Lisbon and Lagos via London

Our brief return to London was a refreshing change from our three-month existence in South America. For starters, we spoke the language fluently, which meant I no longer had to rely on my now-honed miming skills, it also meant we could finally flush toilet paper. Best of all, we enjoyed two days of Scott and Karl's amazing hospitality, including home-cooked gourmet delights.

With only one full day in England's famous capital, and a long list of 'to dos' that had accumulated over our time in South America, our brief stopover was all about business. First on the list was a much-needed shopping spree in Oxford Street's ultra-cheap Primark– I scored two tops, a pair of shorts, five pairs of undies and a small across-the-shoulder bag for just £17! Then there was a toiletries stock-up, a mass printout of various bookings we had made, and the all-consuming search for a new bikini (er, for me, not Craig.)

An essential curry was enjoyed with Scott, Karl and Julie (my super-cool pal who was joining us in Portugal) in Islington. And before we had a chance to get over the jet-lag, our London stop was complete.

What came next was a series of public transport bungles. First, we missed our EasyBus to Luton Airport – turns out it wasn't so 'easy' to spot the bright orange bus when they dont tell you you are s'pose to get on the green one instead. Then, once in Lisbon, we found out that the bus that would usually take us straight to our door couldn't take us that far because there was a festival on and the streets were blocked. We were then forced to bus to the metro and then cram in with hundreds of festival goers.

Transport dilemmas aside, Lisbon itself was pretty damn stunning. We tasted the legendary Portuguese custard tarts, tried to solve the mystery of the abandoned cherry*, visited the Discovery Monument, admired the many tiled buildings, and hiked up to the castle only to decide we didn't want to fork out the €5 entrance fee.

After just one short day in Lisbon, it was time to get our beach groove on in Lagos, three hours south of Lisbon. We arrived expecting a cheap and cheerful dump, but we were pleasantly surprised by the chic, streamlined hotel we were greeted with – Julie hit the jackpot booking this place, which had only been renovated a month prior.

We quickly slipped into holiday mode, heading straight for the hotel pool as soon as the sun broke through the vacation-dampening clouds. All was hunky dory until the Killer Milkshake struck...

Having been deprived of decent dairy products for so long, Craig indulged in a milky treat. He complained that it was warm, but drank it anyway. That night, the milkshake struck, causing Craig to vomit and then rendering him bedbound for most of the next day.

With Craig out of action, Julie and I took one for the team and kept the holiday spirit going with plenty of book reading on the beach – Julie was finishing off Atonement, while I took the slightly-less literary route with Schapelle Corby's No More Tomorrows – interrupted by the occasional breath-stealing dip in the icy cold sea – them waters in Portugal are a tad nippy.

Luckily, Craig was back in action for the momentous occasion of his 26th birthday. The weather really turned it on and we awoke to a glorious, sunny day. The day was spent on the beach and by the pool, and Craig was treated to a massage at our hotel, by an Aussie named Roy of all people!

That night we dined on local seafood delights, with Julie opting for salmon, me for calamari and the birthday boy getting his wish of a fish hotpot.

After four great days of sun, bikinis, boardshorts and the without a doubt the worst pool performance in history by yours truly – Julie did not believe how bad I was until she saw it with her own eyes. I suck! – it was time to say our final 'ciao' to Julie as she got set to head to the States and we continued on our journey across Europe...

* Personal joke involving a rogue cherry in the hall of our hotel.

Football fantasy

Things to do in London # 72: Go to a Premier League football match.

One of Craig's London must-dos was to go to a Premier League football (soccer) game. As a Manchester United fan, his ultimate would have been watching them at Old Trafford (their home stadium), but with tickets near impossible to secure (most games over here are sold out to members first), we had to settle for watching second-on-the-table Chelsea vs Wigan.

For £52 pounds each, we were treated to seats third row from the back – not as bad as it sounds, we had a great view of the game! Plus, it was just yet another dream we got to tick off our ever-growing list.

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!

When he heard reports that it was set to snow in London this week, the news didn't exactly rock our socks – our previous experiences of 'snow' here have consisted of a bit of ice on windscreens in the morning. So we were shocked when we peered out the window last night to find inches of the stuff covering everything. Turns out, it's the largest snowfall in London in 18 years.

With the capital brought to a standstill, a 'snow day' was called at both our works (I thought snow days only existed for school children who eagerly sat around radios on American sitcoms).

Even though we had only just returned from a week on the slopes in France (blog post coming soon, promise), we couldn't help but get among the soft white stuff for a good old-fashioned frolic!

