London was by far one the greatest experience I've ever had.  Being in an Olympic atmosphere is one of the most exciting things I could possibly even dream up. I loved every minute of it.

I actually learned a lot while being there, and even before going.  I hadn't realized how big of a deal Olympism really is, and personally I feel that you don't really realize it unless you are actually involved in an Olympism in Action event and in the actual atmosphere of the games.  I personally felt that in the United States, the media tries so hard to glorify our country and how great all of its sports teams and individual athletes are (not that they have to since we are OBVIOUSLY the best).  The media focuses on medal counts, and who is the best, while the IOC and other Olympic organizations try and keep the focus on bringing the world together through sport.

The message of the Olympics is truly an amazing one.  It is all about peace and coming together, and bringing cultures together.  Some of the main focuses are education through sport and involving women in sport.  There are actually 6 main focuses, but these are the two that stuck out the most to me and are the two I would most like to get involved in at some point.  

Being at the Olympics has opened my eyes to even more things in sport that interest me, and have made me want to possibly go in the direction of career-wise.

1.  Watch the English soccer team play while in a pub.

Did this totally on accident! We had just left the Korea v. Gabon game and went to a pub to eat and Great Britain was playing Uruguay! It just happened by chance, but the atmosphere was great.  Something would happen and everyone would cheer or yell "awwwww!" at the same time.  It was a lot like watching a football game at a bar back at home.  Not the "magical" moment I thought it would be, but was still very fun.

2. Try the local cuisine.

Fish and chips were the safest local cuisine I could find, and of course, I ate them traditionally with malt vinegar.  But I also managed to go outside of my comfort zone and try bangers and mash too! In other words, I ate sausage with mashed potatoes and onion gravy.  Still a safe meal, but very good.  I did not have the courage to eat black pudding. 

3. Meet and take a picture with an athlete.


These are just a few of the athletes I met! There are more pictures in the photo gallery.  It was actually a lot easier to meet athletes than I thought it would be!  The day of the opening ceremonies, Allie, Lori and I actually stood by the athletes' entrance and met a lot of them as they were coming in! Unfortunately we didn't meet any really famous people, but it was still awesome anyway.

4.  Get a picture with a mascot.

Unfortunately, I never saw the mascots out and about.  The only time I saw them were at gold medal matches when someone won, a mascot would hand them a gold stuffed mascot.  You could buy the actual mascots all over the place, but I never saw one in person!

5.  Watch an event on the jumbotron.

I actually watched a few events on the jumbotrons, we watched the beginning of the opening ceremonies on one at Victoria Park, Allie and I watched events on the jumbotron in Olympic Park before the basketball game, and we accidentally stumbled upon a gold medal swimming race just as it was about to start, which was pretty cool. The jumbotron we saw that one on though was just outside of King's Cross train station, so it wasn't all that crowded, but the other two were extremely crowded and a great atmosphere to be around.  

6. Dress like a tourist.

I unfortunately did not have the apparel to dress like a complete uber-tourist.  I wore red white and blue, and wore a USA jersey to basketball, but other than that, I was unfortunately pretty unprepared and pretty lame. The picture to the left, is about as close as I got.

7. Try and make a palace guard laugh. 

All I can say is, I did a million times better! 

8. Ride a double decker bus.
Once again, I think I did way better.  I rode a Harry Potter double decker bus, which is pretty awesome.  And I also was on a triple decker bus! Better known as the knight bus to Harry Potter fans!

9. Stand in a red phone booth.

Did it twice!

10. See Buckingham Palace.

I wasn't able to go inside, but I saw it a few times from outside.  It was pretty cool at night.

11. Take a picture at Platform 9 3/4.

We accidentally stumbled upon it coming home one day, we left the train station out a different way and there it was!

12.  Stand on an Olympic Stadium field.

Unfortunately, this did not happen... BUT! I have faith in myself completing this one in Rio!

13. See David Beckham in person.

Close enough right?

Started the day off with a 5am wakeup... The time back in Michigan was midnight.. 

We all split back into our two groups to make our way home.  The Chicago/Toledo group and the Newark group. We left first about 6:15 to take the tube all the way to Heathrow.  We took the long tube ride all the way there, to terminal 5.  But lucky us, we actually needed to be at terminal 3. So we got on a different train to take us over there.  Once we got to the correct terminal we got to wait in lots of lines! yay!!! 

