Newry to Gilsland, Cumbria, UK (Olympic Day 5)

It is moving day as we travel from Newry to the tiny village of Gilsland located next to the Roman emperor Hadrian's wall in Cumbria just south of the border between Scotland and England.

But the start of our day is a visit to the new Titanic Center in Belfast. We had been told that the traffic in Belfast is terrible and were recommended to leave very early. We manage to eat breakfast, thank the Malcomsons for their hospitality and head out right on time. My Mom will be joining us on the next two days of our trip and we barely manage to squeeze her overnight bag into our rental car, but there is plenty of room for her. Traffic is barreling along at the usual 120 km/hr (75 mpg) and I do my best to sit in the far left lane and stay out of the way. We don't hit any noticeable traffic until we are on the outskirts of Belfast and get to the museum a good hour before it opens. We are having light rain and gusty winds, but I do go outside to take a picture of this striking museum:

 

 



Each bow is supposed to be the same height as the actual bow of the Titanic. Locating this museum in Belfast is fitting as the Titanic was constructed very close to the site of the museum. Entry to the museum is on a timed basis so that it doesn't get too crowded and we are in the first group at 9am. The entry level has a rusting iron wall to simulate the Titanic sitting at the bottom of the North Atlantic - very dramatic. We know that we only have an hour or so before we have to leave so we skip through a bunch of stuff describing Belfast in the early 1900's although it was interesting to see that while there were lots of jobs, most of them were poor paying and long hours - probably not much different from the steel mills in Pittsburgh at about the same time.

We all like the ride showing some details of how the Titanic was constructed. We see how the problematic rivets were installed with one guy catching a red hot rivet in a bucket, putting it into a hole joining two steel plates and pounding it flat with a hammer while another guy on the opposite side keeps it from flying out the other side of the hole. Not only was the working room tight, but the sound was deafening - and you got paid per rivet.

We already knew a great deal about the Titanic and how it sank, but were still surprised to learn a number of things. One was a radio message from the California (which was the ship that ended up rescuing most of the survivors) telling Titanic that it was totally surrounded by pack ice. The response from Titanic was "Shut Up. I am busy. I am working Cape Race (Newfoundland)". This is just another indication of how invincible the crew thought this ship was.

Another thing that I learned was that the famous polar explorer, Sir Ernest Shackleton was one of the witnesses at the Titanic inquiry held to determine the cause of the sinking. At the time, I thought that it meant that he was on the Titanic, but it turned out that he was called as an expert on ice bergs. His testimony was that Titanic was going much too fast given the amount of ice nearby. This turned out to be one of the official findings of the Inquiry.

The last part of the museum was a big section on Robert Ballard and how he rediscovered Titanic when many had failed previously, by looking for the debris trail and then following it to the wreck. There were a lot of computers in this area where you could click on some piece of debris and find out what it was. Very interesting!

We would have liked to spend a little more time, but our ferry to Scotland leaves at 11:30am and before that, we need to drop off our car at the Belfast City Airport (officially called the George Best Airport - George Best was the 1970's equivalent of David Beckham in English football (soccer) although he was probably more of a partier and less of a player). We drop the car and wheel our suitcases back to the terminal in the now driving rain to find a taxi. The next taxi in the line is a van which is perfect for our luggage although there is enough room that the suitcases are rolling around in the passenger cabin as we going flying around a number of rotaries.

The Stena line ferry to Stranraer, Scotland is huge - it seems closer to a cruise ship than the car ferries that we have been on before. We have splurged and gotten upgraded tickets so that we can sit at a table (with WiFi!!) and have someone bring us our lunch. Mom and I were a little nervous about the fairly high winds and rain since we both tend toward seasickness. But we didn't need to worry. This ferry is so huge, there were only a few times where there was any noticeable roll. While I worked on my blog, I also thought about my Irish ancestors who might have made this trip back and forth to Scotland by rowboat. This is the closest point between Scotland and Ireland, but even so, there is a small period of time that they would have been out-of-sight of land. Today, the visibility is so poor that we see no land after exiting Belfast harbor until we pull up to the dock in Stranraer.

The Olympics is on TV in the first class lounge while we are eating lunch. Everyone seems a little nervous as we are on Day 5 and Team GB has so far not won any gold medals despite having several events, like Men's Cycling Roadrace, where British athletes were favored. The coverage is getting louder so I walk over to take a look. The BBC is showing the finals of the Women's Pair Rowing. It is very close, but the British team of Helen Glover and Heather Stanning hang on to win the gold medal ahead of Australia and New Zealand. At that point, you could almost hear the whole ship exhale at the same time. No more talk about a great Olympic choke, everything was going to be okay. We also hear that four badminton teams have been kicked out of the Olympics for throwing their initial matches to get a more advantageous draw in the next round. This is one of the big differences between the teams that hope to win a medal compared to the teams where a trip to the Olympics is their reward for winning their national (or continental) championship. The teams that are just happy to be at the Olympics would never consider tanking a match. I am glad that the teams were banished, but I hope that we don't hear of anything like this for the rest of the Games.

After about 2 hours, we arrived in Scotland. We had been expecting that we would have to take a cab from the new ferry terminal in Cairnryan to the rental car agent in Stranraer, but we are able to pick up the car right at the ferry - yeah! We get a nice Audi A4 with a navigation system that is so complicated that we might just figure it out by the time that we give the car back.

The weather in Scotland is not good. The driving rain that we had in Belfast has made it here. We had planned a stop at Caerlaverock Castle in Dumfries for our Braveheart moment, but the castle is not open when the weather is bad. In addition, we would like to visit the Roman Military museum at the end of our drive and it does not look like we will make it there in time if we have any stops. The coastal highway seems to stradle flat open meadows on the ocean side (many covered with sheep) and hills and heavy forests toward the interior of the country. The motorway is good, but is single lane in both directions so I have to keep up with the crazy drivers in order to keep them from running up my tailpipe.

After about 2.5 hours, we are in the area of Northern England where Hadrian's Wall is located. What we don't see is the Roman Army museum. Time is running short, but we find our Bed & Breakfast called Tantallon House and go in to get directions. We follow the directions, but don't see anything that looks like a museum (or a Roman fort for that matter). We head in the other direction and see some signs. We follow the signs and find that a) we are at a different Roman fort and b) they have already closed for the day.  

