London 2012!

We are finally back in action!!!  After some time off from blogging, I am back into the swing of things as there is much to report these days. The year is already flying by and I have to start recording all the great things I have done or I will forget it all!

So why not start with a bang......London 2012!  It is hard to believe that just 5 weeks ago the Olympics ended in London. I can say it went extremely well and I am proud of what the city accomplished. It was a great achievement given everything that could have gone wrong!

I was lucky enough to get tickets through the UK lottery. I put in for 5 different sports and ended up with Fencing...nothing I knew anything about! Definitely, my wildcard sport!

To help me celebrate the games, Keena flew over from Romania for the weekend. Before hitting the Olympics, we headed to a tour of Parliament during their summer recess.

Here are a few photos of Parliament before our tour.

Keena really lucked out with the weather. It was great!  Here is a close up of Big Ben.

The next day, we headed out to the Olympics on the tube. Transport for London provided free transportation for the day which was pretty amazing.  On the way there, there were fun ads every where. I particularly liked this one.

Everything was extremely well marked. We were heading to the Excel center for the event.

When we arrived to the event, there were very little crowds. We were surprised how easy it was to get into the facilities.

Of course everywhere you looked Britain was advertising its great tourist spots to visit.

The Olympics also had an army of volunteers helping everyone out. I particularly liked this guy who looked like he was on a beach directing traffic with his microphone.

Heading into the Excel Center.

There were many events occurring at the Excel Center that day. Here is the entrance to the Fencing events.

When Keena and I arrived, we really did not know what to expect. We were pleasantly surprised at how flashy and modern fencing has become.  The four different neon rectangles below is where the different teams would fence.

Here is a little video of the facilities.

We just happen to be sitting in the section with all the French fans. They had some really fun costumes. I liked this guy with a chicken on his head.

Keena and I lucked out with having the United States playing right in front of us. It really was exciting to see them running and lunging at one another. The person who was stabbed first (probably not the technical term) would have their helmet light up and the flooring around their area light up as well. It really got the crowd involved.

There was a lot of taunting with each other.  They liked looking at each other and swinging their swords!

We got really into it and I got a number of videos of the action.

You can hear me screaming at the end of this video. It was great fun!

The US won their first round against France and then had to take on Italy. Unfortunately  they kicked our butts!  I like the helmet of the American in the picture below.

Here are Keena and I enjoying the games.

Keena and I spent about 5 hours watching fencing for the day. It was great fun. After the event, we walked through the Excel Center.

And took a photo of ourselves!

After we left the Olympics, we headed out to the new cable car that has been built over the Thames.

Within 10 minutes, Keena and I were jumping into a cable car. It really was efficient and we could use our oyster cards!

Here is our take off.

As we began to climb, we could see the O2 Center (white building with poles sticking out of it) and Canary Wharf (tall buildings) in the distance.

We also could see off in the distance the Olympic stadium next to the ArcelorMittal Orbit sculpture (big red thing). 

The weather was great.

Our ride only lasted about 6 minutes or so. Here is our steep decent.

We finished the day walking around the city to get some souvenirs for Keena to take back to the family. All in all it was a great Olympic weekend!