Hello Everyone Again!
Already a month into the internship, it has been a steady week in the training center. Many of the players are gone at the center as many of the players are preparing to transition from the Euro 2016 to the Rio Olympics 2016. The work at Arsenal still involve lots of mowing on the triplex mowers, walk behind mowers like the Honda’s and the primo mowers. But a few delays occurred in the week due to the rain that came through London Colney. Renovations are still continuing at the training center and also in Emirates Stadium to removing the old sod and infill of sand and is replace by new sand and seed. But in some of the training center fields, a new system called Desso is installed in some of the pitches. Desso is a fiber that is installed in the pitch and looks almost like grass. The Desso is installed after a heating system is placed in the soil and helps support the root system of the grass that is seeded after installation.
Since I am working on the weekdays for most of my time during my internship, I have taken out the time on the weekends to take a 30 minute trip by train to London. London is very unique and different than my experiences of big cities back in America like New York to Los Angeles. London has a essence of history. Going to London and exploring the city itself on two separate days does not do justice to see the full potential of this historical city.
On Trip 1, the first place that I visited was Big Ben/Westminster Abbey, then wandered over to Buckingham Place just in time for the changing of guards! Afterwards, I went to Harrods. Harrods is like Macy’s in the United States, but much pricier brands and very equisitive. Then it was back on the underground to explore Hyde Park and do more window shopping at Selfridges.
Trip 2 in London happened recently and I brought along Sam from the Training Center as my personal tour guide to explore more of London than my first time in the city. The first stop was exploring the Tower of London. The tower itself has hold many historical artifacts dating back to the 1100’s. The tower itself has hold many prisoners and even formally hold British royalty until the 1800’s. A surprise in this midevil tower was holding the different jewels from the royal family from many generations up to Queen Elizabeth II. Afterwards, we cross the London Bridge to explore the HMS Belfast. Once a warship that completed missions during World War II and Korean War, it is now a museum that holds the condition of the last voyage to be observed by many different visitors. After that, mostly exploring around London from seeing the St. Paul’s Cathedral and heading back to visit Westminster Abbey and Big Ben.
Hope the weather will bring more sunshine in the coming weeks. Keep coming back as I will be posting more of my adventure working in Arsenal and traveling a bit to know the UK and beyond.
Cheers!