July 5th - Silverstone

July 5th

It’s 11pm on Saturday July 5th, I haven’t blogged in about 3 days but I have a ton to get out of my head, and Aaron’s asleep, so I could see this being a long one!

Last I checked in we were in London the morning we were headed towards the Silverstone area. We met the group going to the race at Heathrow Airport, hopped in a 9 person Ford van and drove about 75 miles to Oxford; where our hotel was. Just a random tidbit of info, the Mini is made here in Oxford and has been for the past 7 years. There’s a huge factory on your way into the city which is pretty neat, and you see SO many Mini’s. We arrived at the hotel, which is right on the Thames River. The location is beautiful, it’s an old manor house and has since had additions and renovations and it’s just in pristine condition, with gorgeous grounds, abundant flowers and simply breathe taking.

When we got into our room I was quite pleased with the facility, even more then I was just from the outside. We’re on the first floor and we have a walk out terrace which takes us to another courtyard, full of flowers. All the basics otherwise, but very clean, and well taken care of. This is by far my favorite place we’ve stayed (hotels wise) on our trip. The showers had hot water, with water pressure that was up to par, air conditioning, a fan in the bathroom to clear up all the fog post shower, (basically things that we think of as basic but that aren’t really across some of the places we’ve been). The icing on the cake was finding a floor fan in the closet, which I’m used to sleeping with at home!!!

When we got here we explored the hotel, and found a really nice pool and hot tub area in the gym, and ended up having a light lunch at the café. We unpacked, and relaxed and then later met the group for lunch. We went into Oxford the city, also where the university area is. It’s awesome, I can see a lot of what is trying to be done on OSU’s campus (and likely other campuses in the US) in terms of nice shops and eateries, around the perimeter of the campus; oddly one of the main roads is even called High Street!

We ate at a place called the Quod, decent food, nice atmosphere, and in general fun. Afterwards we walked a little, and I saw a ton of things I wanted to explore in more detail, unfortunately all the shops shut down at 5:00PM or 5:30 (at the latest)! Even on the weekends. So we headed back to the hotel, got our race day tickets and called it a night.

The next morning we got breakfast, and all piled into the car to head to the track. I was filled with glee but also a little sad, knowing this was basically the last stop in our honeymoon “tour.”

I can’t explain it but Silverstone is AMAZING, it’s clean, pristinely maintained, orderly, and the atmosphere just intoxicates you with excitement for Formula 1. As soon as we got there I knew I was going to love it! The cool thing that we found was Friday and Saturday had roving grandstand admission, with Sunday seats being assigned. This is very cool because you get to explore the whole track and see the action from so many different spots. Mainly we watched Formula 1 practice 1 & 2 and spent the rest of the time roaming the track. We made a full loop of it. All the manufacturers really go all out with displays and souvenirs for fans, and items which can be bought. It was hard to keep in mind that we’d already been to 3 races thus far, and had bought enough cool stuff, and to keep the money in the pockets! Honda had a huge blow up dome which inside they had a model of the car, and a 12 minute video, very well done, about the heritage of Honda and Formula 1! We checked that out, and just about everything else we could, the weather was just right, rain free, but not too hot!

We found that EVERYONE had Lewis fever, (except me of course) and about 3 guys walking around with gorilla face masks and white tee’s that were anti-Lewis; otherwise the Brits love them some Lewis! Button got a few cheers when we went around, as well as David Coulthard since this will be his last British Grand Prix (since he’s retiring). Mercedes is making a KILLING off the Lewis merchandise. We managed to watch the second practice from the Pit Grandstands, and were directly across from Renault’s pit!!! It was awesome, I got to see Flavio, and took some spy shot pictures of him, sadly didn’t get to see Alonso, at least not without his helmet on! It was cool because from there we could also see the team’s “mobile home” setups, and finally laid eyes on the McLaren Monstrosity. It was quite a view.

That about sums up the Fourth of July at least from the track perspective. After the track we got dropped off (at 4:49PM) in Oxford city center again, with about 40 minutes to do it we did some power shopping/browsing, many of the places had already closed, especially in the market (very much like North Market in Columbus, just MUCH bigger); but we were able to check some stuff out. After the shops closed we walked around the city, basically aimlessly, just checking it all out. Tons of very cool architecture, and just neat things to see. We happened upon the gourmet burger kitchen, and Aaron’s eyes lit up, we had been recommended this place in London, but didn’t have time to get it. Thankfully Aaron had looked online to know there was one in Oxford, though we weren’t sure we would find it, luckily we did! I wasn’t much in the mood for a burger, but Aaron really wanted to try it, so I figured sure why not. We got a burger and a chicken sandwich. The food was brought out and I was for SURE glad we ended up eating there, it was very well priced, very very very fresh, and all home made in terms of the sauces and such. It was a GREAT meal. Full and very happy we continued to walk around some and just hold off falling into food coma. We checked out the Oxford Castle, and Christ’s’ Church. After that our feet were ready to fall off and we caught a cab back to the hotel. After relaxing for a bit we decided to take advantage of the pool and the hot tub. It helped to relax us, and officially wear us out. We got desert from the hotel café, watched Top Gear and happily went to sleep! For sure one of the BEST days of our vacation.

Now we’re caught up to today, this morning we had breakfast again at the hotel, Aaron couldn’t get over the fact that they serve baked beans as part of the traditional English breakfast, not sure why they do it, but it just didn’t sound good to us so we passed for more traditional (to us) fare. It was raining all during breakfast, so we headed to the track, with our rain gear! It was pretty chilly, if you factor in the wind all day. The sun would help, but rain was off and on all day.

We watched practice one, did some walking around, got some free Santander gear (bags, and mats) and hung out, trying to stay warm. After practice, we took advantage of our Silverstone Racing Club access which was a building and a tent which had about 10 TV’s and tables and chairs for about 150 people. It was warm, and dry.

We did catch a neat little entertainment idea by McLaren, they had 2 men on stilts, painted and dressed in silver, they were entertaining the crowd, and just looked really neat. It added to the festival feel of the grand prix, all the while still being laid back, and VERY fan friendly.

We headed back outside for qualifying, which was great, the results of qualifying were disappointing if you were a Ferrari or Lewis fan, but pretty cool for Heikki. Also both Renaults made it into the top ten! Nice. There was a brief moment of rain in Q2, but overall dry conditions. Mark Webber is also on the front row; rather unexpected, but good for him all the same.

We enjoyed the GP2 race from inside the Silverstone Racing Club hospitality area and then headed back to the hotel. After a nap at the hotel we went to dinner in Oxford again, this time a place called Browns, a fun restaurant, very similar to Marcella’s in cbus. We ate shared stories and then piled into the van. On the way back to the hotel we stopped by a college one of our co-travlers had spent a summer at in Oxford and got to step within the gate for a few. It was very neat, the colleges don’t have dorms on one end and classes on the others, and it’s more all inclusive in the same area. He shared some stories and we headed back to the hotel. On the way back, as we pulled into the hotel, we saw fireworks over the river, I’m sure nothing to do with the 4th of July, but at least we got our share of fireworks this weekend, even all the way over here (it was something I missed!). Now it’s about 11:30 and I’m pretty much caught up. Going to call it a night so I have the energy to enjoy our last whole day in Europe tomorrow!!!