Day 19

This past week at my internship I felt like I was able to start working on more substantial tasks. On Wednesday, I spent nearly my entire time in the office working on powerpoints and updating information about market coverage on popular countries where my company partners with a bank. Every day I have meetings set up to meet different people and what role they have in the company. It is interesting to see the various sides to a general category of marketing. On Thursday evening we went to a restaurant called Cubana. We had been trying to make reservations for nearly two weeks, but they are also so busy. It was my first time having Cuban food and I order empanada de vegetables and falafel de cubana, which is a sweet potato base with a crunchy outside, very similar to a crabcake texture. We also had mojitos that were different flavors-- I had a grapefruit and a passion fruit. On Friday we had an English Breakfast from a restaurant called The Breakfast Club. I liked everything in my vegetarian breakfast, which consisted of scrambled eggs, mushroom, tomato, toast, and beans. We then went to Westminster Abbey and it was gorgeous. The ceilings were all adorned so intricately and it was interesting to learn more about the past royalty and see their extravagant tombs. The abbey was a lot bigger than I originally expected. At night we went to a club called Strawberry Moons. It was a lot of fun and they played a lot of fun music like Britney, Grease, and Christina Aguilara. There were a lot of people who were all very sociable and there with big groups of friends.

Today, Saturday, we had a very sports-filled day. First, we took the tube about an hour out to Wimbledon. We first looked at the museum and saw the evolution of tennis and tennis outfits signed by the tennis players who wore them. There was also a display of the trophies that are awarded to the winners of each event. It was pretty interesting to see everything and learned that George VI is the only member of the royal family to compete in Wimbledon. We then went on a guided tour of the courts, which was a great experience even for someone not interested in tennis. There are 19 courts total for Wimbledon and they are used only for the tournament and members of the club. There are exactly 375 members of the club and they partake in planning the Wimbledon tournament each year. We saw Court 19 where the longest game in history took place. It was over 11 hours and lasted 3 days. Islan was ultimately the winner. We also went to the Millennium Building where the players have their restaurant and balcony over the courts. From there, we walked through the tunnel that the players walk through to get to Centre Court where the championship game is played. The court has a retractable roof that cost 60 million pounds to build. The royal family also has their own wooden box where they sit, the Queen attended last year and the time she attended before that was in 1977 when the last Brit won. Beneath the seats, the walls are lined with the winners of each Wimbledon singles for men and women. The youngest person to win was J. Becker at the age of 17 years and 2 months. The player with the most wins is Pete Sampras with 7 wins out of the 8 he attended. In 2012, the tennis component for the Olympics will be played at Wimbledon just 20 days after the tournament. The committee first needed to prove that they could refurbish the grass and did so in just 2 weeks.
We left Wimbledon and went straight to Piccadilly Circus to go to a bar called Sports Cafe that we heard was a lot of fun. It was the UEFA Championship with Manchester United vs. FC Barcelona. We had to wait over an hour to get into the bar and we were let in just as they started role call. It was amazing to see how many people were there just standing to watch the game. All the bars in London had lines outside of them. Everyone was chanting the Manchester United fight song with the lyrics "Glory, glory Man. United" or Barcelona's fight song. Even though Barcelona ended up winning, it was exciting to be involved with the football culture during a major game. To Europe, football is like their Super Bowl. Unless you made reservations beforehand, you had to stand to watch the game. Afterwards we went to get dinner and then headed home. As we walked towards Piccadilly Circus, the Barcelona fans had climbed to the top of the statue in the center of the circus and chanted their fight song. Everyone was crowded around and cheering, and it was just incredible to see how emotionally attached football fans are to their team.