Where: London
When: August 4, 2012
Who: Emma and Gemma
For the last year, London has been counting down (literally, this thing has been in Trafalgar Square for a year now).
The entire city has been in celebration mode since the Diamond Jubilee in June. During the Jubilee, the number one reason you knew something good was going on was all the UK flags flying. Well, the UK flags are still there, but it's like the rest of the world joined the party. Flags of several nations joined the Union Jacks to drape every inch of this city, lining streets, squares and even my little apartment building. It we evident there was a party going on.
Additionally, the city has spent the year under full scaffold-clad lockdown. You'd be hard pressed to find a monument, castle or building that wasn't surrounded by a metal lattice framework of construction workers, cleaning, primping and renovating. The reason for all this work? Because this past July, the world turned on their TVs and for two weeks, all eyes were on London for the Olympic games. In case those flags weren't hints enough that Olympic fever had hit London, the signs made it clear.
At work, people lived and breathed for the Olympics. All anyone talked about was how Team GB was doing. People drifted in and out of the office with tales of which events they'd been to or were going to that evening. Meanwhile, those of us who didn't plan ahead were left behind at our computers, switching between live feeds of the games while furiously refreshing the online ticket site in hopes that some last minute seats would miraculously become available. After failed attempts, the nights were spent watching on big screens that popped up all over London, broadcasting the games for all to gather and watch.
Once it became clear that no tickets were going to come our way, Emma and I decided to make our own Olympic day and see all the fun events London had to offer in celebration of the games. To kick off the day, we headed to one of the few free events the Olympics had to offer: the Women's Triathlon at Hyde Park.
We gathered up on the north side of the Serpentine, crowded in with avid fans and mildly interested tourists to partake in the event. The course was crowded, but sloped, so we luckily got a good view.
The race started with a 1.5km swim (.93mi). We couldn't see much of this portion of the race, but what we saw was the good stuff, as the swimmers came around the pylons at the halfway mark.
The final leg was the 10km (6.2mi) run. This time, the ladies only ran the loop 3 times and at that point, you could tell who the probable medalists would be, which made things very exciting.
Gold, silver and bronze went to Switzerland, Sweden and Australia. I caught their country names as they looped around for the final lap. In the following weeks, the final decision on who won gold and silver became a hotly debated topic, making this whole event much more exciting: http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/olympics/19214132
After the race, Emma and I jumped on the track...but only for a second. No 10k's for me, thank you.
We continued our Olympics day by wandering down toward Buckingham Palace and the Mall. Preparations were in order for the Marathon Walk later that day.
Next, we tried to sneak a peak at the Horse Guard's Parade to see the beach volleyball court that had been built, but this was the closest we could get. Instead, we decided to rest our weary feet in the lawn chairs in St. James Park. We knew we weren't allowed to do this for free, but we waited to see how long we could sit until they came and told us to pay or leave. When the little toll man finally came, I played the role of dumb tourist incredibly well, and we left to continue our journey through London.
We made our way down towards the river. On the way, we made a stop at yet another exhibit of flags in front of Big Ben and Parliament before continuing on across the Thames.
Once we reached the south bank, we were very excited to have our first Wenlock/Mandeville sightings! These little mascots were put up all over London, 73 in total, and themed to reflect the area they are in. For example, this was "Ceremonial Speaker Wenlock" in honor of Parliament standing behind him.
Next, we found Underwater Wenlock and Big Ben Wenlock. Wenlock is the official Olympics mascot and was named after a small village in western England that hosted its own version of the Olympic games in 1850, before the modern Olympics was founded.
Continuing down the river, we didn't find anymore Wenlocks, but we did find a book maze in the South Bank Centre.
After looping around the maze (and not getting lost!), we left our mark in the guest book. I went for one finger, Emma went for all five, then immediately regretted when the ink didn't come off.
We left the Southbank Center and then stumbled upon one of the greatest things I've ever seen in my life: a world map made of Lego's. And the best part?? It was free to get a tile, fill in your Lego pieces, and add it to the world map. Emma and I were both in heaven, and are considering leaving our careers to be Lego masters: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNuKJPFtKKU&feature=player_embedded
Each tile had a very specific pattern to follow and you were sent to these big tables covered in green bowls of different colors to fill in a la color-by-number. I was lucky and ended up with the tip of New Zealand, which had a little more going on in the pattern than if I had gotten just a plain blue ocean one like the one Emma got. However, Emma noted a very frustrated 3-year-old and her mother, both losing their patience of an incredibly complicated piece of Africa. We offered a trade, the child was thrilled with something nice and simple, and we set out finding the colors of Africa in the giant green tubs.
The work was a lot slower going than we expected, but we got an efficient operation going, and thoroughly enjoyed the whole thing. At the end, we got add our pieces to the big puzzle
We then had to practically sprint across the bridge towards Covent Garden to meet Gemma. Legos took much longer than we expected.
We met Gemma outside of the Olympic Museum that had been set up temporarily inside the London Opera House. The museum started with history and relics from the original Olympic games in Greece, then explained how the modern Olympics started, had a room with every torch from the modern Olympics, and ended with a series of 16 stories of famous Olympians. It was a really great museum, and ended with us holding the 2012 torch!
To round out our day, we decided to complete one of the Wenlock/Mandeville trails from end to end. We started in Covent Garden with Flower Seller Mandeville and Tourist Wenlock.
Continuing down towards the river, we came upon Busker Wenlock.
Then had a race with just a regular Wenlock. Emma won.
On the river, there was a lovely park. Inside, we fell in love with Somerset House Mandeville, cheered along with Cleopatra's Needle Wenlock. and admired Embankment Wenlock.
At this point, Emma and I found a man selling flags. And after the day we were having, we thought it was only appropriate to buy some for ourselves. We wore them like capes the rest of the day.
It was then time for me to broaden my British horizons with my first taste of a 99er. Basically its just soft serve ice cream in a sugar cone, BUT a Cadbury Flake is added to it for additional uniqueness.
At least we shared a portion of our ice cream with Novel Wenlock.
At Trafalgar Square, we found Trafalgar Wenlock. We also found Lord Nelson was getting into the Olympic spirit, even from the top of his pillar.
At this point, we realised our day had morphed into many things, and the sugar high of ice cream mixed with our flags flapping in the breeze made us completely giddy. That's why the sight of an old car driving down the street blowing bubbles while the driver sang songs from a megaphone made us nearly fall over laughing. We loved it.
In Leicester Square, we found trees draped with oversized Olympic medals, as well as Film Star Wenlock. We thought he looked like he wanted flags draped around his arms so we obliged.
Next, we found Spotlight Mandeville and China Town Mandeville. Mandeville is the Paralympic games mascot, and his name comes from another small town in England where the first Paralympic games were held.
Finally, we reached the end of our trail, and our day. One last picture beside Performer Wenlock marked the end of the best Olympic day we could have asked for. Who needed tickets?
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