We head back to Tantallon house in the tiny village of Gilsland (population 400). Gilsland has a river flowing through the middle of town. The north side of the river is Northumbria and the south side is Cumbria. The main source of revenue appears to be tourists who are trying to hike along Hadrian's Wall from coast to coast. 

We have a boys room and girls room here, but you can see Hadrian's Wall from both of them. Two of our windows have House Martin nests in the corner. The owners tell us not to go to close or the birds will not enter their nests. Martins are insect eaters and from the density of birds flying around outside, there is no shortage of bugs around here. We ask for some choices of places to eat - and are told that there are only two. We eat at what appears to be a coffee shop that is serving dinners temporarily because the local pub has closed. Despite the temporary nature of this place, the food is good.

We head back to our rooms. We have a really long day coming up, so we have to hit the sack pretty early, but we do watch some of the Olympic coverage. There isn't anything that Team GB is good at going on this evening so the BBC is showing reruns of the Women's Pair gold medal performance, the Men's Cycling Individual time trial (where Team GB won gold and bronze medals) and Men's eight rowing (where Team GB won a bronze medal). I am hoping that this will not end up like the Nagano Olympics where NHK showed the Men's ski jumping team competition about every other hour for more than a week.

Steps for the day: 7700

London (Olympic Day 15)

Thank you all for reading this blog and for your patience while I catch up with the last few days of our trips. I'm in the middle of watching about 200 hours of NBC Olympic coverage and will post some closing comments once I've watched everything.

Here is my blog from the next to last day of the Olympics. Enjoy!

Today is a little easier than yesterday. We have a morning tour of the Tower of London and the semifinals of women's Basketball in the evening.

We have a quick breakfast and then it is off to the tour of London. The closest Underground station to the Tower of London is Tower Hill. This is ironic because this is where most of the prisoners held at the Tower of London were beheaded.

The next tour leaves at 9:30am so we look around. We are standing on a causeway between the Middle Tower and the Byword Tower. To either side of the causeway are nice flat, green lawns. This is where the moat used to be. A sign indicates that the Middle Tower was called that because it sat in the middle of the moat. This would make the moat 120m (393ft) wide. On top of that, they used to dump the castle sewage into the moat. That would deter all by the craziest invaders! In fact, the moat was blamed for a huge cholera epidemic and that was eventually the reason is was drained and filled. Sean is happy because there is a full-size model of a trebuchet on the lawn where the moat used to be:

Our tour guide, Sean, is a Yeoman Warder, also known as a beefeater:





We find out later that in order to qualify to be a Yeoman Warder, you have to have completed 22 years of military service and have been promoted at least to the rank of senior noncommissioned officer (Master Sargent in the US) and have received both the long service and good conduct medals. Our guide is a square sort of fellow with a booming voice. I can easily picture him chewing out some poor private (or whatever they call them in Britain). In fact, the only time we have difficulty hearing him is when a helicopter decides to hover over the Tower bridge for several minutes. He turns out to be a funny guy. After spending 5-10 minutes describing some of the many prisoners who were beheaded on Tower hill, he says "and now we will be heading off in this direction"!

Sean tells us that the White Tower that gives the Tower of London it's name was constructed by William the Conquerer shortly after his Norman army defeated the Saxons in 1066AD to take control of England. The purpose was to protect London from attack along the river. The Tower was gradually expanded over the next 200-300 years. Here is a view from the inner courtyard:

The Tower had a lot of uses. It was the Royal residence until the early 1600's. It housed prisoners and ammunition as well as the royal menagerie, the precursor to the London Zoo.

One of the first stops is the Bloody Tower. It got it's name from the murder of the two young sons of Henry IV. The royal princes disappeared in the late summer of 1483, but it was nearly 200 years before their skeletons were discovered by a workman during construction. Upstairs in the tower, there is a display that discusses the likely perpetrators of this terrible deed. There is a display that lets you vote for who you think actually did it. The leader in the clubhouse is the young boy's uncle, Richard Duke of Gloucester who became heir to the throne as a result of their disappearance and was eventually crowned Rickard III. Sean votes for Richard 8 times!

In the inner courtyard, we come upon one of the famous ravens that live in the Tower:

The ravens live here because one of the Kings is said to have proclaimed that the Kingdom would fall should the ravens leave the tower. As a result, there is a Yeoman Warder with the title Master of Ravens who takes care of the eight ravens who live there. They tell us that on occasion, some of the ravens have been kicked out; one because he liked to chew on TV antennas. As I am taking a picture of a raven, the guy who runs the information booth inside the tower walks over and hands me a button to add to my vest. It says Apprentice Knight on it.

We find that seven people, including Henry VIII's wife Anne Boleyn were beheaded in the Tower instead of on Tower Hill. They are buried in unmarked graves in the small chapel inside the Tower where our tour concludes.

Our last stop inside the Tower is to see the Crown Jewels. There were a number of crowns and scepters with jewels the size of small eggs, but the item that I liked best is the Jeweled Sword of Offering. This is the only sword that is actually presented to the monarch during their Coronation. The hilt and scabbard are covered from one end to the other with diamonds, rubies and sapphires and the blade has the intricate patterns typical of Damascus steel.

After leaving the Tower, we decide to walk across the Tower bridge and back along the south bank of the river to find something for lunch.  We pass the HMS Belfast. The Belfast was a Royal Navy light cruiser that saw action during the Normandy invasion among other places during WWII and was converted into a floating museum in 1967. Here is a picture of Tower bridge on this beautiful day in London:

We decide to eat lunch at a Pub. This one is not a family Pub so we have to eat outside and Beth has to escort Sean through the bar when he needs to visit the toilet. I decide to go with the traditional Fish and Chips along with a Ginger beer from Scotland. Beth and Sean have different types of meat pies. The food is great except for the mushy peas that traditionally come with the Fish and Chips. I am not wild about peas under the best of circumstances, but boil them until dead and then mush them almost to the consistency of baby food and you have a culinary nightmare.

We walk home for a little down time. I take a nap (tired from all of the walking) and then work on the blog while Sean and Beth watch the women's Mountain Biking on the BBC network.