London – the good, the bad and the ugly

A working holiday in London has long been a right of passage for twenty-something Aussies. For over three decades we've been coming over by the planeful, cramming ourselves into flats south of the Thames, pulling pints in pubs (or whatever we can to keep the pounds rolling in) and complaining about the shithouse weather.

2008 was the year that me, Craig and 13,062 other Aussies decided to do our requisite stint in the UK on a Working Holiday Visa (WHV). It was also the year Britain started spiralling into recession and the almighty sterling hit all-time lows.

In other words, the worst possible time in history to come to the UK on a WHV.

After miraculously finding ourselves some work, we managed to get ourselves off Jackie's floor and into a bed – words can't describe how wonderful it felt to put our clothes in drawers! – sharing with another Aussie couple in Clapham South (er, sharing a flat, not the bed).

With the current 'credit crunch' sending Australians home in droves (over 1,500 a month are fleeing the Motherland), this could mark the end of the traditional London stint.

After three months of braving the Tube, donning scarves and gloves as a necessity rather than a fashion statement and calling potato chips 'crisps'. Here's what we rate and hate about living in England's capital.

The good

Travel. The novelty of being able to jet off abroad on any given weekend will never wear off. An overseas journey from Australia requires weeks of planning, at least a week off work, and a few grand in the bank. Here, you just log onto EasyJet's website and you're just a few clicks away from cheap weekend in Paris, Barcelona, Amsterdam, Budapest, Berlin, Dublin, Munich, Prague, Lagos, Brussels...

Transport. While Londoners are quick to moan about their public transport system (and everything else, for that matter), they've never lived in Sydney. Nab yourself a Tube map and a Oyster card and you've unlocked the key to getting around London with relative ease and minimum fuss. Sure, there's the occasional signal failure or suicide jumper on the tracks, but with trains running every couple of minutes (as opposed to the once-hourly weekend bus to the city from Drummoyne), timetables are obsolete – just rock up and go.

Metropolis. Sydney's CBD feels like a ghost town compared downtown Oxford Street, when you're in London, there is no mistaking you're in a truly global city. It's easy to lose yourself in hustle and bustle, and it's exciting to feel like you are a part of this unflagging metropolis.

Entertainment. You could spend weeks in London and still not get around to doing everything. In fact, we've been here for three months and our 'to do' list is still quite impressive. There's the usual tourist fare — Oxford Street, Trafalgar Sqaure, Piccadilly Circus – along with galleries and museums galore, plus infamous attractions such the London Eye and Madame Tussauds. The West End is where it's at for theatre and shopping, then there's the famous Portobello markets and nearby Notting Hill to explore. If that's not enough to satiate your appetite, there's always a plethora of sporting events to pick from.

The bad

Weather. It's true, the weather really does suck... hard. While we are currently experiencing the coldest winter recorded in England for 13 years, summer sucked, too. Over summer, I only bared my legs for a total of 11 measly days, the rest of the time the temperature hung around the 17 degree mark, forcing me to sport clothes usually reserved for an Australian winter. The weather really does drag you down — getting up in the dark and getting home in the dark, with grey clouds and icy winds in between, does not a happy Couchsitter make.

Crime. As avid readers will remember, we were broken into shortly before Christmas. Yes, this could happen anywhere, but it didn't, it happened in London. And while our experience may have made us slightly biased, the crime statistics speak for themselves — in 2008 alone, 30 teenagers died from knife attacks.

Transport. I know I said the public transport here truly rocks, which it does. But I just have one gripe — the morning cram. Cramming onto a Tube in peak hour is total hell. It's hot, it's stuffy and you're pressed up against total strangers for the entire duration of your journey.

The ugly

Economy. The current global crisis has definitely brought out the uglier side of London. With the UK said to be the hardest-hit nation, doom and gloom has set in over the capital like the constant grey skies. With the papers constantly drumming into you that you're bound to lose your job and end up like the thousands of others in the dole queue, it's hard to maintain any form of optimism. Though, we all know that Londoners are secretly loving the current recession, it gives them something new to moan about!

In five short weeks we plan to leave London and continue on our travels. It was hard and downright depressing at times, but totally worth it. Having earned our 'I've lived in London' badges, it's time to move on. It's just too bloody cold!

Back to the UK

NOTE: Catch-up post

One thousand six hundred and fifty five – the number of freckles on Lindsay Lohan's stomach, the amount of times per day Craig thinks about food, and the distance (in kilometers) we travelled in two days to get from Cesky Krumlov to the UK.

