Sports in the UK

One of our first outings here in the UK was attending the England v. Wales rugby match, in preparation for the upcoming Rugby World Cup in France. England dominated the Welsh 62-5 at Twickenham, the home of England Rugby. Since it was a blow-out, the match stopped being interesting fairly early. However, we really enjoyed the atmosphere at the stadium, which basically turns into a huge beer garden for the day of a match. Needless to say, we partook in numerous delicious beers, and even tried a famed Pimm’s Cup (the traditional English summertime cocktail, we aren’t big fans). I think we’ll visit the stadium again, perhaps to catch the Barbarians play South Africa later this year.

Being huge rugby fans (most of you probably know that we met playing rugby for Chicago North Shore), the ability to catch test matches in person is an incredible luxury, and almost makes up for the total lack of baseball in this country. The only baseball we get to see is on espn.com or the occasional game that we get to watch on TV. Sky Sports gets the ESPN feed for the Sunday and Wednesday night games. However, since we’re 5 hours ahead of the East Coast and 8 hours ahead of the West, we rarely get to catch them, unless we’re fighting a battle with insomnia. Needless to say, we are terribly missing the Cubs attempt at making the playoffs… LET’S GO CUBBIES!!!