The semifinals match of Women's Basketball featuring Australia and Russia takes place at the North Greenwich arena, a venue we have not been to before. The outside looks like some sort of sea anemone:

Sean sees food and is instantly hungry again. While I am waiting for him, a couple Russian guys walk up and ask if I would like to trade. They are interested in my NOC pins and we complete two trades - dated Russia and Switzerland pins for generic Monaco and generic Zambia pins. I'm not sure whether London will figure it out, but all of the Russians that we've seen are into pin trading.

Most of the fans at the North Greenwich arena are rooting for Australia. This is going to be a battle of two different styles. The Australians are bigger. They will try to slow the ball down and dominate rebounding. The Russians are quicker and will try to get out and run and shoot before the Aussies can set up their defense. Both teams have at least one player who plays in the WNBA, the number one women's basketball league in the world; Lauren Jackson and Elizabeth Cambage for Australia and Becky Hammon for Russia. I talked about Becky in my Beijing journal as she had just gotten Russian citizenship just before the Beijing Olympics. Her decision was based on not initially being invited to the US pre-Olympic camp, the fact that she had been playing in the WNBA offseason in Russian and because the Russians were desperate for a quality point guard. The Russians have obviously not been able to develop another point guard in the past four years because Becky is still starting for the Russian team this time:

Jackson at 196cm (6'5") and Cambage at 203cm (6'8") tower above the Russian players. While Cambadge is pretty slow, Jackson is probably one of the top 5 players in the world.

From the beginning, the Russians have a lot of trouble with the taller Australians as two of their starting players quickly pick up three fouls and end up sitting out for most of the first half. By the middle of the second half, the Australians were ahead by 15 or more. About that time, the Russian coach called Hammon over. Shortly after that, Hammon started scoring at will. Apparently, the coach told Hammon to forget about passing and just shoot. The Russians got to within 5 points, but could get no closer and Australia held on to win the bronze medal 83-74. Here are some pictures from the game:



I am pretty tired after the long day yesterday so am happy to just go back to the hotel and watch the Olympics on TV. It is really difficult for people at the Olympics to know what is happening at other venues. I have not mentioned the daily programs available at all venues. These are really high quality magazines that are produced overnight. In them you get the key results from the previous day and what is going on today. These programs and the BBC evening TV coverage are the only reason that we know anything about what is going on. Of course, the BBC is only covering Team GB oriented sports so we don't find out until we came home that the US women's basketball team won the gold medal a few hours after the game that we attended.

Steps for the day: 15,950 

London (Olympic Day 14)

This is our busiest day of the Olympics. We've got 9am tickets to tour St. Paul's cathedral followed by Freestyle Wrestling at ExCeL arena in the afternoon and the semifinals of men's Team Handball in the evening at the Olympic Park.

We had asked the people at the hotel which way to get to St. Paul's via Underground and they told us that it is much faster to walk. So, we walk down the street toward the Southwark bridge instead of our usual path toward the London Bridge Underground station. When we get to the Thames, we take the stairs down to the walkway that runs along the south bank of the Thames. We follow that path past the Globe theatre and pass the ugly (at least to me) Tate museum of modern art until we get to the millennium footbridge. Here is the view with St. Paul's directly in front of us:

Just before St. Paul's, I get another picture of a Wenlock statue:

We arrive at St. Paul's slightly before it opens so we wait on the stairs outside and take in the sights for a few minutes until we're told we can go in. Our tour is self-guided. Each  person is given an iPhone attached to a lanyard that lets it hang from your neck and a set of headphones. The tour is divided into two sections, the main floor and upper galleries and the crypts in the basement. We start on the main floor. The iPhone tells us that this is the 4th or possibly the 5th church on this site. The current one was built by Sir Christopher Wren after the previous church was destroyed by fire in 1666. This is an Anglican church (or Church of England). The Anglicans split off from the Catholic church when the Pope would not let King Henry VIII marry and divorce Queens whenever he pleased.

One of the cool things in this church was four tablets hanging on one of the walls that list all of the Deacons of St. Paul's going back to 1090 A.D. Imagine how little was in North America at the same time!

There are sections in the tour for the artwork on the ceilings, the quire (choir), the altar and the other artwork inside. While Beth and I are listening to these sections, our clever son has figured out that if you disconnect the headphones and use the end as a stylus, you can switch the language on the tour software. Our suggestion of changing it to Mandarin does not go over well. Oh, if we can only harness this brainpower. ;-)

Sean wants to climb the stairs to the top of the church (something that I also did in 1968) so when the upper galleries open at 9:30, up we go (after a nice chat with one of the docents about why I am covered with pins). The staircases in St. Paul's are circular, but the rise per step is perhaps half that of standard stairs so it takes a lot of steps to reach the whispering gallery. This area under the steeple of the church is called the whispering gallery because a person can sit on the opposite side of the gallery (perhaps 30m (100ft) away) and be heard quite clearly even if they are whispering. Not sure of the physics involved, but it seems like the distance across the gallery is some multiple of the wavelength of human speech so that the sound from one side of the gallery is amplified at the exact opposite side of the gallery.

Sean and Beth are keen to continue up to the stone and gold galleries that face outward from the dome of St. Paul's, but I've been there and done that many years ago. I elect to sit in the Whispering gallery and contemplate the artwork above and below me while they go climb more stairs. It takes them a little over 30 minutes to go up and come back. I ask Sean how far up they got. He says that the golden gallery was as high as you can go. This is somewhat below the top of the main dome. I asked because in 1968, it was possible to climb a rickety ladder up from the golden gallery to the top of the small dome on top of the main dome. I did not make that climb because it looked a lot like climbing up the conning tower of a submarine - very little space between the stairs and the inner surface of the dome. Apparently, there are enough legal/insurance concerns about this that they don't let people do it anymore.

We only have a little time left to explore the crypts underneath the church where many of England's most famous people are buried (fill in some of the people here). The gift shop is down here as well and our tour comes with a book. I am standing near Lord Nelson's tomb when a woman comes up and asks if I would like to trade pins. She offers a Brazil team pin. She asks for one of the pins of Wenlock doing a sport. I am happy to make that trade and ask her if she is from Brazil. She says that she is and asks whether we are going to go to Brazil for the Olympics. I tell her that we are and she hands me a Rio 2016 pin. Her tour is moving on and she apologizes that she has to go. This is one of those trades where walking around with many kg (lbs) of pins is all worthwhile.

We walk back across the Millennium bridge and decide to have lunch at a place called Pizza Express. True enough, we receive our pizzas in less than ten minutes and have a nice/quick lunch.