Finally, after getting through security, lo and behold our flight was delayed and we did not have a gate yet!  It was beginning to be stressful.  

Luckily, the delay was short and we were on the plane around 10:30 London time, so still 5:30am in Michigan.  

The flight to Chicago was relatively good one, well as good as an 8 hour flight can be!  I spent my time mostly watching movies, and playing video games.  Yes, I was able to play video games on my flight! It was pretty sweet.  When they served us food, first we got a full meal, I had ravioli, salad, bread, cookies, crackers, the works.  And then, a miracle happened! about an hour before we landed they served a snack, the snack was pizza! After two weeks of bland European food that overall, I was not a huge fan of, I was able to eat a mini pizza! I almost victory danced on the plane!

Finally we landed in Chicago, about noon their time, so 6pm London time, and 1pm in Michigan.  (The time changes everywhere were very hard to keep track of!)  After a 4 hour layover and 3 gate changes we boarded the plane to Toledo.  At this point I just felt so close to home yet so far away! The feeling was brutal!  

Finally, at 4:30 Chicago time, 9:30pm London time, and 5:30pm in Michigan, we were off to Toledo.  Home was only a 45 minute flight away!

We landed at 6:30 Michigan time and 11:30pm London time and my mom, sister, and a surprise guest were there to greet me!  It was a great way to come make it home, all that was left was the 2 hour ride back, which wasn't bad considering I had plenty to talk about!

Lack of sleep and excessive walking, going out, and partying had caught up with me.  All I wanted to do was sleep, and all I really that was all I did.  Allie and I went and found a pub and walked around our area and went to the British Library.  

After that we started packing to get ready to go home.

As much as I loved London and everything about it, I was beyond exhausted and just ready to go home.

Allie and I headed up to Oxford Circus to go shopping.  After a while we literally felt like we were sleep walking.  Neither of us could keep our eyes open!  So after 2 hours and one outfit later we headed back to the hostel.

After a quick nap, Allie and I got ready to meet people for dinner and drinks for our last night out.

Plans quickly changed and we all ended up at the barracks where the Olympic Reunion Center was where we watched some track events with some former Olympians.  After raiding the open bar they provide for us, we headed back towards our hostel and went out to the club called House of Nations.  We all had a great time drinking and dancing and it was a great way to end our last night out in London.

Derrick, Allie, Frankie and I, all got up early and headed out to figure out how to get to Warner Brothers studios.

After over an hour of switching between the tube and the trains and we finally found it.  I, however, have never seen any of the Harry Potter movies and only read the first book.  So as cool as the set was, I just wasn't all that interested in it.  But I did get some pretty cool pictures, and now I wanna watch all the movies.

After the tour, we were starving, so we went to a pub to eat and then later that night went out to house of nations with a bunch of people in the group.  We all had a pretty great time.

In the morning, Allie and I made our way over to see the famous Harrods department store.  

It literally blew my mind how upscale that place was.  I had already had an idea in my mind what it might have been like, but the actual thing hit my idea out of the park.

I imagined a giant Nordstrom's thinking it was fancy but still relatively affordable.  I was so wrong.  
Parts of Harrods were affordable, aka the food and some of the souvenirs.  Some of the things they sold were just insane... I saw a real Andy Warhol painting for sale... I was in shock!

Harrods is set up so each floor has at least 7 or 8 different stores on each floor.  It was way too easy to get lost in there! 

Later that night, Frankie, Derek, Allie, Colleen, and I headed out to see the London bridge, which I later learned is actually called the tower bridge.  

First we went to a pub to eat, then we walked down the bridge to find the London Eye.

There was no one in line and we were able to just get right on, and seeing the entire city of London lit up at night was beautiful.  The ride all together lasted about a half hour because the ferris wheel is really slow so everyone can see the scenery.  It really was awesome.

After that, we got back to the hostel and hungout some before being so exhausted that we went to sleep.

This morning Allie and I attempted to ride bikes through Hyde Park..... SO DANGEROUS!
Basically you have to be able to drive to ride bikes which I was incapable of doing and cars don't care if you're in the road if you're in their way they'll just hit you.

Then we had soccer tickets at Wembley stadium.  There were 80,000 people there and I loved the atmosphere even though the game wasn't a big one.  

Trying to make it to the tube to go home was an adventure in itself.  There were so many people, it took a good 45 mins to walk what would normally take 5.

After the game we went to a pub and watched another soccer game! Great Britain against Uraguay-- another great atmosphere!