The April Files: London 2012

Sunday, August 12, 2012

London 2012

The Flame

The Olympics is almost finished up now and I have enjoyed it. I am close enough to it to feel the atmosphere without being trapped in the thick of it. I think this has been an unprecedented year of patriotism for the UK which is not common here. I think people here often sneer at the flag waving of Canada and the states compared to their more understated national pride. But these past two weeks have been nothing but stories of Great Britain pulling together and national pride. The games had the potential to be seen as a huge inconvenience for local people but everyone seemed to really pleased with how it was going. That is a real turn around considering how much criticism was laid on over the tickets availability and pricing as well as the details like the Games lanes where Olympics shuttles were allowed to drive in taxi lanes. There were some protests before but no one has really kicked up a fuss during the games. At the end of the day, it's good for business.
We were able to get tickets for several events in the end after several rounds of trying for them. I only went out to one of them which was the canoeing and kayaking in Eton Dorney. We got two medals that day one of which almost looked like it would be gold. We were in a section of Hungarians who did win a few golds and went nuts. I have watched quite a lot of coverage on TV though. Also, when we were shopping on Oxford St we ran into the weird cyclops mascot and had our picture taken with it. I think Canada has done pretty well this year although we are a bit short on golds this year. It really isn't our Olympics though, we are more a winter sport people. Here's some highlights from the past week.