Like bats outta hell we drove across four countries (five if you count the UK), praying we would get back to England incident and accident free. 

God musta been on his lunch break, cause just a few hundred meters after we crossed the border from the Czech Republic into Germany, we drove past a German police car parked on the side of the freeway. We'd seen lots of the green and white patrol cars on the super-fast German highways, and we'd shat ourselves every single time – we'd heard plenty of stories about the German police screwing over foreign motorists for teeny misdemeanours such as not having 3cm of tyre tread. So when this particular cop car started tailing us, and then proceeded to pull us over, you can imagine we were pretty freaked out.

Surly and authoritative – just the way I like my police! We scrambled around frantically when they requested our passports and registration papers, jumped out and eagerly unlocked the van doors when they asked, ripped out the entire contents of our backpacks so they could see there was no drugs or weapons inside, and stood there patiently while they searched our van and ran passport checks on us.

Eventually, they let us go – fine and jail-term free. But the whole event just confirmed we were doing the right thing by abandoning the van trip.

Other than a stop overnight in Frankfurt and some seriously painful traffic jams on the German motorways, the rest of the journey was pretty uneventful – the Big Guy Upstairs musta finished his Chicko roll and choccy Moove.

The relief we felt when we hit the road in the UK was akin to that felt by the entire world when George Bush handed over the keys to the White House. We were back to driving on the left side of the road, we could read all the signs, and if anything horrible were to happen (like a ball joint breaking and careering off into a ditch), we'd be able to communicate to passers-by and mechanics alike. 

But it wasn't all fun and games. We had planned to live in a caravan park just outside London until we sold the van. But when we arrived at the camping ground in Chertsey, we realised that not only were we in an absolute hole about 50 kilometers outside of London, we were also paying £15 a night for the privilege of staying there.

This was not on. So after a few frantic phone calls to my London-based pal Jackie, we arranged to stay at her place in Clapham for a 'couple of weeks', until we found jobs and our own place to stay. Our London experience was about to begin....

Down on our luck and dossing on an friend's couch – doesn't get more Aussie-in-London stereotypical than that!

Craig likes big butts...

...and making a fool of himself at the office Christmas party!

Check out this vid of Dish clearing the dance floor, stealing the DJ's mic and belting out a stirring rendition of Baby's Got Back while busting some Chris Brown-worthy moves.

While impromptu karaoke would usually be an office-party etiquette 'don't' – especially when you've only been there for eight weeks – this cringeworthy performance somehow catapulted Craig to 'office legend' status, with people clamouring to chat to him at the printer.

Go figure.

Legend or loser? You decide.

Disclaimer: From Couchsitters to Globetrotters accepts no responsibility for any neck problems caused by watching the video. View at your own risk. 

We was robbed, I tells ya!

True story.

I'd post some photos, but they stole our camera. The camera I spent five months researching to find and that's no longer in stock. Yep, that's the one.

The bloody bastards managed to get through three locked doors and meticulously went through our apartment and the downstairs apartment – stealing hundreds of dollars worth of Christmas presents (Tiffany bracelet included), two cameras, jewellery, a bottle of vodka and a laptop from our flatmates, and our only valuable possession – our camera.

OK, they thankfully missed my Mimco bag, diamond and white gold necklace and $300 hair straightener (and my iPod was with me), but Goddamn it, did they have to take our most prized possession – and priceless memories to boot?

Luckily, we had all our Lymington, Wimbledon, Oxford and Bath photos put onto disc when we left Lymo, and I had freakily put all our France, Germany and Czech Republic pics on my friend's flatmate's computer one day when I was uploading some onto Facebook – and totally forgot to delete them. So we only lost our recent Amsterdam and London Eye photos (which, by the way, seriously rocked).

While we should be able to claim our camera on our travel insurance, the fact that some derros trashed our place and went through our stuff is kinda heartbreaking.

Just when we thought things were beginning to look up, too...

The comeback post

It was inevitable.

From the moment I started this blog there was always gonna be a time when I went off the rails and metaphorically shaved my head, hired and fired several assistants, forgot to wash my hair for weeks at a time, went to rehab, lost custody of my children and stepped on stage at the MTV awards in a bikini having eaten a few too many In-N-Out burgers.

Keeping a blog is damn hard work — even when you are narcissistically posting about you and only you, it can be hard to maintain the enthusiasm. Combine that with the insanely high cost of internet in Europe (€4 an hour!) and some seriously stressful moments, you get a blog that's as neglected as Sean Preston and Jayden James.

