The last several days...

I went to the Globe Theatre and saw King Henry IV. I was part of the "groundlings" meaning I stood at the stage. It was amazing even though the performance was 2 1/2 hours long. The atmosphere at the Globe made the performance. The actors were perfect and the play itself was hilarious. I really did not expect to enjoy it so much. After the show, I went to Tate Modern. Now that was also an experience. it was hard to consider a lot of what was there as Art, much of it was disturbing. Walking along the Thames, there is so much to see; the London Eye, The Tower Bridge, Tower of London, Parliment and Big Ben, even a bootleg Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck. Jeff had a few people from the Orlando DCL office that were staying with us for the weekend and so we took them to dinner at a Thia restaurant. Mark and Barda were a lot of fun and I gave them a few pointers about London sightseeing. I walked them to the tube station the next day and started packing for Canterbury!

I was looking forward to Canterbury. We rode up to Canterbury with Roddy and Laura, good friends of Jeff's from softball. Laura is from Tennessee and is hilarious and Roddy is Scottish and also fun to be around. It took about 2 hours to get to Canterbury, mainly because of traffic. The tournament was at Kent University so we each had our own dorm room. They were tiny but nice. There was a big get together Friday night where I got to meet a lot of Jeff's friends. The tournament started the next morning and I was playing for the Stealthy Seawolves. (I added the stealthy) I played on different fields than Jeff so it was about a 10 minute wa in between the 2 sets of fields. (the 10 minutes will be important later in the story) It was a lot of fun getting to know everyone on the team. I had met Caroline the weekend before when she asked me to play with her team so I had not met the others yet. We played really well and it was a beautiful day. I was running to first after my first hit and I pulled the muscle in my left quad. No problem, I just run it off and stretch a little more. As the day progressed, it got worse. 5 games later, I was walking like I was 92. This is where the 10 minute walk comes into play. I went to see the physio specialist and, of course, her tent was setup right by Jeff's field. He came right over and took a picture to email to Jamie and mom and dad. I had pulled the muscle and she told me to not stretch or sit for prolonged periods and to rest it as much as possible. Luckily we were done for the day. Needless to say, I was unable to play the next day.

I have many more stories that I can fill you in on including musical chairs, getting lost in the woods, and a phone booth but for time sake, I will move on. Sunday, I was the Seawolves scorekeeper. I was also given Caroline's megaphone so I like to think I was the team's encouraged too. I like to give them, phrases like "unleash hell!" After the tournament ended we went to the pavilion to watch England's final world cup match and then headed back to London. Thus endeth the Canterbury Tales.