2012 Summer Olympics (Vol. 1)
Here we go! Saw this in the main train station...what a greeting! The Olympic rings represent two things: one circle for each ofthe five continents, and each color is at least one color on every flag of the world.
First stop: The Pasty Shop! Here's my friend Andy, who was my travel buddy for the Olympics. I told him we had to go here, first thing.
This is a Cornwall Pasty (pronounced "past-ee", like "fast-ee"). As quickly available as any fast food, but looks and tastes as good as any homecooked meal.
Old meets new. Special lanes were repainted and dedicated solely for Olympic vehicles.
The Tower Bridge with Olympic rings! What a great iconic scene. Just for good measure, they floated another set of rings out on the Thames. Just in case you didn't know what was going on.
We went to Victoria Park to watch the Opening Ceremonies on a huge outdoor screen. Several thousand people had the same idea. It took over an hour to get to that white tent ahead to enter the park.
Everybody is really excited to watch the Opening Ceremonies!
Nothing like a flyover to get the festivities started.
Front row seats for the big event! Check out Olympic Stadium...wow!
The Olympic rings come together and shower the stadium with sparks...a scene I'll never forget.
The Olympic Flame takes shape!
Beach Volleyball
Time to hit the events! Beach Volleyball was my first, and turned out to be one of my favorites.
Some larger than life statues of volleyball legends. On the right is Kerry Walsh. USA!
This is one of the best venues of the entire Olympics - the beach volleyball court at Horse Guard's Parade. HGP is an iconic British location, and to have one of the most exciting sports at this venue was really exciting. Here's the guys doing there thing. Spike town!
And of course...ladies volleyball! Throughout the day, we saw for different matches. Two men's, two women's.
I found these Union Jack glasses and started taking pics in the most touristy of places :)
Flying the Olympic flag in Central London.
Cental London on the Thames river. London Eye to the left, Big Ben to the right.
And of course, one with me, just to prove I was there :)
The famed red phone booths of London. Perhaps my most touristy pic of the whole trip.
The beach volleyball dancers finish putting on a show during a timeout!
Whereever you go, American fans become instant friends!
The eventual gold medal winners Misty May Treanor and Kerri Walsh of the USA!
Table Tennis
Table Tennis, aka Ping Pong, may seem like a fun backyard sport, but for many nations, it's super serious sport. The Asain countries, particularly China, have dominated for years. (China won again this year). I expected the play to be kind of intense (you remember when Forrest Gump when to China, right?), but I never expected the crowd to be so enthusiastic! Everyone was cheering at the top of their lungs.
Check out the intensity here. The guy in purple serving the ball has just risen from being eye-level with the table, where he held the ball in the palm of his hand like a precious jewel and studied it for a few seconds. Here he's about to serve it to the guy in red, crouching like a Bengal tiger, waiting to receive the little plastic ball.
They got even farther back from the table than this. So intense!
Table Tennis took place in the ExCel center, which is a big convention center-type building where about 10 different sports took place at once in different halls. Here's boxing. I never went to see this, but because of all the different weight categories, there were so many bouts and it was always packed.
Leaving the ExCel center. So many people
There are definitely more pubs in London that any other kind of establishment. And they have the coolest beer pulls too.
Out with Andy and our friend Charlie!
Can't win 'em all.
Volleyball
Indoor Volleyball took place at Earl's Court in southwest London. Check out the military here. They were called in to do bag checks and metal detector duty when the security originally hired turned out to be not enough.
So indoor Volleyball is played with 5 people instead of two, and it's a lot more intense. Way more people screaming, blocking, and spiking. Intense, for sure. Here the women throw up a pretty sweet roof block.
Also, notice all the empty seats. This was the third day of competition, and by then there were a lot of people upset at all the empty seats in venues. A lot of them were for corporations who ended up not using them. The Games organizers remedied this... first by filling the seats with military personnel (not a popular fix), to eventually releasing more tickets to be sold as the Games went on (a more popular fix).
Some military guys check out the current standings.
A little collage showing some various posters hanging around Earl's Court. Don't even think about messing with that Russian girl.
The installation art piece sat outside one of the venues. I wasn't sure exactly it meant, but I kinda agree - we all did want to be the sky.
I got to hold the Olympic torch! Where am I looking though? Haha
There's the military out there, making sure everything is a-ok.
The subway (aka Underground) arrives to take us away. Because it was going so fast, it looks like it's leaning forward as the pic was snapped.
Soccer (aka Football)
Lots and lots of people crowded on to subways every day on the way to events. Here we are in north London headed to Webley Field.
Webley Field is big..really big.
Live soccer is really cool...especially when one of the teams is a home team! Women's British team here.
Packed on this side. Although, you can see in the other picture some empty seats. There was some drama during the initial days of the Games about empty seats in venues. Wembley is just so big though, I think they sold as many as they could.
Super close seats!
Gotta love how the Olympics makes patriotism even that much cooler.
The MASSIVE sea of people leaving after the game. Took about 30-40 min to get to the subway, what was originally probably an 8 min walk. Everyone was in good spirits though - Team GB won!
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