But in true Britney style, the blog is back!

For now, I'll give you a quick rundown of what's been happening in the dramatic world of Lisa and Craig ('cause unlike Brits, our every move isn't splashed all over Us Weekly, OK! and PerezHilton.com), then over the coming weeks I'll get you fully up to speed with some more in-depth posts.

So, here's what's happened since we left you in Paris...

• We made our way to Dijon, France, where we met some other twenty-something Aussie vanners at our camping ground.
• We hotfooted it to the Black Forest in Germany, where we spent our days trying to decipher menus (schlachtplatte or tafelspitz, anyone?).
• We totally rocked Oktoberfest, drinking beer by the stein and eating pork by the knuckle.
• Once the Oktoberfest festivities were over, we made our way to Cesky Krumlov in the Czech Republic — the most picturesque place I have ever been. It was here we made our decision to drive back to the UK and sell Ace VANtura, aka 'the bane of our existence'.
• 1,400 kilometres and two days later, we were back in the UK and sleeping on my friend Jackie's floor.
• We slept on Jackie's loungeroom floor for five weeks, while we got jobs (Craig a three-month contract at an insurance brokerage, me some freelance gigs at You and Your Wedding, Star, Zest, new!, more! and OK!) and found a place to live.

Phew! And here we are, living and working in London about 60 days before schedule.

Stay tuned for further updates. Here's to the comeback of both Britney and the blog.

London, a stealth mission and a new guest star

Ladies and gentlemen,

We'd like to introduce you to the newest member of the Couchsitters' all-star cast, The Van Currently Known As Dakota Fanning (TVCKADF).

With less than two weeks until we left Lymington, and still no wheels, drastic action was taken. We kitted ourselves out in head-to-toe camo, blackened underneath our eyes and headed to London with one simple mission: buy a campervan.

TVCKADF belonged to a fiftyish Kiwi couple who had just taken her on a two-month journey around France and the UK. We met them in a carpark next to Wimbledon station to give TVCKADF a once over. She had everything we needed – bed, storage, fridge, cooker, grill, sink and dual batteries – but with a price tag of £2300 ($AUD4887), we weren't sure she was the one for us.

In stepped negotiator extraordinaire Craig O'Shannessy, who after quickly getting them down to £2000, realised that he could probably tighten the bartering screws a bit tighter and reduced our offer to £1750 ($3700), they tried to meet in the middle at £1900, but Craig stood his ground and Dakota was ours for over £500 less than the asking price.

After sorting our insurance, checking out sat navs and praying that we had made the right decision, the all-important name issue came to a head. A discussion over beer and pie at a pub ensued...

'I'll leave that one to Lisa,' said Craig.

'Hmm, I'll have to ponder,' I said.

'What?! You're gonna call it Dakota?' misheard our friend Karl.

'Yeah, I'm gonna call it Dakota Fanning,' I replied with the most sarcasm I could muster (which is a lot!).

And, of course, the name stuck.

And while we have nothing against the teeny little actress who has graced the silver screen in films such as Uptown Girls and War of the Worlds, and quite like the idea of saying 'bloody Dakota Fanning' whenever the van causes us strife, I'm sure you'll agree that if this van is gonna be guest-starring in this blog for the next three months – taking us through the likes of France, Switzerland, Germany, Poland, The Netherlands and Belgium – it needs a new name.

So, we want you to make like Oprah and have a 'lightbulb moment'. What should we call The Van Currently Known As Dakota Fanning? Leave your suggestion in the comments of this post, and if we pick your name, you'll receive a postcard from us somewhere in Europe, and, naturally, fame, glory and prestige.

Lisa in London

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Lisa's 27-hour London catch-up...


There were sausages and mash, pints of cider and the discovery of 'brown sauce' with Jackie (middle) and Fiona (right) in a Covent Garden pub...

There was a night in Queen's Park at Scott and Karl's. There was unpronounceable German wine, Scott's enviable gourmet cooking and a healthy dose of Kerry Katona...

There was a trip to Oxford Street, but sadly no purchases. Shopping is for people who have jobs...

There was a gossip-filled, way-too-short Malaysian feast in Covent Garden with ex OK!er Rachel (middle) and current OK!er Tash (left)...

Followed by a scenic stroll to Waterloo (with ABBA's Waterloo going 'round and 'round in my head) via my fave London attraction (so far..) Trafalgar Square...

