Day 11 - Canoeing and the rain

We’ve been extremely lucky with the weather on our trip and despite our little rain storm today, I’d say we’re still on a good streak. Our adventure today began in our little “Closet” as we like to call it. After we had breakfast we headed to the Lee Valley Whitewater Center to watch Canoe Slalom. We ended up having to take a train to one station, a second train and then a third train to where we got to walk. From the final train station to the event entrance, it was probably a 25 minute walk through a field along a lake. It was actually a pretty walk but it seemed longer than it should have been.  Along the way was a giant chair where we got a picture of Jarret sitting on it. Once we got to the event, we had pretty good seats. It was a little far from where they finish but you could still see all the action on one of the 2 giant TV’s. It’s pretty amazing how those guys can maneuver a kayak or canoe around a series of gates without touching them. The US participant didn’t make it out of the rounds yesterday so we had to root for Great Britain. As Great Britain’s racer came up, the crowd cheered the whole way. Unfortunately, he didn’t make the second cut and couldn’t race for a medal. The winner was from France and he has won it for the last 3 Olympics, I think.  12 men started in the first round and it was cut down to the top 8. From there it was basically a sudden death situation, the fastest one down the course wins. You get one run, winner takes it all.

Right after the race was over and before the Victory Ceremony began, the rain started. First it was just spitting a little bit and then all of a sudden it started to downpour. Up went the umbrellas and on went the raincoats. After about 10 minutes, it slowed down and then stopped. We stayed mostly dry, all except Rylee who got her pants wet and we had to listen to her wanting to go and change them at the hotel for another couple hours. You’d think with her AP bio class she’d learn that wet things eventually dry….oh well.

One of the nice things about this event was that it was a medal event. Because of this, we got to see the Gold, Silver and Bronze medals awarded after the race was over. It is always neat to see the flags raised for the three winners as the national anthem for the winner is played. Even if your country isn’t on the stand, it’s very special.

We headed back home along the long walk with the throngs of people all moving in the same direction. There was a helicopter above use hovering, I’m guessing taking some pictures. It would have made for a good picture to see a string of people probably a mile and a half long.

There have been tons of volunteers and they’re always happy, laughing and keeping the crowd in a good mood. I’m not sure they all know what’s going on however. We’ve asked a number of questions from being able to get tickets to the Olympic Park to transportation questions. The more I ask, the more I have the feeling that I should just get the information on the internet and trust what I learn. They mean well but they don’t always give you the correct answer. We did get to our event and get home with their help so it can’t be too bad.

As we were heading home, we tried to stop at a ticket office by the Olympic Park only to find out they don’t sell tickets. They just issue them from people that buy them over the internet. You can’t get into the Olympic Park unless you either have a ticket for an event there or a ticket for just the Olympic Park. Since both are hard to get now, Jill and Rylee may end up at the mall that’s just by the Olympic Park while Jarret and I go to the swimming event tomorrow. I’m not giving up hope but it’s looking more and more like that will be the plan. One thing we haven’t seen is people selling tickets at the venue. It sounds like there can be a pretty big fine if they do so they must be selling them some other way. Either way, I think it’s going to be hard for us to pick up a couple at this late date.

We headed back to the hotel with just enough time to send KHQ some pictures for a Skype session we were going to do. We found a place right by the hotel that is a dock area for boats and houseboats that is attached to the river Thames. It’s a really quaint area that is very nice even though it used to be very run down. We got a recommendation from someone telling us we should go to the Grapes Pub. Apparently Sir Ian McKellan is part owner of it.  We thought was a great idea so we walked in with the kids and all heads turned to us. It turns out this establishment doesn’t have a license to allow anyone under 18 years old. It was a little odd but we went on our way.  As we were walking back, there was an area where a couple bike paths come together. So we looked right and left and right and still almost got hit by a couple of bikes. At one other point a bicyclist had to veer off his path so he wouldn’t run into us. I just yelled “American In The Road”, I heard him laugh as he rode on so it must not have been that bad. We finished up with dinner at an Indian Italian restaurant. We just ordered some appetizers for all of us to split. When they brought finger bowls for us to use, the kids didn’t believe us. The waiter also put Rylee’s napkin on her lap for her. The look on her face was priceless. During the meal at one point in the discussion, Rylee turned to Jarret and in a half joking manner said “It makes me sad when you plug your ears when I talk to you”, and in a split instant Jarret lays out “ Well, it makes me happy when you’re sad” That’s kind of how this trip has gone. They needle each other quite a bit but in the end, they can laugh about it.