We have about an hour to watch Olympic coverage before we head off to ExCeL arena for Wrestling. We change from the Jubilee line to the DLR at Canning town and before I can look around, there is a volunteer asking whether I will trade pins. Since most of these volunteers have only been asking for pins, I am happy to trade. Before I've completed the trade, another volunteer appears and then a third and a fourth. Fortunately for me, their supervisor shoos them away and tells them to stop bothering me. I appreciate not creating a pin riot, but this is also why the pin trading is so slow. The people who are most exposed to pin trading, the volunteers, are also generally prohibited from trading pins with the public. This is a shame because it deprives both the volunteers and the spectators the positive experiences that can come from trading pins. I understand that this is probably a reaction to the situation in Beijing where some volunteers spent more time hunting pins than they did helping spectators. Hopefully Rio will find a more balanced approach to pins.

For several days, we've had two tickets together and one ticket apart. This was generally not a problem as the third ticket was close by. Today, Beth had the separate ticket - and found that her seat did not exist. It was apparently supposed to be in a section that is now behind one of the scoreboards. She walks back down to the usher and is moved to a section on the opposite end of the arena slightly above a section where the photographers are all sitting. What a great deal except for our concerns about finding each other when everyone exist the arena!

Our session includes both preliminary, quarterfinal and semifinal matches in two weight classes (55kg and 74kg). There are three matches going on simultaneously and it is difficult to tell when a cheer goes up exactly who they are cheering. Fortunately, once the quarterfinal and semifinal matches begin, they only have one match going at a time. Here are some of the pictures that I got:

Like the Taekwondo athletes, these guys are really quick. But it seems that there is a lot less action. Most of the wrestlers do not want to gamble on getting a good hold if it means putting yourself in a vulnerable position. The only time this changes is when a wrestler is behind and has to score to stay in the match. On the other hand, the diversity in both athletes and spectators is better than for most sports.

After the match, it is back to the hotel. We had a big lunch and there is not much time before we have to leave for Team Handball so we stop at Pret a Manger for dinner. I have a crawfish salad sandwich that is brilliant.

Then it is off to Team Handball. This is a men's semifinal match so Handball has been moved from the Copper Box to the larger basketball arena. This means a longer walk because the arena is almost as far as you can get away from the park entrance and still be in the park. The arena looks like a big melted marshmallow. I have heard that this arena is temporary and that there is a good chance that it will be packed up and shipped off to Rio for the 2016 Games.

We are still looking for a few Olympic souvenirs so we head into the smaller London 2012 venue shop in the hope that some of the things we're looking for are here despite being sold out at the Olympic Superstore. I had only been there for a minute when a familiar face walks in. Chris is a physiotherapist who works for the Navy's Seal program in San Diego. He also has a long history of volunteering his services to a variety of smaller Olympic Committees. For the last 3-4 Olympics, he has been working for the team from American Samoa. We saw him march in the Opening Ceremonies on TV before leaving on this trip. Beth and I introduce him to Sean, who he has not seen in about 10 years. Chris hands Sean one of his few remaining American Samoa team pins. I ask him how the Olympics are going. He says that he is tired and ready to go home. He said that he has been helping 5 or 6 other Olympic committees that brought no medical support staff at all in addition to his work for American Samoa. He also said that he has gotten into hot water with his delegation. One of the Samoan wrestlers hurt his shoulder and had an MRI. Chris looked at the MRI and recommended to the delegation that the wrestler's injury was serious enough that he should not compete. As expected, this was not the answer that they wanted to hear. This is a common problem with the smaller and poorer delegations. They work very hard and spend considerable scarce resources to get athletes qualified to compete and they want to show results for those expenses. This can bring them into conflict with the medical staff who are trying to protect the health of the athletes.

Chris is also going to Team Handball, but enters the arena through the accredited entrance. I'm about to follow him out the door when one of the cashiers asks if I will trade pins. She only has a few pins, but I see a Samsung sponsor pin with Stonehenge on it that I like. But she is clearly overwhelmed by the number of choices on my vest. She finally narrows it down to a Wenlock sports pin and a NBC sports pin. She calls over a random person to ask which one she should take. At this point, I mention that while I am happy to trade either one, I want to point out that she could buy the Wenlock pin in either her own store or in the Olympic store for 7 pounds ($11) while she could probably not get the NBC pin except through trade. This convinces her and we complete the trade. But by the time I get out of the store, Chris is long gone. Fortunately, he also collects pins and understands.

We learned at the Wrestling that each venue has a ticket resolution tent where spectators can get help. We again have two tickets together and one separate so Beth is keen to see if there is anything they can do. They explain that with most of the tickets sold, the only way that they can resolve these problems is if they get other tickets back through the resolution process. They tell us that they don't have any tickets available right now, but might be able to do something at halftime. They also ask us whether our tickets are from Cosport. We say that they are. Apparently Cosport is becoming legendary in their inability to put groups together. The volunteers ask us to complain to Cosport since they now have thousands of complains. I read in the paper today that the IOC is considering reevaluating the way that tickets are distributed. Given our problems with Cosport, this cannot happen soon enough.

Today's match is between defending champion and gold medal favorite France and Croatia. Sean and I are sitting close to a huge group of French fans while Beth is close to a group of Croatians. Both groups are very vocal, but I think that there are perhaps twice as many French supporters.

It does not take long to figure out that this game is all about the French goalkeeper, Thiery Omeyer. Every couple of minutes, the announcer says "Save by Thiery - and all of the French fans scream OMEYER. In a sport where a typical team may score on 70% of their shots, the Croatians are only scoring on about 45% of their shots. But the Croatians are taking almost twice as many shots as the French so the score stays close almost the whole way. France ends up winning 25-22 to advance to the Gold Medal game. Here are some pictures from the match:

Steps for the day: 28, 375 (another new Olympic record and more than 12 miles of walking - no wonder my feet hurt!)

London (Olympic Day 16)

It is the last day of the Olympics. This is the first time we've been here for the final day. It is sad that it is all over. We have had a great time, but I am tired and ready to go home. We have two tickets for the Closing Ceremonies this evening, but before that, we have an event at USA House near the Royal Albert Hall.

