It takes courage to bloom

The football gods were in our favour when they graced us with tickets for the Arsenal v Newcastle game via the ballot. With only a 7% chance and only 3 EPL home games left, it was somewhat a miracle we "won" that ballot but here we are, visiting the Emirates Stadium one more time before the end of the season.

London surely delivered that day. The weather could not have been more gorgeous so we decided to take the river boat from North Greenwich to Battersea instead of the tube. I was happy my friend S. decided to join since we haven't seen each other for a long time and I knew she would enjoy cruisin' the River Thames. We passed all the famous London landmarks: first the O2 Arena, Greenwich and the Canary Wharf skyline, followed by going under the Tower Bridge, seeing the iconic skyscrapers of The City, St. Paul's and finally The London Eye and Big Ben & Houses of Parliament. New for me was where boat ride (or as I called it: Arteta's boat party) took us: Battersea Power Station.

Battersea had been on my list for a long time but I never managed to make it out west. Either the kick-off time for the football was too early or I simply wasn't in the area. It was very cool to see the iconic building that is even more enormous than I anticipated. We had Nandos inside and I tried the Saka sauce, which was a must of course. After Battersea, we crossed the Thames into the Chelsea where we were on the hunt for side streets with cute colourful houses and hopefully some wisteria hysteria. We found exactly what we were looking for in Smith Terrace, Burnsall & Godfrey Street, Bywater Street and Lennox Gardens Mews. After roaming around in those charming little streets, we headed to the underground at Knightsbridge and took the Piccadilly line straight to our good old stomping grounds in North London. It was time for business now.

Walking down the familiar streets around the Emirates when it's super nice and sunny out? Hard to beat! Then it was time for the game to start. North London Forever and off we go. Eze's goal was fantastic of course and we were quite lucky that they celebrated at our corner since the away fans are over there and we were seated above them. The game itself wasn't the best and the team's seemingly lack of urgency made it quite nervous so even though we weren't fully satisfied, three points are three points and absolutely vital at this stage.