We had the same breakfast as yesterday, even though we apparently arrived half an hour before the kitchen opened. The nice owner(?) solved it anyway and we waited just about 15 minutes to get our stuff to go.
We ate while watching today’s F1 race, which was cut a bit short because of rain, and eventually, Max Verstappen was crowned as the season winner to everyone’s surprise because they hadn’t read the rulebook.
Grabbed what stuff we thought would get through arena security and left for the subway. Met a couple of interesting people on the overground to the stadium, one who apparently had never seen a football game, and his friend, who had been following the 49:ers since 1982. The train got fuller for each stop until we arrived at White Hart Lane when it became almost empty.
The signage was quite good, directing us toward the Tottenham Hotspurs Stadium. It looked like it was temporary, probably because most of the crowd was here for the first time, in contrary to the season ticket holders supporting Tottenham Football Club.
We quickly realized that the pub we thought of visiting was probably already full since it was quite crowded around the arena almost three hours before kick-off, so we joined the queue for the NFL Shop. The line was roughly 400 meters long but took “only” 25 minutes, quicker than expected actually. However, the assortment inside the shop wasn’t as good as I’d hoped for, but maybe what I could have expected.
After we cleared the shop, a few items richer but several pounds poorer, we headed to our gate, number 10. First, it was one ticket check where they scanned the QR codes. Google Wallet made me open and go back for each ticket (and I had all three). Then it was a bag check, a bit understaffed and poorly pointed out so a guard stood on top of the stairs and shouted to people coming up that they should head over to the side. The bag check didn’t check any belongings I had on me that weren’t in the bag.
After the bag check, it was a short walk to the next security checkpoint where we walked through a metal detector, while the bag went around it. Not sure why because if I had anything on me, I could just have put it in the bag before going through.
Finally, it was a second ticket check, here however I could “tap” so it went smooth, and we started our climb to the fifth floor, section 518.
Our seats was fine, we had a couple from Phoenix in front of us, they was apparently with a group of 800 people traveling together.
It was clearly more Packers fans in the stands, you could both see the more green than blue jerseys and hear it as well on the cheers and boos.
However, it was a fair amount of Giants fans that got louder the longer the game went and they took the lead. After the game “Let’s go Giants” echoed here and there.
We sat in the sun until the beginning of the second half and it got pretty warm. Every now and then a cool breeze hit us and that was really nice. At half time, Martin went for the beer and I for water. I try to be the responsible grown-up on this trip 🙂
During half time I got an email saying that the Pixel 7 Pro, color Snow and with 256 GB was available, so I went on and bought it during Giant’s first drive of the half. Didn’t want to wait and risk it running out of stock.
The stadium is quite new, opened in 2019, and I would say is rather nicely designed. Most of the stuff worked well except for the men’s restrooms being poorly marked, they take the caps off the bottles and when I bought a donut and a bag of chips, they charged me twice, making me eat two donuts (easier than nullifying one of the transactions). The donuts were much more delicious than I had expected.
Even though the Packers won a challenge of an incomplete pass they lost in the end to the Giants. We hung back a short while since we expected the subway or overground to be full anyway. When we had made our exit from the stadium we found a staffer who could tell us where to go, because there was a sign stating that the station we had used (White Hart Lane) to get here, only served northbound trains, and we wanted to go south.
So off we went, about 25 minutes of walking, and on the way, we switched to get to the station before the one suggested to us, in hope of getting seats on the train instead of just standing room. When we got to the station Tottenham Hale there was quite the line to get into the station. However, when we passed by that choke point, it was really smooth inside and the subway ran about every other minute so it wasn’t that crowded either. Not until we got close to the Emirates Stadium where Arsenal just had won, so a bunch of soccer fans got on the train.
We got back to the house to drop off our stuff then headed to the closest pub to get some food. However, when Håkan asked what was gluten-free on the menu, the chef told the waitress that the kitchen had closed, 20 minutes early 🙂
Martin went back to the house while HÃ¥kan and I went for a walk and got a couple of kebabs. The manager asked us if we just were visiting and he didn’t have a clue that the NFL had hosted a football game in Tottenham. To his defense, a 60k people event isn’t a rare thing in London, and his establishment is basically on the other side of London. We hadn’t seen that much Packers- (or Giants- for that matter) apparel in the area where we were staying.
Tomorrow it’s time to go home but we have almost a full day, so we are making some plans and we’ll see what we land on.
