Day 11- You just run at it.

My back hurts. Random, but it's true. *grumble*

We had a short day today since this was the one day of the trip that we were COMPLETELY free. Neither one of us set an alarm last night and just passed out with the intention to wake up whenever we did. I woke up at about 10 and attempted to wake Amy since she'd mentioned wanting to see the Changing of the Guard at 11:30. Once I realized that she was out like a light, I gave up and came downstairs to finish blogging. Amy texted me from upstairs around noon to tell me that she was almost ready. We left around 12:45, picked up a quick breakfast (brunch?) from the deli and set out for King's Cross. 

I LIVED a piece of Harry Potter today, y'all! Walking through King's Cross, I walked up to one of the employees and legit asked him where we could find Platform 9 3/4's. LEGIT. It was awesome. 

King's Cross station isn't just for the Underground. There are a lot of other trains that arrive and depart from this station. In fact, we will pick up the Eurostar from King's Cross when we leave for Paris on Thursday morning. We left the Underground and headed up towards the regular train station. The area was huge and open and reminded me of a bustling airport. We saw an arrow pointing to platforms 0-9 and followed it until we saw the platform we were looking for... posted on the wall. 

I've been saying for a while now that I wanted to pick up a copy of my assigned HP book before we leave to read on the flight back. ICYMI, our usual Pub Quiz team is doing a Harry Potter quiz on September 10th. The six of us have each taken a book (one of us taking two) to read before the quiz to make sure it is all fresh in our minds. If you can't find a Harry Potter book at freaking KING'S CROSS STATION, where can you, right?

Different covers here. 

My book. The artwork is actually really pretty.

I'd like to think that buying my assigned book at freaking King's Cross Station will provide us with some good mojo going into the quiz. We shall see. 

After King's Cross, we got on the tube to head back to North Greenwich Arena for the second day of event finals. We assumed our usual spot at the American Bar & Grill just in time to catch women's uneven bars and men's pommel horse. Event finals were FANTASTIC today; gotta love when everybody brings their A game and there are sticks and vertical handstands and ridiculously difficult skills everywhere. 

I've really come to love Aliya Mustafina in these Olympics. She really is just a beautiful gymnast, and she has learned to smile since winning the World Championships in 2010. Unlike her pouty younger counterpart (lookin' at you, Vika), she has actually become enjoyable to watch. Her bar routine was gorgeous and I'm really happy for her that she won gold. 

What was really weird was that Gabby placed last. I mean, I know she missed her handstand, but last? The result doesn't mean that Gabby is bad- clearly, she isn't if she made UB finals- it just shows how fierce the competition was. 

Side note: totally want to make a drinking game out of Victoria Komova pouting. Drink once everytime she looks sad. Drink twice everytime the camera cuts to her and she has her head down. Take a shot when she cries. FINISH YOUR DRINK when she gets knocked out of gold medal position! What... too much? :-)

Men's vault was awesome. The men throw the most ridiculous skills that it never ceases to amaze me that these guys land on their feet. The US had Sam Mikulak (AKA the most adorable gymnast EVER. Want to put him in my other pocket. The first one is reserved for Max Whitlock.), who stuck his handspring double front COLD. Russia was in first for much of the meet with a 16.3 (massive, massive gymnastics score) until the final gymnast from South Korea stepped up. He threw two incredibly hard vaults, one of which had four massive steps on the landing, and still won with a 16.4. Insane gymnastics. 

We left North Greenwich Arena and headed over to Earl's Court to see our Gamesmaker (haha- Hunger Games!) friend, Steve (hi Steve! I know you're reading!). We finally traded pins with him... I traded him my Atlanta 1996 pin for one of the pins only the Gamesmakers get. Pretty awesome. 

After Earl's Court, we got back on the tube to head to Blackfriar's and see the outside of the Globe. To get to the Globe, we had to cross the Thames via Millenium Bridge. To most people, it's the Millenium Bridge. For me, it's "that bridge from the beginning of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix!" Nerd alert, y'all. Nerd alert.

The bridge provided us some gorgeous views. Is it just me, or is everything prettier when it is over/near a river?

To my left.

To my right.

The outside of Shakespeare's Globe. 

We headed back to the tube and over to Hyde Park, where we had a pretty good pin afternoon/night. We each bought a USA pin at the Coca Cola Pin Trading Center, and I also traded a man one of my London pins for one of his USA pins. That's the thing here: when you trade, you want to trade something from your country. We traded USA pins so quickly that we've been out for a while now. Coming across new USA pins was a plus tonight. Once we headed over to the actual store, Amy got a few last minute things while I purchased a handball pin since handball will be our last event. We got dinner at Mark's & Spencer's (grocery store near our hostel) and got back about 9:30. This takes us to now. 

Tomorrow we're going to try and catch the full Changing of the Guard at 11:30. Amy wants to do a little clothes shopping on Oxford Street, then we're going to head back to North Greenwich for the last day of event finals (and our last day at North Greenwich! Sad.). Tomorrow night we have tickets for Jersey Boys at the Prince Edward Theater. I'm pretty excited; I saw Jersey Boys in Dallas years ago and it was fantastic. Looking forward to seeing it again and getting some Frankie Valli stuck in my head. 

I'm heading to bed since I have to be up early to straighten my hair. Leave me comments PLEASE! I miss y'all. Really, I do. Catch y'all tomorrow!