Olympic Fever

We couldn’t have been luckier with the timing of our move to England, getting to be to experience the London 2012 games first hand.  We have thoroughly enjoyed the spirit.

We kicked off the Olympics by watching the opening ceremonies on TV with friends.

We then went into London on Saturday the 27th to wander around the city and enjoy the atmosphere.  It was fun taking the tube and seeing people wearing ID badges identifying them as official photographers, coaches and athletes.  After a lovely dinner with John’s parents, we finally met up with friends Jane and Duk for drinks at a pub (where, we watched more Olympics).

(I have to say, our meeting with Jane and Duk has been long overdue.  Jane and I were introduced back home by my former prof, who knew we were both Canadian dietitians applying for British licenses and preparing to move to England around the same time with our boyfriends.  Jane and Duk ended up in Manchester area for their first months, so we just kept missing each other, but kept in good touch over email.  It has been fantastic to have Jane as a support system as took the same uphill battle together qualifying as UK RDs and finding our first jobs!)

Last weekend, August 4th ad 5th, we headed back into London again, this time having tickets.  While hard to get, it is handy having Mr. Sport himself around, who always seems to know the ins and outs of obtaining any sports ticket…

Before our first event, we met up for lunch and drinks with our friend Bryce and John’s parents.  We dressed to show our Canadian pride, and were impressed with a) how many other Canadians we saw/met; and b) how friendly Brits were to us– at the pub, they cheered on team Canada with us while watching a few events on TV.

Linda was a good sport and got into the spirit with us!

We then headed to Horse Guard Parade, near Trafalgar Square, to watch 2 beach volleyball games.  (Mens- Germany vs Latvia and Women’s- Czech Republic vs Brazil).

Our seats were amazing, and we lucked out with the weather– warm and sunny.  (Spectators at last night’s game looked miserable in the in the pouring rain!)  The event and crowd were energetic and fun– lots of music between plays, and some dancers wearing vintage swimsuits between sets like cheerleaders.

After the game, we passed Canada House, near Trafalgar Square:

(but unfortunately it wasn’t open to the public).

We ended up wandering back to the pub to meet up with Bryce and his friend…who hadn’t moved since we left him a few hours ago.  He said the vibe of the pub was fantastic– and when Team GB won a gold metal, a random man bought the whole pub a round of drinks.

We got back to Basingstoke around midnight, and caught a few hours sleep before catching an early train in to London.  We headed up to the North of the city to Wembley Arena, where we watched 2 Bronze-medal badminton matches: men’s singles (China vs South Korea) and men’s doubles (South Korea vs Malaysia).  Never having really watched high calibre badminton before, I was impressed with its speed… and found it interesting how the game differed between singles and doubles.  Doubles seemed much more aggressive, lots more hard slamming of the birdie– I guess because the players don’t have to run around as much having a teammate to cover half the ground.

After our morning match, we grabbed a quick bite in Borough Market, which is close to London Bridge.  This gave us a good view of Tower Bridge, which was all dressed up for the games:

Finally, we met up with Bryce once more and headed to Hyde Park, where a free viewing area was set up for the public.  Wood chips had been layed all over the ground to avoid mud, and 4 massive screens were set up so multiple events could be shown at once.  We brought some towels to sit on and relaxed a little in the sun, watching the men’s tennis gold medal match.

When the British player won gold, the crowd went wild and we were surprised with the release of streamers!

While we had a fantastic time going to events and hanging out in London, I have to say one of my favourite moments of the game was watching the men’s 8s rowing online on someone’s computer at work at lunch last week.  All my coworkers and I were crowded around the little screen, and Great Britain was in the lead.  “Don’t worry Amanda,” they all told me, “Canada might still get the bronze.”   And then all of a sudden, team Canada cranked it up a notch, zooming by Britain and stealing their lead to win the silver medal…

Amanda