London 2012 Olympics

I’m so braindead right now, freezing in a sleeveless shift dress in an icy airconditioned office.  Stupidly I forgot a cardigan, or even a scarf.  But I have pictures…of the OLYMPICS!  Yeah for the Olympics…doesn’t get much better than that.  We got in around 10am local time and went straight to our hotel.  Room wasn’t ready yet, but I washed up a bit, changed, and did work until it was time to head out to see Men’s Volleyball.  London was so cute, all decked out for the Olympics, and the weather was even sunny and warm.

Olympics Pride:
 

I’d booked tickets for Men’s Volleyball kind of randomly, mostly because the tickets we got in the lottery were both Marathon Swimming, and S played Volleyball in college, so I figured he would like it.  Our seats turned out to be really good, and the games were surprisingly exciting.  Even for me, and I hate spectator sports and all team sports.

First game was Brazil versus Argentina – Brazil kicked Argentina’s butt in straight sets and ended up getting the Silver against Russia.  Still great to watch!

In between games we had snacks and some London 2012 Wine – how cute is that?!
 
 
The next game was actually US versus Italy.  Very well played and exciting game – at this point in the Games I think the hometown crowd was tired of seeing the US dominate everything so there was tons of support for Italy.  I felt bad for our guys but overall it was a great game and Italy went on to win the Bronze so very well deserved!
 
 

 One of my  favorite things to watch is below – periodically this group of adorable teenage girls came out and did this funny choreographed sweeping thing to clean the court.  They moved in unison and would jump back and forth together over the sweepers.  Too cute.  
(Also note the shoes, all the volunteers were issued these really neat adidas sneaks with pink laces.)

 
 
 
After the game I was zonked so I did some work, we went out for quick but yummy Thai dinner, then showered and went to bed.  Alarm rang way too early but it was time for WOMENS MARATHON SWIMMING so I was psyched.  We walked to Hyde Park and there was a great crowd present already.  Most of the area around the Serpentine was open to the public for free so lots of folks came out to support local fave Keri-Anne Payne.  We were in the ticketed area not in the stands, but got a great viewing spot right by the start, and also near a big viewing screen for the parts of the Serp we couldn’t see.

The race was so exciting…super-fast pace, tight pack, and no clear outcome until the very end.  Aussie Melissa Gorman led for a while, then Italy, then Keri-Anne, even Haley Anderson from USC representing the US.  After awhile Eva Risztov from Hungary pulled out ahead and started putting the hammer down.  

 
 

It didn’t look like anyone would catch until the very end, but Haley Anderson made a mad dash and almost did.  She didn’t make it, but got comfortably ahead of the rest of the chase pack to secure Silver.  (It’s funny – her sister Alyssa is also a swimmer and was part of the gold medal 4×200 relay team this year!)  Keri-Anne also tried really hard, and pulled up a bit, but only placed fourth.  She seemed gutted, and most of the crowd left before the medals ceremony.  We stuck around, and got really nice spots for the ceremony courtesy of those who didn’t bother sticking around.  

 
 
After the race we went home, I had to do work for a few hours, then we went out to the Experimental Cocktail Club in Chinatown.  It was okay, but I am so over complicated cocktails and the fake speakeasy thing.  Also burlesque and maybe even (non-Spanish) tapas – we need some new ideas in nightlife again.  Also, the door girl had our reservation scribbled directly on the pages of a children’s picture book.  Cruelty to books…NOT okay!  After cocktails we a very nice late night dinner at Plum Valley, which hit the spot.  I had the champagne and honey grilled black cod, and S had a chicken dish.  Very nice.  It was after midnight so we toasted to my birthday before leaving, grabbed a little birthday treat for me at a japanese bakery, then went home. 
 
The next day was Men’s Marathon Swimming, we had seats in the Grandstand this time, which was okay but not much better than our (much cheaper) tickets the day before.  We did have the added benefit of sitting with a crowd of wacky Germans who were in great spirits because Germany awesomely had two swimmers in the race.
 
They all had matching teeshirts, and one guy had a huge foam castle on his head, cheering for powerhouse veteran swimmer Thomas Lurz: 

Good view of the start, not quick enough for a diving shot this time but the splash is pretty cool:
 

Sam Mellouli of Tunisia (but also a product of the USC Trojans pool swimming program) dominated the race.  
He also got Bronze in the 1500m free – first medalist in both pool and open water swimming…total beast.  Love it!

I was kind of rooting for Petar Stoychev, current English Channel record holder, but he didn’t medal, and then Alex Meyer from Harvard also landed way out of the medals.

Thomas Lurz got second place and Canada in third:
  
  
  
Sign at Hyde Park, says: “One of the most challenging swimming events, the Marathon Swimming 10km calls for strength, stamina, speed, and excellent navigational skills.
Competitors race in 18-21 degree water for two hours, with no wetsuits to protect them.”  Probably not funny to anyone but open water swimmers, but I got a kick out of it.

Also excellent, the yummy little green tea flavored mini-cake topped with a pig that was too adorable to eat.  (Okay, I ate the back, but made S eat his face and feet 🙂 
 
 
After walking home we napped, then walked over for a really nice birthday dinner at Beach Blanket Babylon.  The restaurant was stunning – crazy baroque meets country house decor, a maze of lots of different rooms linked by tunnels, spiral staircases, and even a drawbridge!  So cool.  The service was not the best and the food just okay but we still had a really nice time.  After dinner we stopped in for a drink at Westbourne House, which was super cute, good drinks and very nice service.  The next day we didn’t have anything planned, so we slept in most of the day and only ventured out to grab dinner at El Pirata de Tapas.  Not the best meal but I think I may still be spoiled by all the great tapas we loaded up on in Spain a few weeks ago.  Back to Westbourne House for a drink, but everything closes so early so we were home and asleep by 1 or 2am.

We got late check-out for the next day, so we could sleep in a bit.  We woke up, showered, packed, and headed out to brunch at Cote, a cute frenchy-type bistro chain.  Very nice coffee and yummy french toast – good last meal in London.  After that we took the train to Heathrow, and headed home.  Virgin Atlantic changed our seats for some reason, which I wasn’t thrilled with initially but when we realized we got changed to the upper deck, we were super-happy.  I had pictured the upstairs to be like a trendy nightclub in the sky, and it definitely wasn’t like that, but it was nice and tons of legroom so definitely bonus.  We got back home at a reasonable hour and watched the closing ceremony on the hotel tv – a nice end to the Olympics for us.