London – Day 3

The next day we walked through the park along a canal that was completely lined with houseboats.  At first we assumed these would be full of slightly homeless looking people but as we started seeing the residents we were noticing lots of young, well-dressed individuals.   We kept on and eventually got to the Olympic Park.  We wandered past the Copper Arena and the stadium before getting to the twisty tower thing.  We discovered they wanted 15 pounds a person or something ridiculous to go up the tower, so we headed across a bridge to the aquatic center.  In the center we paid 4.50 each to swim.  We headed on  into the halls where Olympians prepared for their races.  Before suiting up we walked up into the stands and snapped a few photos of the arena.  Then into the changing rooms.  The facilities were very nice (as expected) and we were soon ready to go swim laps in the pool where Phelps won another 8 medals.  We chose the slowest lane, but after a couple lengths we determined that we were up to par for the next one up.  It was great fun to swim around.  We were sad that the diving boards were closed, but loved the experience anyhow.

We dried off, put our street clothes back on and grabbed a (very reasonably priced, surprisingly) snack at the aquatic center’s café and then headed north toward the velodrome.  On the way we got diverted into a mall where we inquired about the data plan on the local SIM card we had bought and picked up a UK to EU power adapter (yeah, we forgot to bring one).  Then it was on to the bike races!

The velodrome is a really cool building, the exterior dome part is made of wood.  There were BMX races going on outside and inside some people who had booked a session in the velodrome were gearing up for their laps.  It was really cool watching them race around the track a few times.

That concluded our Olympic experience, so we headed out toward home.  There was a hockey game between team England and someone else, but that was not free so we moved on.  We tried to catch a bus home, but the driver ignored us even though we were standing at the stop and waved to him, oh well.  We walked home along a river, which was houseboat free and quite nice.

That evening was the World Cup Final and our hosts were throwing a BBQ.  It was great fun to hang out with some locals during the match.  We met the hosts’ roommates, his daughter, some of their friends and had a really enjoyable evening. One of the guests brought baked beans and then was somewhat distraught to learn he would be serving them to Americans who were most certainly connoisseurs of such things.  They turned out to be absolutely delicious, much better than the usual baked beans found in cans and BBQ shops across the US.   One of the roommates ground up a couple steaks and mixed in some other delcicouness to produce scrumptious burgers.  Our host grilled up lamb and chicken, which were also great.  The other highlight of the meal was a potato salad, see our potatoes around the world page for a picture of that one.