Tour de France comes to town

The Dutch - Argentine match is putting me to sleep. They’ve got their extra 30 minutes now and still nothing but a couple of goose eggs to show for it.

The Tour de France came to central London the day before yesterday, and I promised I would write up on it. They passed through Tower Hill and Westminster (I think). Since Tower Hill is basically in my neighbourhood (ten minutes walk from my dorm), I decided I might as well go and see it. The weather was erratic, but it was fairly good when I came out.

London Tower. I’ve been living opposite of it for almost a year now.

The skies began clouding over when I got to the revenue. There were loads of people there already waiting in anticipation of the annual bike race. Evidently I came out far too late. It was hilarious: there were people climbing onto the traffic lights in order to get a better view, and gaggles of people standing in the stairwells of the big glass commercial buildings nearby. There was this one lift filled with people in one of the high rises that kept going up and down with the same cartload of people.

I squashed as further in as I could without offending anyone. The man in front of me had a Chinese word tattooed onto the nape of his neck. At first I didn’t notice, but it’s rather hard not to see it when you’ve been standing behind him for twenty minutes. It was really rather unbelievable - I had to look away and look back again to make sure I wasn’t seeing things, because there’s no way EVER that anyone in their right mind would tattoo the word “chicken” on their neck. Because that’s what it was.

A surreptitious photo of the chicken tattoo

That’s exactly what it means. “Chicken.” It has no other meaning. This guy must have some evil friends.

Anyway, it had started to rain by this point, large, annoying raindrops that really soak through your T-shirt. Umbrellas were hoisted aloft and people were beginning to shuffle around restlessly, wondering where the deuce the bikers had gotten to, or whether this was just a huge April Fool’s joke - in mid July.

A very nice gentleman in a pressed blue shirt offered to let me stand in front of him. He said that I was small enough to go in front of him without obstructing his view. I was very grateful, but at the same time felt like a hobbit, as I slipped in front of him. I’ve never felt short before in my entire life - before now, that is.

The sounds of cheering alerted us to the fact that the bikers were closing in, and then they were here. Went by like bullets, almost too quick for sight. I only just managed to catch them on camera.

Another one, then.

See how they go!

And, about 5 minutes after the main crowd of bikers had gone by, two competitors who were doing the biking equivalent of jogging ambled along on their bikes as if they knew that they already had no chance against the hardened bikers in front that had just whizzed by, each hellbent on success.

My very first Tour de France. Sort of wet, very crowded, rather interesting.

Back to the match. It’s down to the penalty kicks now. How will this turn out, I wonder?

(A/N: Super quick update - ARGENTINA WON. AM VERY HAPPY.)