Smithy
Strata Poster
Made it clear it was football related just because I know it would warn some of you away.
So yeah, what does Smithy do when he's not lurking the forum waiting to pounce on Taylor (it's ok, she's gone, I'm joking, world war three won't occur here) you wonder? Well here's one of my main passions, Arsenal.
Yup, I've probably lost the few stragglers who'd ventured into this but oh well, I shall continue.
Went down to London yesterday to watch an open training session at the Emirates Stadium for Arsenal's first team, as well as a few other things that I'll get to. As it was a relatively early start we booked into the nearest hotel to the tube we could find, which was a rather posh four star wedding venue that was a mile apart from the soulless, monopolous and altogether more relaxing travelodges I'm used to. Being offered wake up calls, newspapers, breakfast delivered to room etc is extremely alien to me. As was being offered shoe shine and a sewing kit in the bathroom.
Hardly slept at all, which ruined my stomach for the morning. Those who may pay attention to my posts know I've got some sort of phobia/anxiety with sickness, so gagging and choking on a tablet didn't help. Nor did being physically sick for the first time in about four years. Still. Soldiered on. Apologies for the specifics, but I did offer an insight.
Decided the walk to the tube station (mile and half) would do me well to clear my head. Plus it meant we passed some downright ludicrous properties.
Got to the stadium just as training had kicked off, which meant we could get no seats near the front as they were fill with selfish little kids who the day was aimed at. How unfair!
We got to watch the players go through their warm up, then little training keep-ball exercises and keepy-uppy sessions.
Arsene Wenger (our manager, for those without an interest in football but still keeping up with this rambling) came over for a chat and kept teasing to invite some people onto the pitch.
Being in a relatively empty stadium (think 10000 tickets were allocated for what is usually a 60000+capacity) the players could clearly hear the fans and vice versa.
So unfortunately the above was taken right after Theo pointed to his wedding ring in reply to a lone scream of MARRY ME THEO which got some laughs.
Always a worry when a proffessional footballer can't wear a bib correctly. They then brought out 30 junior gunners (of which me and my gf have decided our future children will definitely be forced into joining) were led onto the pitch, released some balloons and then told they'd take part in a game against the pro's. Given these kids are no more than 8 years old, it looked hilarious.
The Arsenal players got booed if they scored, the little kids got cheered wildly and some even celebrated, the mascot even went in goal until he got tackled by the players and piled on.
Not the greatest fan of selfies am I
After the training session had finished we had managed to book for seats in a q and a with some of the players, who turned out to be Szczesny, Martinez, Oxlade-Chamberlain, Rosicky and Fabianski.
Most of the questions were from children so a bit dull, when asked about controversial topics (such as signings) they managed to answer diplomatically enough. There were some kids asking ridiculous questions which their parents frankly should have stopped them from asking (ALEX. CAN YOU. NAME. 100 FOOTBALL.)
The players then had a go on a buzzwire and a reaction testing thing with the loser performing a song.
Before the players were led out, it was (again) repeated to us not to get up,or approach them, they were on tight schedules, yadda yadda, basically you're not pictures or autographs today. That can wait until I stalk out their training ground I think. Wasn't until I got home and checked online that I realise the other q and a's with other players had far better interaction, one set were able to play table tennis against some of the players.
FOOTBALL SEGMENT IS OVER.
Because I tend to find random things to do whilst I visit London, on the agenda this time was a return to Wafflemeister to taste the greatest sugary treat I've ever had the fortune of tasting before. And without doubt better than the awful attempt I had a Chessington a few weeks ago. So, we got on the underground to head to Oxford Street, and whilst there also popped into the Disney store. Just because.
After seeing the Wafflemeister on Oxford Street didn't have seating, and Oxford Street being packed, we decided to head to the one we'd visited before down near South Kensington station. Problem was neither of our phones were loading internet so we could plan a journey and figure out which way to go (21st century problems), so we walked for a while until we saw a map and headed towards Hyde Park knowing we could get on the tube near there. I love when detours like this lead me to discover things 'd usually have missed, this time it was a garage with these in it;
So we started walking through Hyde Park and I decided to take a walk up towards speakers corner first to see if any nutjobs were stood on their soapboxes, but could find nobody spouting much. Decided to try and hire out a boris bike but that was just a complete faff, after taking my money for 2 bikes it only gave me 1 code before refusing to hand out any others. None of the codes worked on either bike, nor did the station next to it. After 15 minutes we gave up and left the handful of other people stood raging at it not working to figure it out or give up as we did.
So we walked across Hyde Park completely underestimating the distance which wasn't great since we were both suffering from a long day and injuries which had flared up with walking. Still, having seen loads of people enjoying the Diana fountain (compared to May when we went and we were the only ones there) we decided to wander over and check it out. Was full of kids splashing and running around in circles.
We then walked the rest of the distance down to Wafflemeister and sized up our orders. Having not eaten all day it probably wasn't the best of decisions to order a banana and cream waffle AND a thick milkshake with marshmallows and white chocolate. Whatever, it looked amazing, tasted amazing, and if I hadn't still felt mildly sick I'd have wolfed the lot down in minutes. Nearly 3 hours since we'd left Arsenal we finally had our waffles.
Even though after all that journey we didn't actually sit inside and eat as it was full so had to sit first at the history museum (until we got moved on) and then outside the science museum.
See! I don't spend all my free time sat waiting for Taylor to post/someone to say something about Blackpool/to post a .gif.