Most of you may not know that the US is one of only a handful of nations that do not provide direct governmental support for their Olympic teams. Most of the funds needed to train and field the US's Olympic team comes from individual donors like Beth and I. We are in a position to donate enough over a four year period that we get invited to donor events at each Olympic Games.

It may not come as a shock to many of you that the US's reputation in the world is not what it used to be. So rather than a huge sign proclaiming "This is USA House" like the Jamaicans have next to the North Greenwich Arena, you have to know where it is to visit. And there are sufficient security guards around to ensure that the only people going in are supposed to be there.

We had not been sitting for more than a minute before a tall guy walks up and hands me a gold medal. He is John Naber and won four gold medals in swimming at the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal (and set a world record in each one). He is also the Master of Ceremonies for our event and one of the most positive supporters of the Olympic movement that I've ever met. Here is a shot of Sean with one of John's gold medals:

After a brief introduction, John turns the podium over to another former Olympic swimmer, three time gold medalist Donna De Varona. Donna was the youngest member of the 1960 Summer Olympic swim team in Rome and broke her first world record at age 13. She talked about America in 1960 still being racially divided and that one event that stuck in her mind was that the American athletes in Rome marched into the Olympic stadium by height with the tall women first. She was the shortest woman and right behind her were the members of the American basketball team. She said that her father had told her to watch the Olympic torch enter the stadium, but she couldn't see anything. She said that a black basketball player picked her up and put her on his shoulders at a time when whites and blacks were not allowed to touch each other. She thinks that this started her toward social activism. After winning two gold medals at the 1964 Tokyo Summer Olympics, she signed a contract to become the first female sports commentator in the US. Later, she was one of the driving forces behind the passage of Title IX which prohibited discrimination on the basis of sex for any activity receiving federal funding. One of the results of Title IX was the equal treatment of men's and women's college athletics.

After Donna talked, a number of Olympians walked around to speak with the donors. Beth met four time gold medal diver Greg Louganis. Sean and I went over to meet Dick Fosbury, gold medalist in the high jump at the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City and creator of the Fosbury Flop, a technique of going over the bar backwards that is now used by virtually every top level high jumper in the world. Here is a picture of Sean with Dick:

After that, we took a quick look at the special store that the USOC has for donors and athletes and picked up a couple t-shirts for Rio 2016!

We are supposed to meet the family of one of Beth's colleagues, who we encouraged to attend the Olympics, for lunch at their hotel near Earl's Court station. But we have a little time to kill. Hyde Park is right across the street from USA House. From there, we get a good view of the Royal Albert Hall, named after Queen Victoria's husband Prince Albert:

Most of Hyde Park is closed for viewing of the Closing Ceremonies, but there is an exhibit for the 2012 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia in the park so we walk over. We had gone to Sochi House in Vancouver so we thought that we would know most of what was going to be displayed. The message was certainly much smoother this time. A number of world class athletes talked about the "newly opened" Russia and what they thought was special about it.

Inside, there are a lot more sponsors now signed up than they had in Vancouver. I can't honestly say that I learned anything except that the Russians clearly have a better understanding of Olympic pins than the people in Britain. The volunteers flocked to me like a moth to a flame. If I hadn't needed to move on, all of the London pins on my vest would have been replaced by Sochi pins! Beth and I still think that attending an Olympics during the middle of a school year is unworkable, but Sean is determined to get such great grades that we have to change our minds. We shall see - it certainly looks like a beautiful place.

After leaving Sochi House, we head down Kensington High Street looking for a left turn onto Earl's Court Road. Not only will this take us to the hotel where we are to meet with Beth's colleague Don and his wife Janey, but will also take us close to where my grandparents Dorothy and Dan Robie lived when I visited them in 1968. Unfortunately, a lot has changed in 44 years. I find a street that seems to curve off in the correct way, but a new building exists where I thought that the street should have gone. Oh well, it was worth a try.

We have a nice lunch with Don and Janey and their three grown children and share our Olympic adventures. They have had the same challenge with not all of the tickets that they bought being together. But more importantly, we found that they have had a good time. We will see whether it was good enough for them to go to Rio in 2016.

Then it is back to the hotel to do some blogging and packing. I also have a decision to make. For a long time, we have thought that Sean and I would go to the Closing Ceremonies while Beth packed because our cab will arrive at 6:30am to take us to the airport. However, I have read that the Closing Ceremonies will also include a huge amount of British music that Beth will appreciate much more than I do. So, I give her the ticket and settle down to watch the Closing Ceremonies on TV while working on this blog.

BBC had a 90 minute leadup to the Closing Ceremonies that I really enjoyed even if it was completely from the point-of-view of the British athletes. They love their sports here, but they are also brutal in their analysis of the sports. The newspaper this morning listed the government spending for each sport and how much bang-for-the-buck that they got for this spending. Sports that they felt should be rewarded with additional funding were: Boxing, Cycling, Equestrian, Gymnastics, Rowing, and Triathlon. Sports that they felt should have their spending cut were: Archery, Badminton, Diving, Football (soccer), Handball, Swimming, Synchronized Swimming, Table Tennis, Tennis, Volleyball, Water Polo, Wrestling and Weightlifting.

Here are some of the things that I really liked about the Closing Ceremonies. I really liked the way that the athletes got into the stadium. This should be the way that it is done from now on. I liked the performance by former Monty Python member Eric Idle singing "Always look on the bright side of life". I liked the way that the Olympic cauldron was extinguished and as always, I enjoyed the symbolism of passing the flag to the next Olympic host, Rio de Janeiro. 

I cannot say that I was quite as wild about the short presentation by Rio 2016. I'll watch it again when I get home to see if it grows on me, but for now, I thought that it could have been better. I'll hopefully add some pictures from the Closing Ceremonies in the next few days, but it is 12:15am local time and Beth and Sean probably won't be home for another hour or so. Then we'll be getting up on 5 hours sleep to fly home.

It has been a great trip. For those who are still waiting for posts about on the missing days, please be patient. I have made notes and will finish them up as soon as I can. I will also have some final remarks on these Games.

Steps for the day: 20,600

London (Olympic Day 13)

We have Taekwondo this afternoon so we have some more time for exploring London. This morning we are off to London to see the changing of the guard. I saw this for the first time 44 years ago at about the same age that my son Sean is now. So I am careful not to tell him too much and just let it all soak in.