The last excitement for the night was at 11:00 PM, I’m writing the blog, Jarret is almost asleep, Jill’s almost ready for bed and Rylee is just getting out of the shower and all of a sudden the hotel alarm goes off. Rylee comes out of the shower in a towel and says let’s go! I tell Rylee she has time to put on some clothes, Jill and Jarret get dressed quick and I grab the backpack with all our info in it. The hotel can burn to the ground but I’m going to make sure we can get to our next event.  Jill poked her head out into the hallway, as did several other guests.  No one was running for the stairs.  A call to the front desk allayed our fears that no, the hotel was not burning down.  A guest accidentally pushed the alarm.  Needless to say, we’re having a good time laughing about it. Rylee said she’s never gotten ready so quickly…..maybe tomorrow we’ll have them set off a fire alarm about the time that we want to leave. Rylee might just be ready on time for once…. Oh well, it was just a false alarm. Hopefully it won’t happen again tonight as we’re sleeping.

 Awards ceremony. Winners on the podium

 View of boats in the harbor by our hotel

 Just a railing

 Picture up the Thames

 Jarret in a big chair

 Lake on our walk from the train station to the canoeing event

 Whitewater course

 Red, White and Blue

Day 10 - Our first event

We had another great day. First of all, we had an American type of breakfast. At the hotel, they have a breakfast that's complimentary and they had cereal, sausage, eggs and toast. It was really nice to have some normal food for a change. We decided to go to the Olympic Park, where our event was, so that we could enjoy it as long as we could. You have to have a ticket to get into the Olympic Park, either for an event or just a single Olympic Park ticket. This may be the only time all four of us can get into the Olympic park so we wanted to take advantage of it.

First of all, the transportation to the Olympic venues is really easy and convenient. There are also hundreds of volunteers helping you get to where you're going. The trains are so much nicer and cleaner than they were in Paris. Once you get to the train station by the Olympic Park, it's a little bit of a walk before you can get in. You only have to go through security once, which is really nice. The Olympic Park is really large. We never got to see the whole thing. There are also thousands of people in it. For as many people as were there, we still were able to get around without any problem. The walkways are very wide and it's easy to get where you want to go.

We started by looking at a big map and Jarret found where the Today show was taping....so we decided to go take a look. We got there about 11:30 and the sign said they were taping at 12:00. There was nobody waiting so we decided to wait it out. One of the employees told us where a good place to stand was and another employee gave us something to make a sign. We waited and and the stars of the Today came trickling out. It was fun to see them and get to talk to them briefly. I'm sure they do this every show but it was nice to see them banter with the crowd. Also, there were some US Olympic medal winners that walked around the crowd. Brendan Hansen, a swimmer who won a bronze medal, walked through the crowd and let people touch and hold his medal. It was a really neat thing for him to do. Rylee even got to hold the medal and we got a picture with them both.

Jill has always liked Matt Lauer and she finally got to meet him and talk to him for a minute. Al Roker worked the crowd as did Natalie Morales and Savannah Guthrie. Also, Ryan Seacrest was there and we got to shake his hand. Meredith Viera was there also. Jill really likes her as well so she gave her one of the pens I made. We were very fortunate to be in the right place at the right time to watch the Today show. It's happened that way quite a few times on this trip.

We needed some food so we hit one of the vendors. After getting some Pizza, we headed up to the lawn area where we could watch the big screen TV with thousands of other fans. We also tried to Skype with KHQ at this point. We were almost ready to do it live when we lost our signal. It was too bad but we figured we'd try later.

We headed to the London 2012 Megastore to buy some gifts. There was a long line where you wind back and forth before you get into the store. We kept walking and didn't have to wait but probably had to walk in the queue line for about 5 minutes. The store had a ton of stuff but there were many sizes of shirts that weren't there because they couldn't stock the shelves as fast as things were disappearing. We also noticed that a little bit when we were trying to order food. It seems like they were caught off guard with the number of people but I'm not sure how you prepare for an onslaught of that many people. I'm just guessing but there were probably over 100000 people in the park.

After the store, we got a message from KHQ and that's when we did the Skype session. It worked out pretty good except it was a little hard to hear. Also, it would have been nice if I combed my hair but the wind was blowing anyway so it didn't matter.

We headed off to our event, the Men's Hockey game. When we got there and I took a close look at the tickets, I discovered that one of the tickets was in a different area. When I got the tickets, I didn't look that close at them. They're all in the same section, they were just in a different row. When we go to Canoeing today, we'll also have to sit apart. However, it looks like we'll only be one row and 6 seats apart this time. The rest of the events, our tickets are together.

