Winning London!

If you know, you know about this title. I did try to come up with a good quote from the movie for my Instagram post, but failed. ANYWAY! Six days, 124,000 steps, and a million memories later, I have so much I want to say, but I promise I’ll do my best to keep it short.

I would have never gotten this experience if it weren’t for the SportsPro Hackathon that my school participated in and won! Check out our project on the homepage! And a shoutout to my school for choosing to spend money to send our team to SportsPro Live as our prize!

Friday, April 25th

Hoping off a plane after 10 hours where your body thinks it should be like 7am, but London says its 2pm is a crazy experience. Not surprisingly, we didn’t accomplish much that evening. We went to a popular spot in Westminster for dinner. Admittedly, it was nothing to write home about. But the real exciting stuff was seeing Big Ben & the London Eye for the first time! I really wish we had never stopped building like they did in London. The architecture is just beautiful. I was truly in awe of a lot of it. Falling asleep was not easy and I ended up watching my Angels (Angel City FC) blow a 2-0 lead to Orlando at like 2am. Oops. Then I was finally able to sleep for real.

Saturday, April 26th

Word of advice, if you are going to plan a trip to travel abroad, don’t plan for an early morning start on the first day… art least 50% of your group will not wake up as planned.

Two of us started Saturday at a bakery (well he technically started at a climbing gym). Cinnamon Buns in London are not the same as those in the US, but I think I liked them better in London. Then we gathered the rest of the crew and headed to one of The Imperial War Museum locations. This one focused on the World Wars. I got to introduce the boys to “Museum Campbell” who will stop to read literally everything on every slide when she has the time to. One of the exhibits focused exclusively on the stories of the Holocaust. It was one of the most moving museum exhibits I have ever seen, especially given the crisis in Palestine. Then we popped over to Camden Market. We got slightly lost on the way to the Tube and stumbled into the Leake Street Arches which were SO cool. I am just gonna be real, Camden Market is a tourist place. It gives Pike Place Market but British. I am glad I went once, but if I go back to London it’s not somewhere I will need to visit again. Although I would go back if I could guarantee I could get the four cheese gnocchi I had there again. That was easily top 5 things I ate this week. Saturday night we had a lovely evening in, featuring the British staple Domino’s Pizza. It is virtually identical to what you get in the US.

Sunday, April 27th

Sunday ended up being a double sports day! We made our way to the London Marathon in the morning! None of us realized it was that weekend! Very cool to see the wheelchair races in particular! A highly chaotic event that led us on quite the adventure to get to the Tube for the Chelsea UWCL game. Now, we’re just gonna ignore the scoreline because I do not want to talk about it :). When we found out we were going to this conference, the first thing I did was search for WSL games that weekend in London & there were literally none. I was so disappointed. I am not lying when I tell you I cried a little when Chelsea announced their UWCL Semi-final fixtures. I bought us tickets so quickly & planned my entire trip around that event (no joke). A jersey debacle meant I wasn’t quite geared out like I wanted, but the experience was amazing. There is nothing quite like watching your team play live. After the game, we mourned with a cheeky Nandos! It was my first time there & I quite enjoyed it. We also took an evening stroll through Hyde Park & saw Kensington Palace (although it is under construction right now). Then

Monday, April 28th

A quarter of my total step count for the week came on Monday. My entire lower body wanted to execute me by the time we got home. I started my day, with one of the guys taking a walk to see the Shakespeare Globe Theater, couldn’t go inside because it wasn’t open yet, but still a beautiful building. Then we marched on over to the Tower of London. Now the name Tower of London is so misleading… that place is an estate. It also wasn’t used for torture nearly as much as people say it was! Museum Campbell did make a reappearance here. After that we headed to get Indian food. Now I am admittedly a very picky eater, and had never tried Indian before, but I might have been converted. It was delicious. I got Tandori chicken & naan. Then we headed to see London Stadium, now the home of West Ham United’s men’s team. This is where I acquired my Kristie Mewis jersey for less than half of what I’d pay for a USWNT/NWSL jersey. Impeccable. One of the guys is a massive West Ham fan so I spent the tour as his personal photographer. It was great. After that, we headed to Piccadilly Circus & to visit the iconic department store Fortnum & Mason (the boys needed to buy their girlfriends tea). Then home for bed. Another earlier night.

Tuesday, April 29th and Wednesday, April 30th

We spent the morning at the SportsPro Live conference! A full post about the conference is coming too! Lots of good nuggets of info to talk about! I skipped the afternoon to go to the British Museum! This is one of those places that holds a lot of significance for a massive history nerd like me. But also, I recognize that most of the artifacts there are stolen. I could write a whole separate thing about the complicated relationship between stolen artifacts & returning them. But I digress for now… An absolutely stunning building, with unique architecture to be appreciated beyond the artifacts. The Reading Room & Enlightenment Hallways are beyond impressive. I sped run it a bit to make it back for one more session at the conference, but I am so glad I took the time to go!

I spent most of Wednesday at the conference while the guys went to check out the British Museum. It was Women’s Sports day, so I obviously had to be there! And I’m so glad I was! In the evening, one of the guys and I went to see The Lightning Thief Musical! If you know anything about me, you know I am a MASSIVE Percy Jackson fan. I own every book Rick Riordan has ever written! But I had never gotten to go to the musical before. It was SO well done! With the exception of Percy, Grower, and Annabeth, all the cast played multiple characters and my god did they do amazing! I have to give a massive shoutout to Lizzy-Rose Esin-Kelly (Annabeth), Paisley Billings (Sally Jackson & others), and Kennedy Small (Clarisse & others) for their performance. I bought a playbill booklet specifically to make sure I gave them their flowers! The whole cast was impeccable!

Thursday, May 1st

We left London at 5:30pm this evening, but we still fit in some activities in the morning! First we went to the Churchill War Rooms! These were perfectly preserved following the end of World War II and have become a museum. Truly one of the coolest places I have ever been. Even the calendar in one room was left set to the exact date they left. Amazing. These were underground bunkers modified to survive bomb attacks during the Blitz. They were never really tested, but bombs did fall fairly close. I was in fully Museum Campbell mode and am still nerding out a little bit here oops! We stopped by Buckingham Palace as our last activity for the trip. Very cool to see in person. We did not yell at the guards to try & make them laugh. That’s maturity for ya. Then to the airport for a 9hour & 40min flight without wifi where my podcasts did not download in time.

All in all, a great trip. Truly an experience of a lifetime. I am so honored that my school was willing to send us & so proud of my team for winning the Hackathon! I would love to go back to London one day, catch a Chelsea win & spend a full day in the British Museum. And I got to pretend I was 1/2 of Mary Kate & Ashley in Winning London for like 2seconds. It was perfect. Till next time lads!