London 2012 Olympics

The highlight of our summer most certainly was the London 2012 Olympics.  While we were extremely disappointed that we weren't able to go home to Texas this summer, getting to attend a few Olympic events definitely helped ease the blow.

The whole country definitely had Olympic fever, so this was a really exciting time to be living in England.  The Olympic torch relay was the first taste of the Olympics we experienced, and we were able to see the torch when it came through Brighton.  Unfortunately, it was freezing outside (yes it was July, but this is England) and we only saw the torch for about 2 seconds, but it was still an exciting atmosphere and great experience.

Freezing, but determined to see the flame.

The crowd in Hove Park waiting to see the torch.

We applied for Olympic tickets almost right after we moved to England.  We applied to the lottery ticket system as British residents, and we tried for all the typical popular events (track and field, swimming, gymnastics).  Unfortunately, we didn't get any tickets the first round of the lottery, but we were able to get tickets to two events during the second round (beach volleyball and women's football).  Right before the Olympics began, they released more tickets, and we were also lucky enough to get tickets for gymnastics.

The first event we saw was the Men's Team Gymnastics Final at the O2 arena.  We took the train to London and headed straight to the O2 to eat before the event.  Our tickets were pretty high up at the O2 (very scary!), but we felt lucky just to be there.  We had high hopes for the US team, but they choked pretty early, so we happily rooted for Team GB.

 

 

The next event we went to was beach volleyball.  We had morning tickets to see one men's game and one women's game, so we had to take an early train to London.  Beach volleyball was really fun to watch, and it was amazing to see it played at Horse Guards Parade right in the middle of London.

 

By far the most exciting event for me was our last event - the gold medal match of women's football at Wembley Stadium.  I am a huge fan of the US Women's Soccer Team, and it was a relief that they made it to the gold medal match against Japan.  It was an exciting, well played game, and thankfully, the Americans pulled through in the end to win the gold medal!