equpped to house the Regional Centre of Government and even had a BBC studio to communicate with the people in case of nuclear war. It was so cool!
<-- A weekend journey with my Canadian friend Megan took us first to the Wimbledon tennis club. I will admit that tennis is not my favorite sport.. but the tour we got was so cool! The tradition of tennis was very intriguing to me. It helped, too, that our tour guide was very interesting and told a lot of good stories about the athletes and experiences at the championships over the years. One of the things he told us that I found interesting was that Wimbledon is not really set up to house the loads of people that come for the championships every June. They have very few hotels and definitely nothing to the standard most world class athletes usually like to stay in. So what the residents of Wimbledon village do it rent out their houses for the couple weeks! The houses around the tennis club were impressive houses, and our guide told us that owners usually rent their homes for 25,000 pounds for the couple weeks of summer! 
<--Megan and I at the desk where they do the press conferences. The Wimbledon facilities were nothing less than state of the art. One interesting thing we learned was about the Wimbledon club's finances. I'll tell ya, the place reeked of money. Everything was immaculate and construction was being done to improve the grounds simply for the sake of improvement. Our guide explained to us that the club was not ran by the super wealthy necessarily and that it only cost 100 pounds a year to be a member at the club (However, it was an elite crowd because you have to be invited to be a member). They make all their money off of the championships and have been successful mainly because of really good decision making by the board. Court one and centre court where the championships are held are only used once a year for the championships and they're making an exception in 2012 for the Olympics. It was all very interesting!
<-- I have to laugh because I know it would take hours to cross the state of Iowa... well Megan and I crossed all of Wales and England to the east coast in only 5 hours rail! Saturday evening and Sunday we spent in Dover, "the gateway to England." Now I'd heard of the white cliffs of Dover but I had no idea why they were white or anything else about the quaint coast town. I was pleasantly surprised! The cliffs are white because they are chalk, and there is much more to Dover than just the cliffs!
<-- Dover castle is situated behind me. It was a massive castle with parts of it dating back to the 1200s. Even more impressive than the castle, though, was that they had dug out tunnels in the chalk cliffs under the castle. Some of the tunnels dated back to the Middle Ages, but most of what is in them is from WWII. There was a hospital, barracks and offices all situated below ground. 6 miles of tunnels at three main different depths! This was where Admiral Ramsay strategized his plan to evacuate the thousands troops from Dunkirk, operation Dynamo, and many of the meetings leading up to D-Day took place. They still had the maps and tables set up with data from the war on them (but you weren't allowed to take pictures in the tunnels.. sorry!). The deepest set of tunnels that people weren't allowed to go down to because of health and safety reasons were set up in case of a nuclear attack. They "Dumpy level" (what they called the lowest level) was equpped to house the Regional Centre of Government and even had a BBC studio to communicate with the people in case of nuclear war. It was so cool!
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