Our Once-in-a-Lifetime Olympic Experience

Posted by Chelsie on Aug 13, 2012 | 5 comments

We keep saying to ourselves that we can’t believe we’ve been in London for less than 48 hours. We have experienced so much that it feels like we’ve been here a week already. Today we pretty much only did one really cool thing. As we announced yesterday, we got last-minute tickets to the Olympic goal medal men’s basketball game. As soon as we got up we wasted no time getting some takeaway (that means to-go in British) croissants and coffee from Tom Tom. We then headed to The Tube so we could pickup our tickets from the Will Call center clear across town. Even though we were a few hours early, we decided to go to the arena right away because it was another 45-minute Tube ride away and we have heard lots of warnings here about the public transport getting really congested right before Olympic events start. It turned out to be a really great idea to show up early. We breezed through security, had time to buy some official Olympic merchandise, and ate a pretty tasty lunch at Pizza Express (the restaurant is more upscale than it sounds).

Even though we had found the tickets at the last minute, the seats weren’t bad at all. We were in the first row of one of the higher sections so we had nobody sitting in front of us. You can see our view in the pictures below. There were lots of celebrities in attendance including David Beckham, Jesse Eisenberg, and even Arnold Schwartzenegger who scored a seat right next to the Mayor of London. Both the Spanish and American fans had lots of enthusiasm and the costumes were downright entertaining. The guys with American flag jumpsuits, elbow-length stars and stripes evening gloves, and clown wigs were my favorite. NBA jerseys and cardboard cutouts of Kobe’s head were also popular ways to show support. If you didn’t watch the game on TV, Spain put up a great fight and it was neck and neck right up until the very end where we overtook them and won by 7 points (107 to 100). Just like at a basketball games back home, between periods and time outs, they kept the crowd entertained with dancing, jump rope acrobatics, and even this funny bongo cam where when the camera comes to you, you are supposed to pretend like you are playing the bongo drums. It was quite hilarious really. Immediately following the game, the medal ceremony took place…USA for Gold, Spain for Silver, and Russia for Bronze. It was a once-in-a-lifetime experience to see our flag raised and our national anthem being played for all to hear. Seeing it on TV just doesn’t do the experience justice. It was truly indescribable and something we will never ever forget. It would have been extra nice though if some of our basketball guys knew the actual words. I saw lots of lip synching that didn’t quite match up.

After the game, we sat on a small grass area right outside the stadium and watched all the people come streaming out. We had some more celebrity sightings and got to see the Russian basketball team walking to their vans. It was fun to see all the different types of people from around the world. Since we still weren’t too excited about getting on the hot and crowded Tube, we hitched a ride back into town on a boat and found a highly-rated trendy Mexican restaurant where we had some pretty tasty street tacos. I know what you’re thinking…Mexican in London? We thought the same thing. It definitely didn’t beat the tacos back home, but it was authentic, hit the spot, and was close by so we considered it a win. Finally we headed back to our hotel room so we could catch the Closing Ceremony live on BBC. Overall it was an amazing day. Again, we still can’t believe it’s only been a day and a half since we got here. Rio 2016 anyone?

Cheers,

Chelsie & Andrew

P.S. Andrew added a google maps widget to the right hand side of the page so you can generally see where we are at any given moment. If it always seems like we’re in the same place, that’s because we’re sleeping most of the time you guys would be checking the blog. Enjoy!