2012 London Olympics - Part 1

My friends, this is the kind of blog post that you don't get to write very often.  My wife and I are in London, to attend the 2012 Olympic Games.  Talk about a once-in-a-lifetime experience!  We're blessed to have the opportunity, that's for sure.  We're also lucky enough to have my Mom stay with the kids back home.  She's a real trooper, and the kids love spending time with her…so it's a win-win for us ; )

I've been lucky enough to attend the 2000 Olympics in Sydney, while my wife attended the 2002 Winter Games in Salt Lake City.  We also had tickets to the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, but couldn't make the trip work for us that year.  Needless to say, we love, love the Olympics!

We traveled to London via Brussels, Belgium.  It turned out to be a little cheaper that way.  We took the Eurostar Train from Brussels to London, via the Chunnel (under the English Channel).

When we stepped out of the train in London at St. Pancras Station, we knew we were in the right place immediately:

The mascot for the games is a funny little creature called Wenlock.  The mascot for the Paralympics is Mandeville. They were both selected by the UK in a vote.  While cute, they're a little strange.  This fellow is Mendleville. We had a nice conversation:

To try and adjust to the European time-zone, we wanted to stay up as long as we could, given that we'd been traveling for 22 hours at that point.  We decided to go for a long walk in Kensington Gardens.  This is a beautiful area of London, that's connected to the even larger Hyde Park.  Kensington Gardens also contains Kensington Palace, the former home of Princess Diana.  In fact, you find references to Diana all over the park.  There is the Princess Diana Memorial Walk through the gardens:

Here, you'll also find the Princess Diana Memorial Fountain - which isn't really a fountain at all.  It's more like a man-made creek, so that children can play in the water:

Hyde Park is actually one of the Olympic venues.  They held the Triathlon there, and everything was still set-up for more events later in the week, like the marathon swim:

Also contained in the park is a bronze statue of Peter Pan.  The site was actually selected by Pan's author, J. M. Barrie.  He lived near the Kensington Gardens and used the park for inspiration:

After passing out in the hotel room, we awoke for our first day at the Olympics!  We started the morning with a visit to the brand-new Hyde Park LDS Chapel Visitor's Center.  This chapel was build back in the 1950s, before there were really members of the LDS Church in central London.  However, the Prophet at the time (David O. McKay) had the inspiration to create a central meeting point for Saints in London.  It now houses three different congregations and is located right across the street from two very popular museums (Albert & Victoria, Science & Technology).  The Church completely renovated the Visitor's Center, just in time for the Olympics.  

I have to be honest and say that this is one of the most impressive centers I've seen.  All of the exhibits are interactive, and the production quality is superb.  Each station has a series of touch-screen video monitors, that let you select different topics to learn about.  They explain our beliefs and help others to ask important questions about their own faith.

Recently, the Church created an advertising campaign to help people get to know our Church.  The "I'm a Mormon" campaign has been used in several major cities, with many videos that allow members to show their lives and how their faith blends in.  At the Visitor's Center, there is a large device that you can move across the wall to select any number of videos about an individual and/or their family.  

The software was really well done, so that the screen showed the appropriate videos, based on the images displayed behind the device.

What a fantastic way to start our first full day of Olympic adventure!

We then wanted to make our way to the Olympic Park, which contains several of the largest Olympic venues, including the Olympic Stadium.  We traveled to Kings Cross Station.  For Harry Potter fans, you'll recognize this station as the departure point for the Hogwarts train.  They are smart enough to accommodate the millions of Harry Potter fans, with a display at Track 9 3/4:

Olympic Park is a little distance from central London, so they provided high-speed trains to get you to the destination in only 7 minutes! Called Olympic Javelin Trains, they depart from Kings Cross Station:

We finally arrived at the entrance to Olympic Park, and our excitement just kept growing and growing:

As you approach the Park, you see the huge venues all around you.  Each of these can hold from 20,000 to 80,000 spectators, so the number of people in the Park was incredible:

The first thing that jumps out at you, is the Olympic Stadium, which holds 80,000 people. It's a beautiful crown jewel in the Olympic Park:

Right next to it is The Orbit, a structure standing 115m (377 ft) high.  It's actually the tallest art structure in all of the UK, with some impressive views of not only Olympic Park, but all of London. You can walk all the way to the top, if you've got the strength ; )

While in the Park, we had a chance to actually hold an official Olympic Torch.  It's a beautiful design, but a little tough to hold onto, due to the metallic pattern.  I'm guessing it's more for looks than function ; )

We passed by several Olympic venues, including the amazing Aquatics Center

One of the things that struck us, was the use of wildflowers throughout the Park.  This entire part of London was really run-down and polluted.  The Olympics has changed all of that.  They organizers cleaned-up the waterways and replanted trees and flowers everywhere.  I just marveled at how beautiful everything was:

I had to have my picture taken with the other mascot, Wenlock.  I tried to race him, but he was obviously intimidated by my stance:

Another massive structure was the Basketball Arena.  The crazy thing is that this is a temporary building!  When you got closer, it looked more like a tent.  We discovered that several of the buildings were not meant to be permanent, but constructed of materials that could be reused elsewhere:

Another gorgeous structure was the Coca-Cola Beatbox..you could walk all the way through this "artwork" and create rhythms.  It was unusual...but sure stood out.

We obviously wanted to shop for some Olympic merchandise.  The Olympic Park had three different stores.  We chose the largest - the Olympic Megastore ; ) This store was more than 40,000 square feet (4.000 sq. meters) of space, with all kinds of licensed products to purchase.  We had to wait in a line for 15 minutes, just to get inside.  It was a little crowded:

We spent more time walking through Olympic Park, gazing at more gargantuan structures.  This was the Velodrome, site of all the cycling events:

Here's a quick look around the Park, starting from the Velodrome.  At the end of the video, you'll see what's called Olympic Live:

Olympics Live is a fun way for large crowds to watch some of the events happening in several of the venues.  People would sit on either bank of the river and watch these giant screens.  Medal winners would appear on-stage for interviews and they would have live music throughout the day:

There was so much to see…and to take pictures of.  Sometimes, I just didn't know what device to use:

We wanted a cold drink, so headed into one of the McDonalds buildings. As one of the global sponsors of the Olympics, McDonalds is the only official restaurant in Olympic Park.  There were other kiosks that offered food, but McDonalds was everywhere.  Their largest restaurant was housed in yet another temporary building…but you'd never guess it.  Inside, there were 30 different stations to order food, including some electronic express lanes:

I only had seconds to shoot this video, as the lines moved fast.  This should give you an idea of what it was like.  Every station had a full french fry maker:

My wife is a big fan of the Today Show on NBC.  We made our way over to their studio in the Olympic Park.  It was too late in the day for a live broadcast, but it was fun to see where they shoot each day.

That's it for the first post.  I'm sorry it was so long, but we have a great deal to show you ; )  Join me next time, as the next post will take us into the Olympic Stadium, for our first Olympic events.  See you soon!!