The crowd is already fairly huge when we get there. We choose a place as close to the fence as we can get, but there is a family that has three young girls have way up the fence so we definitely have obstructed views. We can see the old guards (the ones whose 24hr shift is almost over) gathering inside the fence:

The red plume on the right side of their bearskin hats identifies the old guard as the Coldstream Guards. All of these are "real" soldiers, most of whom have fought in Iran or Afghanistan and it is a real honor for them to be chosen to guard England's monarch. We hear a band in the distance and another group of guards moves through the gates. This is the group that has been guarding St. James's palace not far from here.

Shortly after this an older women in front of Beth passed out, probably due to the unseasonable heat and lack of water. Fortunately, the crowd was packed in hard enough that she more or less fell into the people behind her. She also fell right next to both an emergency medical technician and Beth so she was in good hands. They put a backpack under her head and let her lay there until she felt better and then got her some water and she was fine.

Then another marching band is heard coming from a different direction. This is the new guard who will begin their 24hr shift after the changeover:

The sets of three buttons and thistle collar badge identify this group as the Scots Guard. They march into the palace grounds for the changeover ceremony that includes the symbolic passing over of the keys to the palace even though it is never locked up. It takes a while for part of the new guards to take their posts at the St. James's palace, so the two bands play a concert while people wait. This must be John Williams day because the first two tunes they play are the theme from Raiders of the Lost Arc followed by the Emperor's March from Star Wars.

We leave before the ceremony is quite over to get something to eat before our event and end up at a Sushi bar in the Borough market down the street from our hotel. The food is excellent and the chef has ensured that all of the fish that is served is from sustainable sources. But it was the chocolate/wasabi sorbet that made the meal for me - crackin good as the British would say.

Underground platforms are slowly becoming good places to trade pins. I make my first team pin trade of the Olympics getting a German team pin for one from Monaco. I follow that up with a trade with a guy from the OBS (Olympic Broadcast Service). This is another indication that pin trading is slowly picking up, but I'm afraid that it will not really get going until we have gone home.

We get off the DLR at ExCel arena and realize that it must be Irish day:

We ask someone what event drew all of these people and they tell us that Katie Taylor is fighting for the gold medal today. It always amazes me how so many people from the right country can end up at the right event. We had to buy our tickets long before Olympic teams were even named. But this may be a benefit of the crackdown on ticket scalping. There are a lot of people offering to trade tickets.

We've got tickets to both men's and women's quarterfinals and semifinals in Taekwondo. This is the first time that we have ever seen this Korean martial art. Fortunately, each venue comes with a videotape that explains the essentials of each sport. Taekwondo translates roughly to "the way of the hand and the foot". This is a sport that has benefited from technology. This is because to score in Taekwondo, it is not sufficient to hit an opponent. The hit must be delivered with an amount of force that increases as the weight class of the competitors increase. Each competitor wears a vest that contains pressure sensors that record the force of the strike. One to four points are awarded for a successful hit with the number of points depending on the degree of difficulty. For example, a simple shot to the chest by fist or foot scores one point while a spinning kick to the head scores four points. Here are some of the pictures of the women's under 57kg and men's under 68kg events:

It is amazing how fast these athletes are and we quite enjoyed most of the event. The crowd was supportive of all of the athletes except those that had the misfortune of fighting someone from Team GB. I can understand the host nation wanting to cheer on their athletes. What I thought was over the top was the public address announcer leading and instigating the cheering. In particular, I thought that this treatment was disrespectful to Chinese Taipei athlete and former world champion Li-Cheng Tseng who lost to Team GB's Jade Jones.

After the event, we head back to the DLR and think that Katie Taylor must have lost because the Irish fans were somewhat subdued. But maybe they were just drained, because when they got on the train and started singing drinking songs with improvised lyrics praising Katie. This turned out to be Ireland's only gold medal of this Olympics and they were making the most of it.

It is already late when we get home so we just grab a quick bite at Pret a Manger and head back to our room to watch Athletics on TV. The best event for the day was the gold medal and world record set by David Rudisha of Kenya in the men's 800m. Often this race is quite tactical and ends up in a sprint finish. Rudisha clearly did not want to have this happen and ran the first 400m in a ridiculous 49.3 seconds. By that point, he was so far ahead that none of the sprinters could catch him.

Next up was Usain Bolt finishing off his double double (back to back gold medals in both 100m and 200m races) that makes him one of the greatest Olympic athletes of all time.

It is a sign of the times when you cannot take such great performances at face value. I sincerely hope that both of these young men are clean and delivered these performances only through natural talent, hard work and perseverance.

Steps for the day: 14,000

London (Olympic Day 12)

It is now August 11th as I'm writing this. Sorry for getting behind on what is going on, but we are cramming as much into each day as possible and that doesn't leave enough time to get a semi-intelligible blog out each day. So today's blog is about what we did on Wednesday, August 8th: 

We don't have anything planned for this morning so I suggest that Beth walk over to the Globe theatre (it's current version constructed in the 1960's) and take the tour while I work on this blog and watch the Olympic coverage on TV. Sean, as usual, plays video games (he is working on completing all levels of Bubble Ball Pro).

Beth returns having very much enjoyed the tour of the Globe theatre. She found that a number of famous actors have performed there over the years such as Helen Mirren, John Guilgud and Vanessa Redgrave.

We have lunch at a Greek restaurant on the south bank of the Thames. This area is really vibrant. Lots of new buildings under construction and many people, especially young people either visiting or living here. It reminds me a lot of the area of Shanghai across the river from Pudong.

We have our only tickets for Athletics (the Olympic name for Track & Field) tonight so we decide that we will use our afternoon going to visit the Greenwich Observatory so that Sean can stand on both sides of the prime meridian that divides the east and west hemispheres at the same time (note: I did the same thing on my visit to London in 1968). We had originally wanted to get to Greenwich by boat down the Thames, but we don't have quite enough time for that. So we take the Jubilee line to Canary Wharf and switch to the DLR. We have made and will make this trip a number of times going to the ExCel arena, but today we go in the opposite direction.

We want to get off at a stop called Cutty Sark, but the train does not stop at that station because of the Equestrian events being held in Greenwich. It is the first indication that our plans are going to be derailed.