So yeah, what does Smithy do when he's not lurking the forum waiting to pounce on Taylor (it's ok, she's gone, I'm joking, world war three won't occur here) you wonder? Well here's one of my main passions, Arsenal.
Yup, I've probably lost the few stragglers who'd ventured into this but oh well, I shall continue.
Went down to London yesterday to watch an open training session at the Emirates Stadium for Arsenal's first team, as well as a few other things that I'll get to. As it was a relatively early start we booked into the nearest hotel to the tube we could find, which was a rather posh four star wedding venue that was a mile apart from the soulless, monopolous and altogether more relaxing travelodges I'm used to. Being offered wake up calls, newspapers, breakfast delivered to room etc is extremely alien to me. As was being offered shoe shine and a sewing kit in the bathroom.
Hardly slept at all, which ruined my stomach for the morning. Those who may pay attention to my posts know I've got some sort of phobia/anxiety with sickness, so gagging and choking on a tablet didn't help. Nor did being physically sick for the first time in about four years. Still. Soldiered on. Apologies for the specifics, but I did offer an insight.
Decided the walk to the tube station (mile and half) would do me well to clear my head. Plus it meant we passed some downright ludicrous properties.
Got to the stadium just as training had kicked off, which meant we could get no seats near the front as they were fill with selfish little kids who the day was aimed at. How unfair!
We got to watch the players go through their warm up, then little training keep-ball exercises and keepy-uppy sessions.
Arsene Wenger (our manager, for those without an interest in football but still keeping up with this rambling) came over for a chat and kept teasing to invite some people onto the pitch.
Being in a relatively empty stadium (think 10000 tickets were allocated for what is usually a 60000+capacity) the players could clearly hear the fans and vice versa.
So unfortunately the above was taken right after Theo pointed to his wedding ring in reply to a lone scream of MARRY ME THEO which got some laughs.
Always a worry when a proffessional footballer can't wear a bib correctly. They then brought out 30 junior gunners (of which me and my gf have decided our future children will definitely be forced into joining) were led onto the pitch, released some balloons and then told they'd take part in a game against the pro's. Given these kids are no more than 8 years old, it looked hilarious.
The Arsenal players got booed if they scored, the little kids got cheered wildly and some even celebrated, the mascot even went in goal until he got tackled by the players and piled on.
Not the greatest fan of selfies am I
After the training session had finished we had managed to book for seats in a q and a with some of the players, who turned out to be Szczesny, Martinez, Oxlade-Chamberlain, Rosicky and Fabianski.
Most of the questions were from children so a bit dull, when asked about controversial topics (such as signings) they managed to answer diplomatically enough. There were some kids asking ridiculous questions which their parents frankly should have stopped them from asking (ALEX. CAN YOU. NAME. 100 FOOTBALL.)
The players then had a go on a buzzwire and a reaction testing thing with the loser performing a song.
Before the players were led out, it was (again) repeated to us not to get up,or approach them, they were on tight schedules, yadda yadda, basically you're not pictures or autographs today. That can wait until I stalk out their training ground I think. Wasn't until I got home and checked online that I realise the other q and a's with other players had far better interaction, one set were able to play table tennis against some of the players.
FOOTBALL SEGMENT IS OVER.
Because I tend to find random things to do whilst I visit London, on the agenda this time was a return to Wafflemeister to taste the greatest sugary treat I've ever had the fortune of tasting before. And without doubt better than the awful attempt I had a Chessington a few weeks ago. So, we got on the underground to head to Oxford Street, and whilst there also popped into the Disney store. Just because.
After seeing the Wafflemeister on Oxford Street didn't have seating, and Oxford Street being packed, we decided to head to the one we'd visited before down near South Kensington station. Problem was neither of our phones were loading internet so we could plan a journey and figure out which way to go (21st century problems), so we walked for a while until we saw a map and headed towards Hyde Park knowing we could get on the tube near there. I love when detours like this lead me to discover things 'd usually have missed, this time it was a garage with these in it;
So we started walking through Hyde Park and I decided to take a walk up towards speakers corner first to see if any nutjobs were stood on their soapboxes, but could find nobody spouting much. Decided to try and hire out a boris bike but that was just a complete faff, after taking my money for 2 bikes it only gave me 1 code before refusing to hand out any others. None of the codes worked on either bike, nor did the station next to it. After 15 minutes we gave up and left the handful of other people stood raging at it not working to figure it out or give up as we did.
So we walked across Hyde Park completely underestimating the distance which wasn't great since we were both suffering from a long day and injuries which had flared up with walking. Still, having seen loads of people enjoying the Diana fountain (compared to May when we went and we were the only ones there) we decided to wander over and check it out. Was full of kids splashing and running around in circles.
We then walked the rest of the distance down to Wafflemeister and sized up our orders. Having not eaten all day it probably wasn't the best of decisions to order a banana and cream waffle AND a thick milkshake with marshmallows and white chocolate. Whatever, it looked amazing, tasted amazing, and if I hadn't still felt mildly sick I'd have wolfed the lot down in minutes. Nearly 3 hours since we'd left Arsenal we finally had our waffles.
Even though after all that journey we didn't actually sit inside and eat as it was full so had to sit first at the history museum (until we got moved on) and then outside the science museum.
See! I don't spend all my free time sat waiting for Taylor to post/someone to say something about Blackpool/to post a .gif.
