We started the day by trying to get some tickets for an event
in the Olympic Park that Jill and Rylee could attend. If you have a ticket, you
can enter the Olympic park. If you don’t have a ticket, you can’t get in. It
looks like the 2012 Olympic site releases tickets each day but we were unable
to get any. Without two tickets, Jill and Rylee were going to have to go
shopping at the big mall just outside the Olympic Park while Jarret and I went
to the swimming event. I felt bad that we all couldn’t attend but we tried
really hard to get some tickets and it just didn’t work out. There’s been a lot
of negative press concerning the tickets and how they’re being distributed. It
sounds like there are a lot of events where tickets are being unused and the
arena is partially empty. Quite a few of these tickets went to sponsors and not
the general public and now the public is upset. I don’t blame them. That was a
bad.
Today we had time in the morning and the afternoon to kill
before the swimming event in the evening. We didn’t want to go too far so we
found that there was a Live London site where they have music and activities
and show the games on a big screen TV. It was at a place called Victoria Park
that wasn’t too far from either our hotel or the Olympic park. We took the rail
and tube to get there and then started following the signs. At one point, there
was a sign that said – to London Live via the Floating Market, so we decided to
take this route. It was a nice little walk along a canal that eventually leads
to the Limehouse Basin with the houseboats that is near our hotel. The
interesting thing about the Floating Market is that in the canal are boats that
sell things. Books, hats and different types of food are the ones that we saw.
There wasn’t much activity. I don’t know if it was because it was a weekday or
because the weather wasn’t that good. It would be a unique experience to see
when everything was open.
We worked our way into the park to where the Live London
site was and had to go through security. One of the questions the person asked
me was do I have any deodorant? Not understanding exactly what he was asking I
said “ Do I need it?” and he took a sniff as a joke. What he really meant was
do we have any aerosol cans. The other thing that actually did cause us a
problem was our video camera. It turns out that you can’t take a video camera
into the London Live site. He was polite and asked his supervisor but they said
no even though I said I wouldn’t use it and that we didn’t have any place that
we could leave it. I did ask about cell phones that take video and they said
those are fine. It really ticked us off. It makes no sense that a video taken
by cell is fine but one taken by a video camera isn’t. That was the bad.
We did manage to see the mayor of London and I thought Jill
was going to go up to him and ask him if he knew about that policy. We just
decided to go on our merry way and not spend any money with them.
As we headed back, it was getting around lunch time and we
had passed a restaurant called the Greedy Cow. Since Rylee’s into cows, she
wanted to go there. The place was really small but it was mainly a hamburger
place in the afternoon. Man they made a great burger, in fact it was probably
one of the best ones I’ve had in a long time. The waiter said they were very
happy to hear that Americans like their hamburgers since the hamburger was
basically created in the states. If we had gotten into London Live, we probably
would have never gone to this restaurant. That was a good.
After lunch we had more time to kill. We took a train to
Canary Wharf. We’d heard it was famous but we weren’t sure why. I pictured
something like the piers in Seattle. It was totally different. Our previous
excursions in London were mainly in the older part. Big buildings, old
monuments, and large bridges were what we had been accustomed to seeing. This
wasn’t the case at Canary Wharf. You could get down to the water but it was
mainly a big business and financial area with lots of professionals and new
buildings. We walked around a little bit and caught part of a cycling event on
a big screen. Bradley Wiggins won gold in his race and the crowd cheered and
then slowly drifted off back to work. It was fun to watch. This was good.
We finally headed back to the Olympic Park so that Jarret
and I could attend swimming. Before we headed out, we got our game plan on
where to meet up after it was over. We also were going to Skype with KHQ again
but it didn’t work out because I guess there was a grass fire in Spokane that
they were covering. Jarret and I headed to the swimming event and Rylee and
Jill were going to spend time in the mall. All four of us not being able to see
the event was bad.
The Aquatics Centre has been built with temporary seating so
that they can get as many people as they can in there to watch the event. We
ended up sitting 4 rows from the top. We’ve been on some climbs this trip and
this one was as hard as any of them. Maybe it was because I was lugging the
backpack this time or because I’m just tired of going up stairs, either way I’m
glad I went to the bathroom and got some food before the climb since there is
nothing up there other than seats. It was a long distance between where we were
and the pool but you could still see all of the lanes in the pool. Once the
Olympics are over, I think I’ve heard they’ll remove the temporary seats so
that it’s quite a bit smaller. One other thing that was frustrating was that
the two seats next to me were empty the whole time. That’s pretty ironic that
we’ve been looking for two seats for over a year and they ended up being right
next to me. That was bad.
The actual event was fantastic. When one of the British
swimmers took second, the crowd exploded. It was really fun to be a part of it.
In the middle of one of the events, I got a Skype call from KHQ. I couldn’t
hear him. I just answered the phone and turned up the volume so that they could
hear the crowd roar. I think they got a kick out of it but I was able to hear
that they wanted to try it again at 12:00 PM Pacific Time. He did call and we
did Skype for just a minute because it got noisy again and I couldn’t hear what
he was saying. In two of the races, Americans won gold and it was really fun to
watch. Both the race and the reaction of the crowd were very fun. After the
final race, they awarded the gold, silver and bronze medals to the winners. It’s
really quite special to see the athletes from your country win a gold medal and
be able to hear your national anthem. In all of the commercialism of sports,
it’s heartwarming to see that playing for their country still means something
to them. It also make us fans feel special too. Thanks to all the athletes for
their hard work and thanks to Jill and Rylee for taking one for the team. It
was also special to share that event with Jarret. This was really good.
Today the good outweighed the bad. We’ve only got a couple
days left and we’re starting to get that “It’ll be good to be home” feeling. I’ll
probably post some pictures tomorrow since it’s so late now. Heading to sleep
and looking forward to Volleyball tomorrow.
Woke up and posted the pictures from yesterday.
Floating Market with boats that sell foods and goods
Check out the giant spoon
A pretty picture along the canal
Victoria Park
The Mayor of London
View from Canary Wharf
The family
View of central London from Canary Wharf
Another one
Trying to get a picture of the kids
Still trying.....
Finally
Businessmen watching Bradley Wiggins win his gold medal
Unique taxi
The Aquatics Centre
Rings at the Aquatics Centre
Proof that we were actually there
View from the cheap seats
It's a start
Men's USA gold medal winner
Women relay team on the podium
Picture of the diving boards
Jarret at the arena
Night picture of Olympic Stadium and the orbit bathed in Red, White and Blue just for us
The Aquatics Centre
Woke up and posted the pictures from yesterday.
Floating Market with boats that sell foods and goods
Check out the giant spoon
A pretty picture along the canal
Victoria Park
The Mayor of London
Great Burger
Jarret's unique way of holding on to something on the subwayView from Canary Wharf
The family
View of central London from Canary Wharf
Another one
Trying to get a picture of the kids
Still trying.....
Finally
Businessmen watching Bradley Wiggins win his gold medal
Unique taxi
The Aquatics Centre
Rings at the Aquatics Centre
Proof that we were actually there
View from the cheap seats
It's a start
Men's USA gold medal winner
Women relay team on the podium
Picture of the diving boards
Jarret at the arena
Night picture of Olympic Stadium and the orbit bathed in Red, White and Blue just for us
The Aquatics Centre
The Orbit
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