Yesterday was our first Olympic event. You may have seen the rain
during the bicycle race -- we ran into it while crossing a bridge for a
look at the rings on the Tower Bridge (they were up so we couldn't see
them). At various times the sun came out and it was nice walking around
London.
Around 3:00 we headed to Wembley Stadium to join
88,000 of our closest friends for two football matches. The first was
Senegal vs. Urguay. Before the first half a Senegal player was ejected
for knocking down players deliberately, but they continued to rule the
game and easily won. One of the Urquay players is on the Liverpool
squad. Evidently he was viewed as a traitor because the crowd gave a
collective boo every time he handled the ball.
I spent the hour between games in line waiting to
order a bottle of Diet Coke ("The official soft drink of the summer
Olympics"). Unfortunately "The official credit card of the summer
Olympics" -- VISA - had a system failure for the rest of the game,
effectively stopping the line for a while. It seemed like restaurants
were surprised so many people wanted to eat and drink!
The final match was Great Britain vs. United Arab
Republic. I was surprised by the lack of chants; Jacqui said England,
Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland don't usually play together so the
crowd didn't know what to chant. There were a few lame "Go GB"s
shouted. GB won, 3 - 1. The crowd to the tube was amazing but we got
through it in about 10 minutes.
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