Olympic story – part 3

Ticketing was a bit of a nightmare with the Olympics…

wait…really?? 😉

So we were unable to get tickets for all of us to go to the same event. Up till the night before we actually were unsure if all of us were going to be able to get in. We had four tickets, there were 3 kids and 2 adults who really wanted to go. So we had a bit of a sticky issue and it was looking like one of us adults would miss out. But thanks to the heroic efforts by my mum on the *@!***ing olympic tickets site we managed to get not 1 but 2 other tickets to get in..meaning that a certain little toddler could come along too.

The girls went to the Aquatic Centre and the boys went to watch a quarter final in the Women’s handball. Going into the aquatic centre was a bit strange. I dont think ive ever been to ‘watch’ such a big swimming event and having all the stall signs and seat numbers felt like we were going to get our seats in a theatre. A heads up from a games maker at the bottom of a set of stairs gave me a bit of an idea of how high we were going to have to climb to get to our seats. Needless to say 8 flights of stairs with a 3 year old on my hip left me a bit out of breath.

Interestingly we got to witness the limitations of the unusual shape to the roof of the aquatic centre. If one of those divers jumped really high on their take off they disappeared into the ceiling….wondering if they thought it through at design stage? hmmm…

There was a great atmosphere in the aquatic centre though and everytime the British diver stepped up the whole place became a sea of flags and bunting. On thing that really struck me in there was how completely bizarre it was that 17,000 people fell silent all at the same time when the diver was poised to jump..it was totally silent..you could hear the schusssing sound from the water jets breaking the surface of the pool.  I shusshed the kids a couple of times before i realised how ridiculous it was to think that their chatter was going to be heard all 200 odd rows of seats down.

The girls did really well, being as diving is actually quite hard for kids to follow. Its all scoreboard and a difficulty factor thingy. It was hard for me to follow let alone them. I did miss the commentary you get on the TV telling you what is going on. I think one of the most memorable moments for the kids was when a diver from the USA just sort of ‘belly flopped’ into the pool during his dive and the gasp from the crowd was just about as loud as the slap of his back hitting the water..ouch..

Meanwhile over at the Copper box..they had slightly closer seats to the action. My OH said ‘i think the only person closer to the goal was the press photographer!” They saw Norway V Brazil. Norway went on to win the Gold medal. They came away from it full of excitement and buzzing on the energy and thrill of the game. My son was thrilled to have been given a team Norway pin by a member of their squad who had been watching the game on their row. Something he treasures now. He was also pretty chuffed that he had spotted a Chris Evans interviewing gold medal winning athletes for his show on the way to the Copperbox.

that was the events done…now to explore the park……….

This is part of my somewhat lame attempt to link up with my friend older single mum..you can find out about her challenge by clicking the lovely little link box below….

 

one week

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Continuing our Summer Olympic Story…part 2

Apologies folks..as you can no doubt see i have been fiddling with my blog design…..and that has sucked up huge amount of time…but im digressing and although i am SO totally stoked by my new look..im going to keep on track for the sake of this challenge.

So…

Entering the Olympic park reminded me a little of going through an airport, you had to show your tickets a lot, you were hearded through lots of roped gangways like cattle and then you had to walk through security scanners and put everything you were carrying in plastic box and send it through the scanner camera. That is where the similarity ended though. My experience of airports is usually always fairly stressy..travelling with kids is not easy at the best of times and adding security to that usually serves for some warp factor stress levels. Passing through London 2012 security was the totally opposite. We were met at the start of the cattle pens by the smiley, chatty, games makers, high fiving the kids and pulling the Bolt pose with their comedy ‘foam’ hands.

“hey what are you going to see?” “make sure you shout really loud!”

Passing through the security scanners being manned by some members of the RAF, I reprimanded my son for trying to shove the plastic boxes full of our stuff along the rails to the camera scanner. I only did this because he tried doing this in Manchester airport once and got scowled at and ‘take your hands off it” look from the operator……

“Don’t worry, its fine!” young Mr. RAF man smiled, winking at my son ‘we could give you a job here i reckon!’

Even when they had to confiscate a can of pop from our packed lunch the poor guy looked mortified and tried to convince us to wait and drink it rather than throw it away. I had forgotten it was in there. I had remembered  that you could only take empty water bottles through security to fill up on the other side. We, along with many others had added to the trail of hastily dumped water running from the bottom of the large planters that lined the path to the entrance gates. Im thinking those plants are either dead by now or triffid-like.

The games-makers, the military and the police were such a huge part of making the day a great experience. I know everyone has said it…the athletes, the politicians, the celebrities but it really would have been so much less without those little moments, winks, cheeky shout outs on the loud-speakers that, if nothing else, put a smile on your face.

Walking into the park was such a thrill…it was like walking into battle..we had come to support, shout, believe. Bringing our young family to be inspired.

It felt a little bit like finding a book and only reading the last chapter. In most cases we know nothing of what these athletes have gone through to get to that start line, the highs and lows that have got them to this point in their lives.. but we become players in the final, triumphant, closing  paragraphs of their story.  Willing them on,dreaming for the best of best ending to theirs and now our story too.

We were ready to bring it.

This is part of my somewhat lame attempt to link up with my friend older single mum..you can find out about her challenge by clicking the lovely little link box below….

 

one week

 

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