Friends, US Open, and Stretch Limos

The 2009 US Open was held here in New York, August 31st - September 13th. I was really excited that the tournament was here and had planned to buy a ticket and go solo. I sent an email to my tennis coach and friend, Brecht who lives back in Jacksonville, to see if by chance he had any plans on going. He didn’t really have any solid plans to come up for the tournament, but said it was something he had always wanted to do. So he and our friend Jessica booked a flight to arrive September 8th.

When they arrived that morning, I was just getting off my night shift. I headed over to meet them at their hotel in Queens, which had scary hallways that looked like the Shining :) Brecht booked a double room so I could crash at the hotel with them. We slept for a few hours and then headed out to the Open early that afternoon. The stadium grounds were very impressive. The first thing we saw as we walked towards the main entrance was an amazing huge steel globe sculpture surrounded by fountains and beautiful gardens. Once we walked into the gates, we were standing in front of a huge arena and to the sides of the arena were other small courts and restaurants.

We immediately went to get drinks and a ton of food. Then made our way to the seats, which were awesome! We had a great view of the courts and the weather could not have been more perfect. The first match we watched was Cilic vs Murray. After the match, we took a walk around, ate more food, and found the practice courts. There we saw Serena Williams, Federer, and McEnroe practicing side-by-side. It was so amazing to see them all practicing on the same court, I was in awe. After exploring the grounds a little more, we headed back to the hotel to get some rest.

Once we were all rested, we got ready and headed down to the lobby to order a town car to drive us into the city. The concierge arranged for a car to pick us up, but instead a white stretch limo pulled up and agreed to drive us in for the same price as the town car, talk about lucky! We had the driver drop us off at Rockefeller center. We had a couple of drinks at the very cute Rink Bar and then went to the observatory at the Top of the Rock. The views were absolutely beautiful that night. Afterwards we had a really nice dinner at a restaurant near time square and headed back to the hotel. The next day I headed off to work and they flew out to their next destination.

I had such an amazing 24 hours with Brecht and Jessica. The US Open was a memorable experience that I will never forget. I'm so glad I was able to enjoy it with friends. Pics below, enjoy!