Then back to Lymo on a two-hour train ride, listening to the extremely-suitable Sugababes' Overload — they're a British band and there are train references in the song, duh!

The Couchsitters' A-Z guide to queuing for Wimbledon tickets

Arrival time — Getting in The Queue at the right time is crucial. On the first day, we arrived at around 3pm (the day before) and were 65th and 66th in line. On the second day, we pitched our tent at around 6.30pm, putting us is 259th and 260th positions. Rumour around the campsite was you had to arrive by 10pm the night before to secure Centre-Court seats. If a ground pass is more your style, arrive at around 6am on the day of play to be one of the lucky 6000.

Buying tickets — Make sure you are fully cashed up before you hit the ticket booths, as cold, hard cash is the only form of payment the peeps at Wimbledon will accept. Also, don't freak out when the old biddies in front of you are taking forever to choose their seats — we were cursing the ones in front of us, imagining all the good seats were quickly being snapped up at the other booths — because this ain't Ticketek with it's computerised fanciness, it's old school, and each booth has a set amount of printed tickets to sell.

Clothing — Just because the Poms tell you it's summer, and are baring their sunburnt flesh like it's a heatwave, doesn't actually mean you can get away with pretty sundresses and Havaianas. Prepare for all weather conditions, because during the day you could be sitting smack, bang in the sun, but it's bound to cool down in the evening.

Do's and don'ts — More than just a line, The Queue for Wimbledon is a highly-organised, people-moving machine. There are stewards left, right and centre, 24 hours a day, and with such organisation comes rules. Queuers are asked to keep down noise levels for the benefit of both local residents and fellow campers, once you are in The Queue, you are not allowed to leave (a mere technicality, see Multiple days), fires and barbecues are not allowed, tents should sleep a maximum of two people and there is strictly no Queue jumping...

Endless waiting around — Whoever came up with the saying 'patience is a virtue', surely musta queued for Wimbledon tickets back in the day. Over the two days, we spent over 34 hours waiting around in The Queue. Now that's a whole lotta thumb twiddling!

Food — Take some. At the very least, stock up on some suitable snackage before you go. To save your wallet (and your taste buds) pack yourself some lunch to take into the grounds — just make sure it's in a soft cool bag, as they won't let eskys in. If you do come unprepared, never fear, various local takeaways will come around with their menus and will deliver to your tent. The guys in the tent next to us even convinced one pizza joint to stop off and grab them some beer and wine on the way.

Getting drunk — Don't do it. By all means, share a few bevvies with your tent neighbours, but don't go overboard — a killer hangover is guaranteed to ruin your Wimbledon experience.

Hygiene — To combat the lack of showers, we took along some baby wipes and antiseptic hand gel. But in the end, we just had to pack on as much deodorant as possible and hope for the best. While queuing is no time to be precious about such things as greasy hair and unwashed pits, princesses can find some comfort in the fact the toilets were exceptionally clean.

Insanely early wake-up call — Ahh, there's nothing like a steward shaking your tent at 5.30am to really get your day going! Yes, I did say 5.30am. They'll tell you they'll wake you at 6am, and then they'll trick you by doing it half an hour earlier. There's no time for pulling your sleeping bag over your head and trying to steal some extra precious minutes of snooze time, either — you've only got about 45 minutes to get dressed, pack up all your stuff, take it to left luggage and get in line.

Jumping The Queue — Don't even think about it. Everyone is very protective of their place in The Queue, and you'll always find someone asking to inspect your Queue Card, making sure you haven't stolen their well-earnt spot.

Killing time — Some people play cards, others read, while some decide to just drink away the boredom. It's always a good idea to bring something to keep you entertained, at least for a little while. If all else fails, chatting to your tent neighbours (provided they aren't knobs) is a great way to wile the waiting away.

Left luggage — With only one bag per person (measuring no more than 45cm x 30cm x 30cm) allowed into the grounds, you're gonna have to leave your tent and luggage somewhere. Luckily, the Wimbledon peeps have already thought about it, and provided mobile left-luggage facilities near the camping area. For only £1 per item, you can dump your stuff. Don't forget that they close an hour after the last play of the day, so don't get caught out.

Multiple days — Wanna get decent seats for more than one day in a row? Well make like the Couchsitters (that'd be us) and sneak out of the tennis at about 6pm, quickly set up your tent, grab your Queue Cards, then power walk back to the tennis to watch the rest of the day's play. Technically you're not spose to do this, but once you have your Card, your spot is basically set in stone. We just pretended we were ducking off to quickly grab some food... and who said crime doesn't pay?

