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.
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