Heading Home

TGI editor Ken Palmer is in London to follow the Giants’ European Vacation. Here’s the fifth and final day of his daily diary.

London Day 5: Before leaving London for their 4:30 p.m. flight back to New Jersey, Tom Coughlin and two of his key players met the media at their team hotel for a final London press conference. First Eli Manning, then Justin Tuck and Tom Coughlin conducted interviews at the Marriott Grosvenor House Hotel.

“It’ll be good to get home,” Manning said. “It was a fun trip. It has been neat. It was a good experience. The people here enjoyed it.”

Tuck said the Giants were plenty comfortable playing in Wembley Stadium.

“It really didn’t feel like we were out of the States,” he said. “It’s a great honor to be one of the first teams to play out of the States.”

As for Coughlin, he just seemed relieved that it was all over.

“To win is the key,” he said. “We came to win. We did win.”

Coughlin believes the adversity created by his team playing an overseas game can only help down the stretch.

“I think it (helps), especially when you are victorious,” he stated.

As for TGI, we spent our final full day in London touring Westminster Abbey and Parliament, and taking a ride on the London Eye. The Abbey was impressive, to say the least. Big Ben was equally awe-inspiring, as was the House of Lords – besides the fact that the waste management debate we observed was far from intriguing. The London Eye is the world’s largest observation wheel, towering 130 meters in the air. On a rare clear and sunny day, the sights were downright beautiful. We started off our final night at a famous bar called Cheers.

What a great trip it was. See you on the other side of the pond.