Newspapers — There will be various people pushing their designated paper to you all morning, which is great for getting the lowdown on the day's play. Just don't fall for any of the freebies they are offering (binoculars, giant foam hands, radios) as they will be confiscated before you enter the grounds — they aren't fans of 'ambush marketing' at The Championships, you see.

Only one Queue — In previous years they have had two Queues running along the pavement outside the grounds, one running North, the other South, causing havoc on the street and making queuers face the conundrum on which line to choose. This year, they decided to keep it simple, and have one line weaving through Wimbledon Park. Much easier and much comfier!

Parking — You can park in an official carpark for £25 a day (not available overnight) OR you can do what we did and visit parkatmyhouse.com, an easy-to-use site where people rent out their driveways, garages and resident parking spots. We got a park about 10 minutes walk away, and it only set us back £5 a day — bargain!

Queue Cards — Each and every person in The Queue is given a Queue Card, these precious babies are printed with the date, and are numbered to show your position in The Queue. Guard them with your life, and have them on hand at all times — you never know when someone is gonna demand to see it!

Radio — We took the portable radio off Punts' dashboard and listened to Radio Wimbledon (87.7FM) to catch the next day's Order of Play.

Stewards — The Stewards are your friends (unless you are barbecuing, being noisy at 2am or trying to Queue jump) and they are on hand 24 hours a day. Seek out a Steward on arrival to make sure you are queuing in the right spot, and have a chat to them when they walk past as most of them are very friendly and more than willing to help out.

Tent — Please don't think you can simply rock up without any sort of shelter — it might be summer, but it does get bloody cold, and it rains! Tents and sleeping bags are a must! We'd also recommend a blow up mattress or a foam mat, we didn't and we paid for it. Earplugs would also make a good investment, as there is always someone talking in a nearby tent, always.

Underground — If you are travelling on The Tube, the nearest station is Southfields (not Wimbledon, like most people assume). It's about a 10-minute walk and there'll be heaps of signs pointing you in the right direction.

Various Queue stages — Once you get woken up at 5.30am, the real queuing begins. Once everyone is packed up, you get in line in order of your Queue Cards. Then, you wait around for a while before The Queue slowly snakes it's way towards the grounds, by now it's about 7am. At about 8pm, after standing around for an hour, some Stewards will come around and give you your wristband (see Wristbands), then you will form three lines, one for Centre Court, One for Court One, and one for Court Two and Ground Passes. After inching your way along the lines, you will the go through security (see X-ray) over a bridge and to the gates, where you will wait... again. At 9.30am they will start selling tickets and will let you in to a small area of the grounds, where everybody waits until you are finally unleashed at 10.30am. Yes, there's a lot of waiting!

Wristbands — Before you go through security, you will be asked which court you would like to be on and you'll be given a coloured wristband to signify which court you are allowed to buy tickets for. You'll need to keep the wristbands on until you buy your tickets, and while you don't really need them after that, most people keep theirs on as a badge of honour.

X-ray — Don't try and take any sort of weapons into the ground, as everyone has to have their bag X-rayed, their face scanned and their body metal detected.

Yobbo Aussies — There's no escaping them! While we had our very own encounter with one very dunken Aussie sheila (see post below), you're bound to run into more than a few Australian-flag-bearing dickheads throughout the Queue and around the grounds. If you aren't Australian, we apologise and promise we aren't all complete tools.

Zzzs — Dont expect to catch many of these. Even the most well-prepared queuer is bound to find themselves victim of noisy neighbours and cold conditions. And if they do manage to find themselves sleeping peacefully, you can always count on the 5.30am wake-up call to put and end to that!

Wimbledon

WARNING: EPIC POST AHEAD. The following post may contain excessive sentences. Readers are advised to proceed with patience, endurance and a snack of their choice.


We did it! From Henman Hill to Centre Court, we lived out our Wimbledon dream. Here's how it all went down...

Getting in line

On Wednesday June 25, 2008, we packed up all our gear (tents, sleeping bags, camera, clothes etc), jumped in Punts and, with printed internet directions in hand, headed towards the hallowed All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club in Wimbledon, London.

A speedy trip up the M3 and a quick stop at KFC later, we found ourselves driving up Wimbledon Park Road, right past the The Championship grounds ('Oh my God, there it is!') and through to nearby Southfields. We quickly parked our car at some random guy's house (we'd organised it over the internet) and started marching briskly toward 'The Queue'.

