Lufthansa, don't you dare

Well, as thousands of athletes left Great Britain, I followed suit and I'm currently in Germany staying with an absolutely lovely family and having lots of degree-related fun. Much to the ginger's delight, the 39°C temperatures of two weeks ago have now seemingly come to an end, and I am now able to venture outside without being armed with litres of sun cream and looking more (interesting gardening tan lines aside) like an at least half-normal member of society than an overheated red-headed lobster.

However, even in the midst of my zip-lining Klassenfahrt and spontaneous quarter-marathon adventures, I have managed to achieve something truly monumental. No, I have neither beaten Lin Dan nor sprinted faster than Usain Bolt...

...I have checked my emails!

And, my inbox contained something even more exciting than spam messages offering me an iPhone 4/ quick weight loss tips/ £1,000,000 for being 1,000,000th visitor to www.thereisnowaythatieveropenedthispage.com.

It contained a 100% LOCOG-approved-legitimate email entering me into a ballot to be one of 9,000 Olympic volunteers to attend the athlete's parade through the streets of London on Monday 10th.

To cut the long story short... checking emails brings prizes and the Games Maker uniform is getting another outing in a couple of days. The Mopper is obviously extremely excited about this.

However, as always, the Mopper's transport adventures continue and she is due to fly back with Lufthansa on Sunday. Due to their recent striking keen-ness, this is obviously quite a tense situation as to whether or not I will actually successfully make it back into the country by Monday. Lufthansa, you have been warned. Don't you dare.

Also, to the Queen, Princes William and Harry and to Kate Middleton, I have a reserved place on the Mall (I believe that this is your royal version of what us commoners would normally refer to as a front drive), so I would really quite appreciate it if you put in an appearance. Just saying...

Home time...

Medals on the trees in Leicester Square

After an amazing past few weeks, I'm now back home again (waaaaaaaaa) and I currently find myself a very committed fan of the rhythmic gymnastics, just to remain in the Olympics at Wembley Arena frame of mind (yes, I am aware that I am a complete and utter saddo). Despite having passed my driving test yesterday and having had biscuits for breakfast and ice cream for dinner today (by this I mean the meal that you eat at midday, just to translate for those from anywhere south of Manchester), I would still rather take another week's worth of Games Maker sandwiches to be back in London.

I slept for the vast majority of Monday to recover from my mopping-induced-tiredness, before dragging myself out of bed some time around mid-afternoon in order to move flats for the third (and, sadly, final) time during the Games. Negotiating two flights of stairs half-asleep with a suitcase big enough to house a small family wasn't exactly the easiest task, and I'm still waiting for the bruises from my attempts to disappear...

When I arrived at the new flat, dad and I screamed at the TV for a while in support for Runshaw College's Sports Academy representative, Holly Bleasdale, before I set up camp on the sofa and combined even more sleep with timed-waking-up to try and get some Olympic tickets. Although I did actually successfully manage to get a ticket for the athletics at the Olympic Stadium, it wasn't the £50 one that I had requested, but rather the £450 one, which, being a poor student and all, I couldn't really afford, let alone justify buying...


As my Olympic-ticket-buying-skills seemed to be failing me, my mad-Google-skills came into good use, and I decided to go to watch the men's triathlon for some more (albeit non-ticketed) Olympic action. I never was one to refuse freebies...

As it turned out, in terms of good value for free things, this was definitely well up there with my top free things ever: I was stood in the front row of the crowd, directly opposite Buckingham Palace (thank you, Pippa, for your brief appearance on the roof, but please pass the message to your sister/ brother in law/ brother in law #2 that they have let me down by their distinct lack of badminton attendance), next to a family whose child's only vocabulary seemed to consist of ''come on Team GB, get in there'' (massive tick next to the 'inspire a generation' box, there Seb). Much to my surprise as well, the route that the athletes were taking went past Buckingham Palace five times, so it wasn't a case of blink-and-you-miss-it. After having heard no national anthem other than China's at the badminton, it was also a nice change to see the British being Great and having a 'God Save the Queen' moment!


After a quick dinner in (a very rainy) Trafalgar Square (yes, I would quite happily live there... if I only had a tent and/or a sturdy umbrella), I headed to Oxford Street for a quick retail therapy fix (featuring the Olympic John Lewis Superstore and a brief spell playing Olympic Trivial Pursuit in Starbucks... by myself. Yes, I am aware that my saddo rating has now reached the point of no return). I was also greatly shocked to learn that the Disney Store now sells iPad covers. Back in the day (yes, I am under 20 and did just use that phrase), their main purpose in my life was for socks.
In the evening, I went back to Leicester Square to see 'Chariots of Fire' at the Gielgud theatre. Luckily, I was slightly less fed up of the theme tune than I had originally anticipated, and the performance itself (complete with the rendition of 'Rule Britannia' in the interval to celebrate our gold medal wins of that day) was fantastic and so cleverly done. And, once I have conquered the minor overplayed-theme-tune-issue-hurdle, I really need to watch the film again. I expect that this moment will probably come in a moment of Wembley-Arena-and-Olympics-homesickness at some point during the next few days.

After the play finished, I was left with a bit of time to kill before I had to meet my dad.  Stuck around Leicester Square and not particularly wanting to either hit a bar by myself or eat anything (Games Maker food has fed me up pretty well for a good few weeks), I was left with M&M world as seemingly my only remaining option... Thankfully, dad was able to meet me sooner than expected (I feel as if there's only so long that you can spend looking at M&M photo frames, M&M snow globes and M&M pyjamas before it stops being socially acceptable), and I met him on the South Bank to go and see the Olympic projections on the Houses of Parliament, which I had wanted to see before leaving London.

The morning that followed was a very early one, and one which found me back home for before midday, and sat having a driving lesson about thirty minutes after arrival. Talk about a thud back down to earth!


Olympic spot of the day: miscellaneous Team USA athletes in Trafalgar Square
Dad's Olympic spot of the day: Stephen Fry on London's South Bank

(This is possibly a case of parent:1, daughter:0, however I have included a picture, so if anyone would care to identify them as more famous that Stephen Fry it would be greatly appreciated...)