At the Greenwich station, we ask one of the volunteers how to get over to the Cutty Sark station. She says just follow the signs to the Olympic venues. We start to see signs for the Royal Observatory at Greenwich and follow them - until we run into an Olympic security fence. One of the helpful Olympic volunteers tells us that the Royal Observatory is closed until 2 days after the end of the Olympics. She asks us whether we want to see the prime meridian. We say that we do and she tells us that a pub down the street called the Horse and Plume has made arrangements to show where the prime meridian runs through the center of their establishment and allow visitors to get their pictures taken there. Somehow, this is not quite the same thing and decide to pass on the prime meridian. However, we do find a funny sign:

I'm sure that there are a number of shops that could claim similar between France and North and West Africa, but it makes us laugh. Further down the hill toward the water, we come across the Cutty Sark:

The Cutty Sark was the 747 cargo plane of it's age. It was designed to compete in the Tea trade with China because there were large bonuses paid to the first ship to bring the year's tea from China to London. Unfortunately, it was launched in 1869. The same year that the Suez canal was completed. The clipper ships like Cutty Sark were designed to sail in the strong trade winds around Africa, but the newly developed steam ships were able to take the shorter route through the canal. So, after a few years, Cutty Sark was transferred to hauling wool from Australia. It held the record between Sydney and London (73 days) for more than 10 years. But the days of the clipper ship were numbered and Cutty Sark ended up it's days being a training ship for sailors before being moved to permanent dry dock.

We thought about taking a Thames river ferry back to the hotel, but elect to walk under the Thames through a pedestrian tunnel built early in the 1900's. From North Greenwich, we get onto the DLR to go back to the hotel.

We are only at the hotel for a couple hours and then we are back on our way to Stratford for Athletics. We have a little time to kill so we visit the pavilion of one of the Olympic sponsors. This one is EDF, the official electricity supplier for the Games. There is a few minute movie about all of the needs for electricity in a modern life which we thought was pretty mindless. Then we are let into an area where kids can make electricity by cycling or jumping on the floor. While Sean is using up some of his endless energy to make electricity, I'm asked to trade pins with one of the volunteers at the pavilion. She offers one of the EDF sponsor pins and asks for one of the Wenlock pins. I thought that her choice was interesting. I've got a whole vest full of pins from as long ago as 1980 and she asks for one of the few pins that she could have just bought in the Superstore next door. Oh well, at least some pin trading is starting to take place.

We go back to the "food court" for dinner. Beth and Sean choose hot panini sandwiches while I had a pizza, but all of us ended up eating on the ground again because there was nowhere to sit.

Nearly everyone nearby seems to have Athletic tickets. As expected, the Jamaican fans are looking forward to seeing world record holder Usain Bolt in a semifinal of the men's 200m while most of the American's are looking forward to the women's 200m, but I'm looking forward to seeing two events of the first day of men's decathlon. It is true that American Ashton Eaton is likely to win, but these are the greatest athletes in the world and I never get tired of watching them.

Here is the view as we walk into the Olympic stadium:

I have heard that there is still an argument between which Premier League football (soccer) team will end up using this beautiful stadium, but it sounds like this has not been decided yet. At least someone is going to use it as the Bird's Nest stadium is falling into disrepair because of the high cost of keeping it in good shape.

Off to the right are two high jump pits for the Decathlon high jump. In front of us is the field for the qualification round for the Javelin. To our left is the long jump pit and it is clear that we are very close to the start of the 200m race.

The first event is the Decathlon high jump. The A group is jumping on the pit to the left while the B group is jumping closer to us so we concentrate on them. The better jumpers pass most of the lower heights to avoid getting tired out. All of these people can really get up in the air. For the first three heights, no one misses, then we start to see the differences. Ashton Eaton clears the bar at 2.02m  (6' 7.5") by a mile while the guys on the B pit are working hard to clear 1.96m (6' 5"). Here is a picture of Cuban Leonel Suarez clearing the bar at 2.08m (6' 10"):

This jump tied him with Ashton Eaton. Leonel was able to clear 2.11m (6' 11") as well to win this event, but Eaton remained comfortably ahead.

Watching Athletics is like watching a three-ring circus. While the high jump is finishing up, the Javelin competition starts. They are throwing from the other end of the stadium, so the pictures aren't great, but we do really like the method for getting the javelins back to the throwers:

We look for the guy driving these remote control minis, but he must be down at the other end of the stadium.

Both Decathlon/High Jump and Javelin stop temporarily for the three semifinal heats of the 110m High Hurdles. Things are looking good for the Americans as they have the  two athletes, Aries Merritt and Jason Richardson in the top three (the Cuban defending Olympic champion Dayron Robles is 2nd).

After the Decathlon/High Jump ends, the semifinals of the women's 1500m race takes place. These women are really quick. The top eight qualifiers are all under 4 minutes 3 seconds!

The women's Long Jump final is just starting, but while it is going, the event that most people are looking forward starts: the men's 200m semifinals. It is kind of unfair. In the first heat, Yohan Blake from Jamaica runs the 200m in 20.01 seconds to win the first semifinal heat and the fans are like "ho hum, when does Usain show up?". They didn't have to wait long. Usain runs in the 2nd heat. Here is the start:

Okay, he only ran a 20.17, but he was only running for 100m. After that he just jogged in. But the crowd went completely nuts. I felt a little sorry for the long jumpers because no one was paying much attention to them at that point.

Next, we had the finals of the women's 400m Hurdles. For a while, it looks like American Lashinda Demus will win, but Natalya Antyukh from Russia catches her in the end to take the gold medal in a personal best 52.70 seconds. There is a saying (that I don't agree with) that you don't win silver, you lose gold. Unfortunately, Demus seems to feel that way because she looks completely dejected as she slowly walks across the stadium. I hope that later in her life, she will look back and feel better about her achievement. 

Then it was time for the women's 200m final and the Americans in the crowd of 80,000 got loud. The American women are as strong in the women's sprints right now as the Jamaicans are in the men's sprints. All three Americans, Alison Felix, Carmalita Jeter and Sanya Richards-Ross have a chance to win. Not surprisingly, their closest competitors are the Jamaicans Shelly-Ann Frasier-Pryce and Veronica Campbell-Brown.   Everyone got a great start, but it is clear after 100m that Alison Felix is just too fat for the other athletes. Frasier-Pryce takes the silver medal and Jeter takes the bronze. After the race, each of the winners has been doing victory laps around the stadium and I get a pretty good picture of Alison:

The men come back for the 110m hurdles next. Unfortunately, the Cuban Robles blows his hamstring after the 3rd or 4th hurdle and Merritt cruises to the victory just ahead of fellow American Richardson.