Hockey is an interesting sport. They play it on Astroturf that they keep wet. It helps make the ball go faster. The ball can't hit another players foot. If it hits another players foot inside of the half round circle by the net, the team gets a Penalty Corner. For that, the team guarding the net has players that put on some protective gear, helmets, pads and cups, and then the other team gets a shot at scoring. It's a fast paced game with a very hard ball. We saw one guy get hit in the head with the ball and they took him off in a stretcher. I hope he was OK. The first game we saw was Great Britian versus Argentina. It was fun because we were watching the home team. Great Britian won 4-1. At the second game, a lot of people left so Jill and the kids came down where I was sitting so we all got to enjoy it together. Jill ended up sitting next to someone from the US that sounded like he was helping the US team, maybe with some scouting of opponents.

The event finally ended, we made our way out of the park and back to our "Closet" as we like to call it. It was a another great day.

 Olympic rings from the side of the Aquatic Centre

 Boat might have been used to haul the Olympic flame

 Olympic Stadium and the Orbit

 Savannah Guthrie from the Today show

 Matt Lauer talking to Jill....she finally got to talk to him....he's her favorite...I'm not jealous but did you know he doesn't wear socks!

 Al Roker

 Natalie Morales

 Ryan Seacrest

 Meredith Viera signing Jarret's sign.

 The Basketball Arena

 Olympic Rings on the Basketball Arena

 Velodrome

 Family Pic

 Go USA!

 Big Screen for people to watch

 US Flag at the Riverbank Arena

 Hockey

 Nice sunset at Hockey arena

 Getting ready for a Penalty Corner

 Coca-Cola exhibit at night

 Basketball Arena at night

 View of the Water Polo and Aquatics Centre

The Olympic Stadium and Orbit

Rylee holding Brendan Hansen's Bronze 2012 Medal

Day 9 - Back to London

Day 9

London Bound          

I was a little premature on the Perfect Day in Paris post… I had two glasses of Cabernet and that ended the day with perfection…

I’m writing this as we are on the Eurostar, heading back to London. We have seats with a table in the middle, so it makes it a little easier, even though it’s only a two hour train ride. I got one last look at the Eiffel Tower as we were in the countryside; it’s a little hard to spot, but it’s there. We started the day by getting up a little early, since we wanted to do a couple of things before we had to leave. First off it was time to find some food. We really didn’t want a sit down restaurant since that would take too much time. Yes, we should be drawn and quartered, but we decided on McDonald’s at about 9:30 AM because it was the only thing open.  We walked in to order a couple Egg McMuffins only to find out it would be a 20 minute wait, but then they said they couldn’t make them. We figured if they couldn’t make them, we’d go somewhere else. There was a Quick restaurant, but we found out they didn’t open until 11:00. We discovered that on a Sunday morning there’s not much open. We did find a market, though, and settled on bananas, Special K bars and some juice or yogurt drink….the breakfast of champions. From there we boarded the Metro to Notre Dame. Once we got back up to street level, we found an interesting thing for the Olympics. They were showing some events live in a square on a giant television. They had chairs and big bean bag chairs that you could plop down on and watch the events as they unfold. We consumed our morning meal as we watched Table Tennis.

Notre Dame was a special moment on the trip. I had read somewhere that Notre Dame didn’t compare to some of the other churches, but we caught it at a special time.  You can walk into the church for free, and we discovered that there was a service going on at the same time. You can take pictures as long as there is no flash, which was unique compared to the other churches we visited. Most don’t allow you to take pictures at all. Anyway, we were able to hear the priest talk and sing, and we were also able to hear the organ. It was an amazing experience to hear it in that giant church. There were incredible stained glass windows throughout and the tall arches were spectacular. I hope I was able to take some pictures that capture it a little bit. I was also able to take a little video on my iPhone that I hope can let you hear what it was like. We saw a sign that Notre Dame was celebrating it’s 850^th anniversary…..no I didn’t type that incorrectly. We feel so lucky that we decided to make a trip there to see it.

We walked around Notre Dame a little bit and saw some street performers, flower markets, pet stores, and plant shops. All the little things that people that live there need for their daily lives. We also walked along the Seine river and crossed the Pont Neuf bridge on foot so that we could take in the sites. The Pont Neuf bridge is the oldest in Paris and has survived numerous floods from the river Seine.  At this point, it was time to go back to the hotel and get checked out. We still had a little time before we had to get to the train station, but we needed to relinquish our room.

