After a late night last night watching Opening Ceremonies in the hostel, I was surprised to get a decent night's sleep. Amy woke me up around 9:30 AM to let me know she was about to go get breakfast. I rolled out of bed and went with because although I still had an uneasy stomach, I knew I had to try and eat something.
I ate about half of a small bowl of cornflakes while Olympic cycling played live on the TV in the hostel cafeteria. The hostel has breakfast from 7:30-10 each morning, and when they say 10, they MEAN 10. The clock hadn't even hit 10 yet and the staff immediately turned off the TV and rushed everyone out. We moved into the lounge where the Olympics coverage continued. I used the wifi to touch base with the US while Amy ate.
We set out for the day around noon. Our first stop was back to Oxford Street so we could each buy a pay-as-you-go phone. I deserve a lot of the crap I take back home for being so dependent on my phone, but I don't really care. I was super relieved to know that I now have a way to call and text the US whenever I want.
Oxford Street. It reminds me of New York, except that it's British.
After Oxford Street (and a random episode involving my eyes uncontrollably burning), we set out for our first Olympic event: Men's Gymnastics Qualifications at North Greenwich Arena (formerly O2). The closer we got to the arena on the tube, the more excited I got. It finally got to the point where we got off the tube and all I could do was bounce up and down saying, "Gymnastics gymnastics gymnastics gymnastics!!!"
The magnitude of what we were about to do didn't hit me until we got out of the tube and saw this:
Holy shit, right? Don't tell Amy, but I felt a little emotional. Olympic gymnastics, people! How many people get to say that they saw an Olympic event in person? Not many.
Once we got through security (which I'm happy to report is TIGHT) and inside, we had a little bit of time to wait. Turns out that the lobby of North Greenwich Arena is something like a shopping mall, however, so waiting wasn't too bad. We didn't explore before the meet as we were far too excited, but we snapped a few pics and even ran into a few gymnasts.
Walking into North Greenwich Arena.
Pretty.
Jessica Gil Ortiz, Colombia.
Epke Zonderland, Netherlands. Totally ripped this pic off Amy's blog, but I couldn't help it! Her new camera is absolutely kickass.
Once we got inside, we knew our seats were in a "suite," but we weren't quite sure what that entailed. Were we in an actual suite? Were we just on a suite level? Is suite just a British term? We were suite level, in that we had seats... in a suite. Pretty sweet, right? :-)
Had to go through this to get to our seats.
Words cannot describe the chills I felt upon seeing the arena for the first time. No, not because it is hot pink- which just happens to be my favorite color- but because I was about to watch Team USA in an Olympic event! All these years I've been so used to watching these things on TV. Realizing I was about to witness it with my own two eyes was a moment in and of itself.
CHILLS.
The awesome thing about the subdivision we had tickets for was that it featured the USA and Japan. For those of you who don't know gym, the men's podium will be the USA, Japan and China- we just don't know in what order. The USA men did AWESOME, and it was great to finally see Kohei Uchimura (3-time reigning World Champion- seriously, go YouTube him) in person, too. He really is a gymnast on a whole other level than the rest of the world.
Like I said, though, the USA men absolutely crushed it. Jon Horton had a rough day with mess-ups on both pommels and parallel bars, but hit his high bar routine to loud applause throughout the arena. My favorite part of the meet might have been when Danell Leyva was on high bar. If you know gym, you know Danell's coach/father, Yin Alvarez. Yin is typically on the floor with Danell, but is not allowed on the floor in the Olympics because each country is only allowed one coach. When Danell competes, Yin is incredibly animated and has a certain clap he does when Danell is about to finish a routine. As the athletes rotated events, Yin rotated around the stadium, clapping and cheering for Danell as if he were down there with him.
Well, during Danell's high bar routine, we actually wondered out loud where exactly Yin was. All of a sudden, we heard clapping and looked up to see Yin charging down the stairs closest to high bar. The crowd caught on to the clapping, Yin blew past two security guards (both wondering, "who the hell is this guy?") and when Danell hit his landing, Yin went nuts. Classic. And hilarious- if you're a gym fan like myself.
Just some reigning World Champion on parallel bars action, no big deal.
At the end of the meet, the leaderboard looked like this:
Really doesn't get much better than that for Team USA. So proud of the guys! We currently do not have tickets for the Men's Team Final, but I think we're going to try and find some. It's going to be one hell of a battle, and our men have a really good chance of winning a medal!
After the meet, we headed back into the lobby where we actually ran into the USA alternates: Chris Brooks, Steven Legendre and Alex Naddour. Amy knows them from covering them at OU, so they chatted briefly and we proceeded back to the tube.
We stopped back at Oxford Street to pick up a hair straightener (American straighteners don't work in the UK- boo) and then headed over to Hyde Park. Keep in mind that Amy and I are two TEXANS in London at the end of July. Texans wear t-shirts and shorts by default in the summer. As we made our way to Hyde Park, we realized that we were FREEZING and decided to return to the hostel and change. Once we changed into jeans and our Team USA track jackets, we returned to Hyde Park to find (a) the London 2012 shop and (b) the Coca-Cola pin trading center. We found the pin trading center first. I traded for five pins: an Atlanta 1996 pin, an Athens 2004 pin, two London pins and a pin with the Colombian flag and the Olympic rings that I traded with a little boy from- well- Colombia.
After the pin center, we headed over to the Team USA shop. I bought the blue poster I have been looking for ever since the London 2012 online store started redirecting to the Team USA store, and a picture frame that I had pinned a long time ago.
By this time, it was nearing 10 PM and we hadn't eaten yet. We took the tube to South Kensington where we met up with Jon and Brenda. We found a pizza place and had a nice dinner talking about London and things back home. Dinner was done around 11 and we caught the tube back at about 11:30. We got back to the hostel around midnight, and now here I am catching you guys up on the day's happenings.
All in all, it was a pretty busy/awesome day. Tomorrow is even busier as we return to North Greenwich Arena for TWO sessions of women's gymnastics, and then cut over to Horse Guard's Parade around 8 PM for beach volleyball. I'll be taking pics and will probably blog again tomorrow night. Leave me comments! I miss y'all. See you tomorrow!
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