While all of these races have gone on, the women's Long Jump has been taking place. Brittney Reese of the US has been ahead since perhaps the second round of jumps:

Her jump of 7.12m (23' 4") proves to be enough to win the gold medal. Elena Sokolova from Russia was in second for a long time as well, but Janay Deloach from the US makes the most of her next-to-last jump to take the bronze medal. That is 7 medals for the US in the last four events and is the reason why the USA is always near the top of the medal rankings. They are only good at a few events, but they are really, really good at those events.

The evening ends with the Decathlon/400m. It is extremely difficult for these athletes to be good at everything. High jump winner Suarez runs 49.04 seconds while Eaton runs 46.90 seconds to lead after the end of the first day: Eaton leads with 4661 points, Troy Hardee from the US is second with 4441 points and Damian Warner from Canada is 3rd with 4386 points.

Going home on the Underground, I give away a few more pins and have an interesting conversation with a couple from London who are complaining about how difficult it has been to get tickets. They are especially unhappy about the number of empty seats at each venue. I explain that the empty seats are reserved for the Olympic family (International Olympic Committee members, National Olympic Committee members and Olympic sponsors) who may or may not show up. While there have been previous attempts by Olympic organizers to free up these tickets for last minute sales, the IOC has always vetoed these attempts. Likewise, I explained that there is only one ticket agent for each country and the competition for the tickets allocated to each country is a function of the number of tickets allocated and the number of people wanting to buy them. Unfortunately, the United Kingdom probably does not get the highest number of tickets while they have a huge number of people who want them. It is probably easier for us to get tickets in the US for an overseas Olympics because the US is allocated a lot of tickets and relatively fewer are interested in traveling to the Games.

Steps for the day: 23,400 (a new Olympic record)

London (Olympic Day 11)

We are off to the women's volleyball quarterfinals today at Earl's Court. This also gives me a chance to see if I can located the place where I visited my grandparents in 1968. I remember that they lived in a townhouse just off of Earl's Court road quite close to Kensington High street. From looking on Google Earth, I think that their house has been  torn down and replaced by a new development, but I want to see for sure.

Getting to Earl's Court requires getting on a new Underground line - the District line. We take the Jubilee line to Winchester and change there for the District line. We come out of the station and are directed off in one direction toward the venue. We don't see any street signs so we go with the flow. After about 15 minutes walk, we arrive at the venue. While Beth goes to ask one of the volunteers which way Earl's Court road is, a cameraman comes up next to me and films my hat. When Beth comes back, the news is not good. Earl's Court road was the main road when we came out of the Underground station. However, the volunteer has told Beth that we will be directed back out of the venue toward the Earl's Court station so we can try finding my grandparent's home after the event.

We get to see two quarterfinal matches. In the first quarterfinal, the women from Japan will take on China. This should be a great match as both of these teams have been world powers for a long time. Going into this match, Japan has beaten Algeria, Dominican Republic and Great Britain and lost to Russia and Italy. China has beaten Serbia, Turkey and Korea and lost to the USA and Brazil. 

Japan has two great hitters; Saori Kimura:

and Yukiku Ebata:

Kimura is 185cm (6'1") and can really get off of the ground, but Ebata is only 176cm (5'9"). The two best Chinese hitters, Ruoqi Hui and Yimei Wang are 189cm (6'2") and 190cm (6'3") respectively. To get around the size difference, the Japanese use a lot of misdirection in their sets - you never really know where the attack is going to come from. On the other hand, the Chinese seem very methodical and nearly always attack on the same side making it much easier for the Japanese blockers. However, the Japanese are also more error prone and these two factors nearly balance. As a result, no team gets ahead by more than 3 points throughout the entire match. After 4 sets, the score stands at 28-26, 23-25, 25-23 and 23-25. We did not realize immediately, but the fifth set only goes to 15 points instead of 25 (but you have to win by two) so it was a surprise when the scoreboard showed that China was at match point when they took the lead at 14-13. It is now when, in my opinion, the fans began to decide the match. As the match had gone on, more and more fans rooted for Japan. I think that was because Kimura and Ebata were so much better than their Chinese counterparts (they had 63 kills compared to 46 for Hui and Wang), that they felt that Japan had "earned" the right to win. In any case, with strong fan support, the Japanese fought off two match points and finally won the the 5th set 18-16.

The second match is a match of polar opposites. The Russians are the stretched limos of women's volleyball. All but two members of their team are over 182cm (6'0") tall. Here is their starting front line:

To put this in perspective, the woman on the right (#5 Liubov Shashkova) is my height - 192cm (6'4"). The woman on the left (#13 Ekaterina Gamova) is 202cm (6'8")! They have another woman this size on their bench. By contrast, the Brazilians two tallest women are Thaisa Menezes at 194cm (6'4") and Sheilla Castro at 187cm (6'2"). If Gamova in particular gets a set in the correct location, there is nothing that the Brazilians can do. She simply hits the ball over the block. But like the Japanese before them, the Brazilians remain competitive by being unpredictable. Nine members of their team record at least on kill.

The match is almost as tight as the previous match. After four sets, the score is 26-24, 22-25, 25-19, 22-25. Russia goes ahead in the fifth set, but the many Brazilian fans refuse to let their team give up:

Most of the British fans are also rooting for the Brazilians. The guy in front of us explains that it is because London is handing the Olympics off to the Brazilians. Brazil fights off four match points and finally comes back to win the final set 21-19. These are easily the best two volleyball matches that I've ever seen!

At this point, the event has taken at least one hour longer than scheduled and I am not feeling that good so we decide to pass on the search for the Robie home off of Earl's Court road. Beth and Sean have 9pm tickets for the London Eye (a huge ferris wheel on the Thames) so we agree that I will return to the hotel and work on this blog. Sean and Beth go looking for dinner near Westminster Abbey (they ended up at a great Japanese place).

The rainy weather diminishes the view from the top of the Eye 135 meters (440 feet) above the ground, but Beth and Sean enjoy the ride. They arrive home just in time to watch Alison Felix, Sanya Richards-Ross and Carmalita Jeter of the USA qualify for the Women's 200m final which we will see in person tomorrow.

Steps for the day: 12,200