After checking the bags, we decided to take one last walk along a canal that was a couple blocks from our hotel. It was very interesting to see. There were a series of locks that allowed boats to travel on the canal……Oh we just entered our trip in the Chunnel…… We were lucky in that we were able to follow one boat as it went through the locks. The boat entered, tied up to the side, and then was lowered to the next level as the water was released into the lower lock. Once the water was level, the big gates opened up and the boat could continue on. The last point we saw was the boat going into a tunnel that was still part of the canal. From there I don’t know where the boat would end up because 100 feet on the other side of the street was a park where the canal should be. We finally decided we had to leave Paris and headed for the train stop. No issues (which if you know me and border crossings – is a good thing), other than not being able to understand the English speaking border agent. We’ll head to our London hotel for the remaining 5 days of our trip.

Jill and I were both talking on the train and have come to the same point of view. Paris is an amazing place that we’re so fortunate to experience but I don’t think we’d go back just to see it again. While there’s so much amazing history and sites, it’s a really dirty and crowded city. I think there would be more places that we’d like to go and experience. Despite the person that tried to scold Jarret because he must have cut her off as we’re taking our luggage to the Metro (he didn’t know what he did and I think she was just in a bad mood), the people there were very nice. I’d heard a lot about the attitudes of Parisians towards Americans, but we just didn’t experience any of it. Maybe it was because we had kids along with us or because we tried to speak the language a little bit. Also, nobody got their pockets picked.

There was one funny moment that the kids keep bringing up when we ordered dinner the other night. The waiter came up, I threw out a “Bonjour” and felt pretty good about myself……until he rattled off something in French that I had no idea about. The kids said the look on my face was priceless until the waiter said “English?” and we gratefully nodded. Maybe my  “Bonjour” was so authentic that he couldn’t tell I was an American…at least that’s what I’m going with.

The other funny thing is that the kids have nicknamed each other. Rylee has named Jarret “No Finish Jarret” because whatever he orders he doesn’t finish. Can’t eat the fries, can’t finish the crust, or can’t drink all of his pop. I finally told Jarret he doesn’t get to order pop anymore because he doesn’t finish it. Jarret on the other hand has nicknamed Rylee “No Try Ry” because she won’t try anything new. She’s sick of ham and cheese sandwiches, but won’t branch out to anything else (no escargot for me!). In fact, by mistake on the train, she got another ham and cheese pretzel. Oh well, maybe someday she’ll learn trying new things isn’t all that bad.

Oh, just popped out on the other side of the English Channel and are now in England.

As I’m thinking about our adventure, Jarret did something funny as we’re using the Metro. We have these little tickets that you put into the machine, it pops out the other end, and you grab it before you exit into the subway. As Jarret was getting his ticket ready he sang “ I’ve got a golden ticket…..” which you probably know is a reference to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

Jarret did come up with our Walter Emergency Plan in regards to riding the subways.  Ever the thinker and problem-solver, he came up with this plan about our second day in London.  If one of us doesn’t make it on to the subway (which, if you’ve ever ridden the tube or the Metro, this will make sense), then whoever is on the subway will get off at the next stop.  Whoever got left behind will get on the next subway and get off at the next stop, so we would all be together again.  Smart huh? Thankfully, we haven’t had to put his plan into use yet.  Our Walter routine is to enter the subway as quickly as possible, sit or stand as close to a door as possible, then get off quickly and run to the wall for our Walter family meeting.  We would come up with our game plan, then break, and off we’d go.  It’s been working well so far. But I do wish they had more lifts or escalators so we wouldn’t have to lug our big, heavy bags up all those stairs.

Some of the keys to traveling together and keeping the kids happy are to always feed them, separate them whenever possible, and say things like, “we’ll be there soon” or “I think it’s just around this corner”.  Hmm, these are some of the things we did when they were toddlers…

Well, au revoir, Paris!  And hello London again J

We just got into our hotel, did some laundry to get us through the rest of the week and are having a pizza delivered. Our hotel room is really small by our standards but it’s clean and should be comfortable enough. Jarret might end up sleeping on the floor on a cushion instead of the sofa hide-a-bed but we’ll see how that goes. Also, I did a Skype session tonight with Dave Cotton from KHQ. We’re going to send in a few pictures and Skype with him on the 6 AM news broadcast tomorrow morning. He said we’d be on between 6 and 6:15 so keep an eye out for us. Not sure where we’ll be but hopefully we’ll be somewhere interesting.

 Notre Dame

 Inside the church

 Performing the service

 Beautiful stained glass

 Point Zero at Notre Dame. The point where all places are measured from the city of Paris

 Notre Dame

 Street performer by Notre Dame - pretty amazing and had to leave some money for him

 Pont Neuf bridge

 Statue in front of our hotel that is in the midst of renovation. Check out the graffiti on the lion and statue

 The canal where we walked

 The canal

 Olympic rings at St Pancras station where the Eurostar arrived.

 In St Pancras station