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...)

A tourist-y type of day and an Opening Ceremony

My day yesterday basically consisted of me being a completely unashamed Olympic tourist, just minus the massive suitcase which there seemed to be a lot of around. I got the train out to London Bridge, accidentally forgetting that the torch relay had taken place there... So ended up in a massive crowd of people who were waiting for the torch (which had actually been through already, but I let some policemen break the news to them instead).

I walked along the Thames for a bit, finding the Wenlock models on the way, and there seemed to be a lot more athletes than anywhere else I've been yet, so because I was without uniform, the camera very much came out and I now have a heck of a lot of pictures of the backs of a lot of tracksuits! So much picture-taking was such tiring work (or just an ok excuse), that I then had an afternoon nap in Jubilee Gardens before heading to Trafalgar Square. Not only is Trafalgar Square my favourite place in the country, but yesterday I think that it may well have been one of the busiest places in the country. The oh-so-British queue for the countdown clock had dissolved into a bit of a push and shove crowd situation, but I found a less push and shove-y type person to take a picture for me. There was a massive buzz in the Square and, when the clock neared the 5 hour mark, the whole square began to count down, which was so exciting, and made it very hard to motivate myself to move from Nelson's Column.


Eventually, though, I did move, and I did find Waterstones, which was the whole reason that I had even been in in the first place! And, when I arrived back at the flat, I found a GB cyclist outside the front door (and the camera was whacked out again)!

We BBQ-ed in time for the ceremony, which, despite us laughing about how British it was, was actually amazing and fantastically thought out. Also, to my delight, the guy from LOCOG HQ (who will remain unnamed) who I had met on the train the other day, and who had told me a lot about the ceremony and showed me a lot of pictures, actually hadn't told/ shown me everything, so I was pleasantly surprised that some of it was still a surprise!

Anyway... I am now off to go and climb out of a window, sit on a windowsill and watch some cyclists whizz past! If you watch the cycling on TV: look out for the window with an English and a German flag.

Also, if you're going to the badminton/ Wembley: the hall is absolutely boiling, so don't wrap up too much!

The badminton courts are in the building!

My countdown to travelling down to London for the Olympics (note to self: buy train tickets asap) entered single figures today, so I thought that I'd get the blog-ball rolling.

Yesterday I had to go down to Wembley Arena for Venue Specific Training (also called VST by the many abbreviation loving people up at Olympic HQ).

Travelling there was minorly stressful due to a combination of Hard Rock Calling festival at Hyde Park, closure of the Victoria line and (probably mainly) me getting over-excited by a couple speaking German at the ticket-buying-booth next to me, meaning that I bought a ticket going to a station in Wembley that my train wasn't actually going to travel through (only to find out a couple of hours later that I actually have a Osyter card for unlimited travel in London until after the Olympics, so didn't even need to buy a ticket in the first place). Yes, Jenny! Anyway, thanks to the ticket conductor who, after briefly contemplating sending me back to Marylebone, decided to take pity on me and let me out at Wembley, I actually made it to the Arena with time to spare and sandwiches to eat. (Not-so-Olympic fact: Cliff Richard has performed at Wembley Arena more than any other artist).

The day began with presentations from various Team Leaders and Security Managers etc. for badminton and rhythmic gymnastics (who we're sharing the Arena with during the latter part of the badminton competition). The enthusiasm from everyone is, however cliché, infectious, and, if the lady managing the rhythmic gymnastics competition would have emphasised one more time how dynamic baton throwing can be, she would have had me switching sports there and then on the spot (Olympic fact: rhythmic gymnastics is one of two remaining female-only Olympic sports, the other one being synchronised swimming). As it happens, though, they apparently don't need a floor mopper, so I'm left a slightly gutted that I'll potentially never see the dynamic-ness of it!

We then split off into the teams that we'll be working in during the Olympics and, after completing some more training (I'm now an expert in the technique of safely lifting things), we went on a tour of the Arena and of some of the temporary builds in the Wembley area which will be used by the athletes for warming up etc. We've only moved into the Arena during the last week, so it is still very much a work in progress, but it is looking good! (Olympic fact: Wembley was used as a venue in the 1948 London Olympics, meaning that it is one of two venues being used at both Games, the other one being Earls Court). The usual stage has gone (though I did greatly enjoy walking out through the stage door onto the non-existent stage), the media booths and big screens are set up, and, most importantly (!), the badminton courts are on the floor. The umpires chairs were wrapped up near one of the warm up courts and (although I can't reveal any details), I can promise that they, along with the floor, and the floor mops, will have quite an exciting colour scheme!

The day ended with a treasure hunt around the Arena, which (despite the temporary builds all looking pretty identical) saw an epic win for the Field of Play team (helped along by our Team Leader just a little...), and resulted in a very happy Jenny, because winning involved chocolate.

I got back to Euston fine and with an hour and a half-ish to spare before my first ever First Class journey back up north (for some reason the ticket was cheaper for First Class than for Standard, but I'm not complaining!), so I decided to be a hardcore Games Maker and go to Trafalgar Square to take a picture of the Olympic countdown clock. I got to Leicester Square before the line closures and West-End go-ers got the better of me and I realised that I probably wasn't going to get back in time for my train if I took a too big of a de-tour... On the plus side, my Oyster card definitely works and I am now one Wenlock (Olympic fact: the founder of the Wenlock Olympian Games in 1850 is credited as the founding father of the modern Olympics) and quite a few Percy Pigs better off than I was before.

It was so good to actually be in the Arena and to see everything coming together after so much time. The next time that I'm there will be in a week or so for Sports Presentations, which are basically dress rehearsals of everything, so that the media know timings-wise how long things such as ceremonies and players/ umpires walking out onto court will take to broadcast.

Until then I'll leave you with this ridiculously cute gem, which I found on our training-CD: