Scott and I went to the Olympics. While I will admit dreading the Olympics because of the expected crowds, traffic, and even possible danger it posed from terrorists, I must say it has proven so far to be an amazing experience.
Evidently London overpriced their hotel rooms to the degree that now the hotels are virtually empty in the city. Because of that, there are lots of special deals, so Scott reserved a cheap hotel a couple of blocks from the event we were going to see on Saturday morning. Then on Saturday, Scott and I went to see the beach volleyball. Aside from the roads closed and detours that were necessary to arrive to the venue, the event was good fun. To simply get into Horseguards Parade (our event was not in the Olympic village), we had to show our tickets several times. Once up close to the stadium, we had to clear security very much like airport security, only more difficult. Once we were into the arena area though, it was amazing! The mood was fantastic and the crowd was lively and happy.
The matches we watched were exciting but not very closely matched teams in terms of ability. The Chinese women smashed their Russian competitors and the Brazil men did the same to the Germans. The winners of those matches went on to play in the quarter finals. We had fun though watching the crowds. There were lots of activities throughout the events with cheerleaders and games for the audience.
We would both like to attend the Paralympics which are in a couple of weeks here in London, but the tickets are really difficult to get ahold of. If we are able to go, we hope the kids will appreciate what they are watching when they see those determined athletes overcome disabilities to compete in a world competition. Stay tuned!