There are three ways to secure tickets to Wimbledon — 1. You work for, with, or know someone who works for, or with, a corporate organisation involved with The Championships. 2. You enter the public ballot which closes in December of the previous year. 3. You queue. With options one and two out of the running, we were left with no choice but to join thousands of other punters in the painfully-long queue.

When I say thousands, I mean thousands. Queuing for tickets is a sport in itself, and if you want to be one of the true winners and secure a seat on Centre Court, you have to tough it out and queue overnight.

So there we were, it was around 3pm and we were marching straight towards a yellow-vest-wearing steward. Keen to secure our place as quickly as possible, we were directed towards the camping field. We got our tent up quick smart (well, as the pictures show, Craig got it up quick smart), and then we were faced with the problem of, 'Now what?'.

There was 14 hours until our 5.30am wake-up call and there wasn't much to do except sit and watch other people come and set up their tents, which was surprisingly entertaining. About an hour had passed when the moment we had been waiting for came around — we were given our Queue Cards.

Each person in the queue receives a numbered Queue Card, which secures their position in the queue. At this point the Card is everything. It can make the difference between what court you get on, how good your seats are, it gives you the right to push in front of anyone with a higher number than you at any point of the queuing process, and if you lose your card you lose your spot. Like I said, it's everything.

We waited with bated breath as a yellow-vest-wearing, Queue-Card-holding steward made his way along the line of tents. Cards 0065 and 0066 were placed in our hands, and with 500 tickets available for both Centre and Number One Court, it meant that we were guaranteed a choice of any court we wanted, and great seats to boot! If our Cheshire-Cat grins were anything to go by, you'd have thought we'd won the lottery!

After we had finished staring lovingly at our cards and taking photos of ourselvess with them, we settled in for our first ever night in our £20 Argos tent. We had a pizza delivered to our tent, which we ate as we eagerly listened to the official Wimbledon radio station, waiting for the next day's Order of Play.

Elation quickly turned to frustration when the Order of Play was announced, as we were now faced with an impossible decision. On Centre Court it was Venus Williams v Anne Keothavong, Andy Murray v Xavier Malisse and Andy Roddick v Janko Tipsarevic, while on Number One Court, it was Rafael Nadal v Ernests Gulbis, Maria Sharapova v Alla Kudryavtseva and Chris Eaton v Dmitry Tursunov.

Trying to decide between the prestige of Centre Court and the awesomeness of Nadal and Sharapova proved to be an impossible decision. Back and forwards we went, discussing the pros and cons of each court. While I was keen to make a decision and stick with it, Craig was keen to maintain his title as the King of Indecisiveness (seriously, you should see him trying to choose a parking spot!), and kept asking for 'five more minutes'.

Those five minutes ended up being 10 hours. It wasn't until we had spent a long, cold night in the tent, packed up our gear, spent about two hours in line and a steward was standing in front of us with coloured wristbands asking which court we wanted that Craig quickly blurted out, 'Court One'. Finally, a decision was made! Nadal and Sharapova, here we come!


Day One

Staying up into the wee hours watching Channel Nine and turning up to work tired is an Aussie tradition over the Wimbledon fortnight, so to actually be there, in the middle of day, is actually quite surreal.

After being in various Queue stages over 19-and-a-half hours, we were finally let loose into the grounds at 10.30am. While people with Ground Passes nearly knocked each other over trying to get seats on their chosen outside court for a 12 noon start, the elite (that'd be those with Centre and Number One Court tickets. In other words, us) were able to check out the grounds at a more leisurely pace — perusing the food and drink options (the traditional strawberries and cream alongside the heart-attack-inducing fried food options), trekking to the top of the way-smaller-than-it-looks-on-TV Henman Hill, and taking photos of all things Wimbledon.

Show court matches start at 1am, so at 12.45 Craig got himself a beer, I got myself a Pimms (at £6 for a half pint, it ended up being my only one of the tournament), we slathered on some extra sunscreen and we took our seats on Number One Court.

Now, I don't mean any old nosebleed seats. Get this: We were opposite the umpire, three rows back from the court! We were so close Maria Sharapova's blonde ponytail was in danger of flicking us in the face. Have I mentioned our seats were awesome yet?

First up was the number-two-ranked, headband-sporting Rafael Nadal. The Rafa fans were out in force, their faces painted with Spanish flags. One such fan was two rows in front of us and was yelling out encouragement in Spanish, the only problem was, she was a ginge from Wales that basically stalks him around the world — yes, Wimbledon brings out all sorts, from the high-society snobs ('Jolly good') to the drunken Aussies ('Oi, oi, oi').

