Pre-Olympic Excitement!

Tomorrow the Olympics start. To say that I am excited is a bit of an undestatment!!! The football (soccer) competition has already started (along with archery) to let the athletes rest between matches. The USA had a ROUGH 15 minutes (2 goals by France… I call that rough!) They came back and won 4-2 though so that was good! They haven’t missed a gold medal match since the women’s tournament was added to the Games in 1996! It was gold in 1996, silver in 2000, gold in 2004 and 2008! They cant let me down this year!!!

I got the Olympic fever this morning and since it was 88 and sunny I decided that I needed to get out and head into central London. It was so fun! I was a complete tourist! First I took the tube to Piccadilly Circus and wandered around to see the flags and such. Then I walked to Trafalgar Square to see the Olympic clock countdown for the last time!! Then I had a dumb idea to go see the Mall decorated… I forgot that it was all blocked off. I was hoping at some point that there would be a crossway to get to St James. Nope. They had us go behind on the parallel street and that took forever. I finally got up the Victoria statue to cross. I was in the process of taking a picture when the army guy told me to keep walking. I took it really fast and decided to listen. The policemen only have batons, but the army dudes have guns. Grrr. I did so much walking for nothing! St James park was a maze of places that we could walk and couldn’t. That was the only frustrating part… blocked walkways. I got to Westminster somehow! I went down to the river and started to head to Tower hill. I got lazy and decided at Embankment to go in and take the tube.

All I hear is the complaining about how horrible the tube is going to be during the Olympics. It was fine all day today! I got a seat on every train I rode and some had extras even! I got off at Tower Hill and went towards the river (the long way because they blocked off a crosswalk. Grr..) I got to the river and the rings were down on the bridge. Lame! I was planning to walk across and get a close up of them. I decided to go anyways. It was such a nice day and the breeze was amazing. As I walked around I kept noticing people with the big Olympic ids on. There were so many! I think I saw some Canadian athletes. They had different ids and Canadian shirts with the ring on it! Anyways.. I was walking across the bridge taking pictures of the rings and such when people were starting to be blocked off from crossing the middle part. That’s weird… They closed the gates and the bridge went up!!! Cool! That is why the rings were up! I was pumped that I had amazing timing and that was right there when the bridge went up! I waited for it to go down, and then watched the rings drop over the bridge. It was fun!

I walked along the river once I crossed the bridge. I realized that the rings that I though were silver, were actually colored! I got some good pictures and continued to walk around and look at the decorations. It wasn’t too crowded at all. Even the area around Big Ben wasn’t too bad. I don’t know why everyone is complaining about! Im excited. I think I am going to go check out the Olympic park on Saturday or Sunday. I cant go in, but I can walk around the area. I think anyways!!

This is going to sound corny, but you really can feel the excitement walking around. I cant wait for the Games to start. I don’t know how Im going to get any work done! And it wasn’t all that busy today. Im so excited for July 31st!!!

I really need to go work! More Olympic adventures to come! (hopefully I spot someone cool on Sunday at the Olympic park!)