The Olympics have been going on for three days now. Today is Day Three. So far, the US has won three gold medals: 2 in swimming and one in shooting. We have five silvers and three bronze to total 11 medals in two days of competition. This is fabulous. Eight of those medals came from swimming, I’d like to point out, though, that ss an American living in London for the duration of these games and listening to the British BBC commentators and not my usual Bob Costas, Rowdy Gaines, and Dan Hicks, it’s very different. Americans are spoiled in the fact that we expect our athletes to win gold or silver. We expect them to medal in nearly every event they compete in (I think I’m talking more specifically about swimming, since I’ve been watching a lot of that). Where as here in Great Britain, which isn’t known for being a powerhouse in any sport in particular, these swimmers are content with coming in fifth, sixth, and even seventh place. They all say they felt good and had a wonderful race, and when one might be considered a medal contender and then ends up coming up short of the medal stand, they apologize for not winning a medal for their country. Don’t apologize! What do you have to apologize for? As a former swimmer, if you swam your best time and are satisfied with your race, then there’s nothing to be sorry for.
I guess my point is we as Americans take our athletes for granted because we’re so used to them winning all the time. We’re used to seeing them on the medal stand and hearing our national anthem played more than a dozen times each games. We forget – or at least, I do – that there are some countries – so many countries – who are happy with one or two gold medals or even one or two medals. It just puts it into perspective a little for me.
I’m not even going to start on how the Olympic commentators need to stop ragging on Michael Phelps. He’s still the best swimmer in the world. Just because he got fourth in an event that he might have been expected to medal in, doesn’t mean he won’t medal in anything else. I’d like to point out that he wasn’t even going to swim the 400 IM after Beijing. Speaking from experience, the 400 IM sucks, let’s be honest. So, to get fourth – even though he said he wasn’t very happy about it – is great. And he swam a fantastic relay leg last night in the 4×100 Free relay! Everyone should just chill and watch the rest of the games. These games aren’t necessarily his to own, anyway. It’s anyone’s race, now.
SO, now that I’ve said all that, Thursday we visited Stratford-Upon-Avon, the home and birthplace of William Shakespeare. We had to take a two hour train ride to get there, which was kind of fun because we passed a lot of English Countryside that you wouldn’t see unless you decided to venture outside London.
It was a really cute little, touristy town.
This was Shakespeare’s first folio, composed of all his major works.
The garden around his house.
The house itself was really pretty and some of the rooms had original floorboards. Unfortunately, we weren’t allowed to take pictures in the house itself. It was two stories and comprised of about four or five rooms.
These people were reenacting scenes from his plays. We saw the balcony scene from Romeo and Juliet.
After the tour, we were allowed to get lunch or something before we saw Twelfth Night at 1:15. We walked along this river that was really pretty. There were a TON of people here.
The theater was kind of constructed like the Globe except nicer and not outside. There were three levels in a circle and a ground floor with the stage against one wall.
Afterwards we got dinner. I had this Turkey, brie, and cranberry sandwich which was SO GOOD. And a side salad. That, to the right, is my “side salad.” Quite literally, a side salad. Um, okay. The English certainly have their portion sizes in check.
Our train left at 7:15 and we arrived back in London around 9:30. We were basically gone for twelve hours. Friday I didn’t do much. The rain was back after five days straight of blue skies and sunshine. Went to a pub at night near our flat and watched the Opening Ceremonies, which I thought were phenomenal. It was actually really cool because the pub we were at had all different people from different countries so when they did the parade of nations, people cheered for all different countries. Pretty sure America was the loudest (even louder than Great Britain, which I cheered for, too). I thought it was interesting because they didn’t show the ceremonies live in America so about two hours after it finished here, they started showing it there and my Twitter feed was blowing up with people commenting on it. Same thing with some Olympic events. One of the perks of being in London is everything is shown live. Obviously you can find out the results of any event without watching it right after it happens if you’re in the US, but in Beijing, since they were twelve hours ahead, we could always watch certain events – like swimming – live. It’s amazing everything that is happening in this city now that the games have started.
Saturday I went to Camden Town market and Sunday did some homework. Everything’s winding down, but I have a list of things I still need to do before I leave in…twelve days…I can’t believe how fast the time has gone, and that I’ve been here a month. I also can’t believe how much I’ve done in that month. I know I’ll be ready to go home when the time comes because I’m starting to miss everyone back in the states, but this trip has been wonderful.
London Town 