Nadal cleaned up Gulbis in four sets (much to the ginge Welsh chick's delight) and it was time tennis's resident glamour girl, Maria Sharapova, to take to the court. Sporting her controversial 'tuxedo' get-up, complete with designer handbag and diamond Tiffany earrings, you can't deny Sharapova is quite the stunner (it comes as no surprise that of the billion photos Craig took over the two days, a large portion of them are of the leggy Russian).

Perhaps if Maria concentrated more on her tennis and less on her appearance (meeoow), she may not have been beaten in straight sets by Alla Kudryavtseva. It seemed that no matter how hard the world number two grunted, the 154-ranked player was just too good on the day.

With Chris Eaton (who?) on court next, we did something naughty but necessary. We decided to skip seeing the 661-ranked Englishman get beaten and go set up our tent in The Queue for the next day's play. Nothing naughty about that, right? No, the naughty bit comes when we get our Queue Cards (0259 and 0260) and then bolt back to the tennis (you technically aren't supposed to leave the campsite, but they really can't police it). We spent the rest of the evening watching the Williams sisters in doubles, and the end of Daniela Hantuchova's match, before walking back to our tent, jumping straight into our sleeping bags, and settling in for a good night's sleep. Or so we'd hoped...

Remember those drunken Aussies I mentioned earlier? Well we had the queen of them in the tent next to us. She'd taken herself off to the pub and stumbled back at about 2am, before loudly telling the people in her tent the entire story of the night over and over, before announcing to anyone within earshot that she was an Aussie, before proceeding to vomit next to our tent. Yep, she's sure doing the country proud.


Day Two

The next morning played out pretty much the same as the previous one. We were woken early, put our tents away and lined up for hours on end. The only difference was our court decision wasn't anywhere near as agonising. While we would have loved to watch Aussie Lleyton Hewitt on Court One, there was no way we could pass on the chance of watching the great Roger Federer carve up on Centre Court at Wimbledon.

Our fluoro orange wristbands were in place, our tickets had been bought and stashed safely in our bags, we had filled up on the most revolting burgers we'd ever tasted — Wimbledon people, if you are reading this: Seriously, the food sucks. We're happy to pay through-the-roof prices for food (it's kinda expected), but please make it edible — and we had taken our seats (a mere five rows back this time) on Wimbledon Centre Court.

Of course it wouldn't be a true Wimbledon experience without a rain delay (so many times I'd stay up to watch, only to be met with Ken Sutcliffe and a bunch of covered-up courts), and ours was no exception. We got to watch the ground staff run on the court, cover it, uncover it, then cover it again, all in the space of an hour.

Finally, the sun started shining a Roger Federer stepped out onto the court. Being able to watch the five-time Wimbledon champ clean up Marc Gicquel in straight sets was truly a pinch-ourselves moment. You know how some people have lists of things they want to do before they die? Well if I could actually be arsed to put one together, going to Wimbledon would be one of the top things on my list. And there we were, five rows back, cheering on a true tennis legend. C'mon people, you know you're jealous! Go on, admit it...

Next up was Serena Williams v Amelie Mauresmo. First up, Serena is one massive unit, her legs are like tree trunks! Secondly, I have always been a bit of a closet Mauresmo fan (pun intended) so I was quite looking forward to this match. The first set was brilliant, some great rallies, shots with flair and a close score (Serena won in a tie-break). By the second, Mauresmo was struggling with an injury and Serena ended up winning easily, which is a shame, 'cause I'm kinda bored with the Williams sisters dominating this event. Yawn!

The last match of the day, and for us at Wimbledon, was Mario Ancic v David Ferrer. The Welsh ginge was back in force to support Spaniard Ferrer, while not knowing a whole lot about either player, I opted to support Ancic. The match proved to be the most exciting one we saw. There were some awesome shots, and both players had to dig deep. With the light fading quickly, we were worried they would postpone the game due to bad light, but they soldiered on. The crowd was pumped, making for a great atmosphere. The drama went on until 9.30pm went Ancic finally secured victory in the fourth.

We soaked it all in as the crowd cheered Ancic off the court. This was it, our Wimbledon dream was over! We were happy, sad and downright buggered as we said our final goodbyes to the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club.

Queuing was tough work (it was cold and the ground was as hard as Centre Court), and the two days had cost us a small fortune (we spent over $AUD400 in tickets alone). So was it worth it?

Hell yes.