London

Sorry this post is so late.... London was so much fun! I traveled on Thursday without issue - except for some running to catch my train. You seriously should have been there to see Heather running through the masses of people on Princes Street with my giant case, knocking people out of the way - it was hilarious! I was having trouble keeping up because I was laughing so hard!

Friday, Elspeth and I went to the Olympic Park! I really thought that it would be really crowded and miserable everywhere, but it wasn't at all - I guess all the Londoners listened and stayed home. We barely had to wait for anything. We spent the morning wandering around the park and exploring the shops and things. It was a lovey day until about noon, when we were sitting by the jumbo screen at Park Live to watch the rowing finals and have lunch, when there was a spontaneous torrential downpour for a few minutes. Fortunately, the sun came right back out to dry us all off. Our event, women's handball matches, was at 2:30pm, so we headed over the the Copper Box in the afternoon. We had really great seats! Perfect height, no rows in front of or behind us because we were at the level of the walkways, and right by the athlete's area door so all the athletes and coaches watching were next to us. It definitely turned out to be a great experience - handball is really fast paced and exciting to watch! I'm totally invested now and have been keeping up with the matches. We chose both winning teams, despite who the majority of the crowd was rooting for - both Croatia and Russia won!
I'm actually really glad we went to a less high profile sport because we got to be so close to the athletes! I actually even pointed one of them to her teammate that had walked away while she was texting - lol! After the matches, we wandered some more, got some dinner, and watched the swimming finals on the big screen with lots of other people. It was so cool to be there and get the atmosphere, even if you didn't get tickets to be in the arena.

Olympic Stadium!

Epic handball!

Saturday, I went into to London and met up with James - he came all the way from Norwich for the day to hang out. :) We spent most of the day at Madame Tussaud's - I'd never been to one before and really wanted to go. Fortunately, James was very nice about it and tolerated me dragging him around to all the wax twins of movie stars to take my picture. haha! But, we made friends with an Olympian (I think she was from Algeria) and she took some pictures for us and I took a few for her - she was really sweet. :)  Especially compared to most of the people there - it was really crowded with some seriously pushy people. :(  But we still had fun. We had a nice dinner in a nearby park afterwards - such a lovely day! Thanks, James!

This was a necessary picture!

James and me and Julia Roberts - haha! Taken by an Olympic athlete!

Awww cuteeee

Sunday, I went to church with Elspeth and her sister. :) Then, Elspeth and I went into London to see more sights. She took me to Camden Market - such a CRAZY place! But I could do some serious shopping there! haha! We went to the National Portrait Gallery - they had a special Olympics portraits there and even some abstract art which included a video of David Beckham sleeping. Hmmm not sure how that's art, but none of the ladies seemed to be complaining.... We wandered through lots of shops and had sweets at a place called Candy Cupcakes - sounds amazing, right? I had a Mounds milkshake - soooo good!

I'm so blessed to have such awesome friends that made my holiday to the UK a blast - thanks James, Heather and Elspeth!!