Day 1- Just touched down in LONDON town...

I don't think it gets much better than this right now. I'm currently blogging from the lounge of our hostel, watching the Opening Ceremonies live with everybody. Will post pics later if I don't cry when Team USA comes out, first. You laugh, but there is a real possibility of that happening!


Amy and I arrived in London around 10:30 AM London time. The flight was pretty good; I watched The Lucky One on the flight's entertainment system and then slept most of the rest of the way there. 


Flying in over London was pretty surreal. This is my first time here- so seeing landmarks such as the London Eye and Buckingham Palace with my own eyes was something else. 

The London Eye from the plane.

Amy: "There's Buckingham Palace!"

Gina: "WHAT?!? Where?"

Amy: "With the circle!"

I snapped a random pic. I'm not sure that this is it. :-)

Fairly certain that is Craven Cottage. I could make out "FULHAM" quite clearly in the seats. 


Once we landed, we took the Heathrow Express into London Paddington. From there, we caught the tube to get to our hostel off the Swiss Cottage stop. 

London Paddington.


Once we got to the hostel, we put our luggage away (thank God- do you know what a pain in the ass it is to lug a 46 lb. suitcase up all those flights of stairs?) and set out for Westminster to pick up the rest of our tickets from CoSport. Once we arrived, we saw a line that stretched around one side of the building and then snaked about three or four more times around the other side. Upon learning that the wait at that time was around two hours- we opted to head to Oxford Street, instead, to pick up our order from John Lewis. I'll post pics of our loot from John Lewis later, but long story short: I picked up more pins. :-)


After John Lewis, we headed back to Westminster to bite the bullet and get our tickets from CoSport. The wait when we jumped in line was approximately three hours, but it was necessary as we have gymnastics tickets for tomorrow. We struck up casual conversations with two Australian girls in front of us, and Amy even managed to sell our extra pair of men's gymnastics tickets. I wasn't feeling too well at this point, so I headed back to the hostel while Amy waited. Back at the hostel, I tried to sleep off my stomachache and figure out how to call the US. Amy and I jumped in the line at Westminster at 3:15 PM. I left her at 4 PM; she didn't return until 6:45 PM! Isn't that crazy? 


I ran into Amy on my way out of the hostel to get some Subway. She came with me, and then we headed back to the hostel. While she played on the iPad, I went back upstairs to lie down. Cut ahead a few hours, and Amy woke me up to tell me Opening Ceremonies were on. 


This all brings us to right now. I finally ate, and now Amy and I are sitting in the lounge of our hostel watching Opening Ceremonies live on BBC. Tomorrow we have men's gymnastics qualifications around 3:30. SO EXCITED to see Olympic gymnastics in person! 


That's about all I've got for right now. Team USA should be out any minute. Will update tomorrow!