Wanderlust: Tales of a Transient Retirement: London, England (Part I): Oh You Fancy, Huh?

London, UK. Where to begin? Initial impressions: it's like America, but people speak various forms of British or Welsh or Scottish or local dialects or pretty much anything except English as I've come to know it all my years. And they drive on the other side of the road. And there are pubs everywhere. And it's cold, even in August. And everything is fried... ok, that last one is actually exactly like America. Hm. Maybe we have more in common than I thought.

I planned this trip to London for three primary reasons: (1) to see my old friend and college roommate Mike Paradis who along with his wife Deana graciously offered me a place to stay; (2) to escape the Shengen zone in Europe for the requisite period; and (3) to soak up the glory and grandeur that is the 2012 Summer Olympic Games! Whoo! USA USA! This was my home for the week in London:

When I arrived in town from Prague I was a bit "funned" out and I could have certainly done for a relaxing night. However, that lofty ambition was not in the cards. Within 10 minutes of finding my friend's flat he informed me that our presence was required at a work happy hour/goodbye party for his wife (they are moving back to the States in a few months). OK, twist my arm. So I made for a quick bathroom break and a change of clothes and when I returned Mike had procured a nice cold Guinness and a red solo cup so we could drink them on the go. What a pal.

The happy hour was in central London near Deana's work in this giant covered atrium next to the Thames and not too far from Tower Bridge. The atrium reminded me quite a bit of the Winter Garden at WFC but the restaurants/bars were significantly higher class. Of course, as anyone who has spent time in WFC can attest, pretty much any restaurants/bars are significantly higher class than those in/around the Winter Garden. Here is a nice shot I got of the Thames at dusk.

After soaking up some wine we took a stroll down toward the Tower Bridge which was magnificently lit up for the Olympics. The group had a powerful hankering for Indian food and the place of choice was apparently right across the bridge. The ladies all hopped a cab and Mike, Tony (another expat) and I hot-footed it across the bridge. Long story short, the food was excellent and extremely spicy, the beer was cold, and, as you would imagine, it made for a great night and sore morning.

Worn out from all of my adventuring I decided to lay low the next day and get caught up on the blog, pictures, etc. That evening I met up with Mike for another happy hour/goodbye party, this time for Tony who was heading back to the states at the end of the week. I was very excited as this was my first opportunity to try a proper English ale. In short, it was outstanding. Unfortunately it happened to be about 85 degrees that day and the bar had no A/C so, despite tasting excellent, a luke-warm ale didn't go very far in quenching my thirst.

Very brief note: proper English ales are not pasteurized and therefore must be drank soon after the keg is tapped. Also, the keg isn't pressurized so they literally have to pump it out. Finally, yes, it is served room temperature, which that particular day meant hot. But the pub was pretty cool and soon I had the sense to switch to Guinness. I'm looking forward to drinking more ale in the cooler climates of northern England in a few days.

That night was also the opening ceremony for the Olympics and it was decided that on such a hot night the most reasonable thing to do was retreat to Brad's, one of Mike's expat friends, apartment to watch it and grill out. Phenomenal idea. On the way, we swung by Trafalgar Square to take a peek at the countdown clock which by this point was under 1 hour.

Some Americans had taken over one of the giant lions and were proudly engaging the crowd in a chant of U... S... A... U... S... A! Love it!

Back at the flat, our hosts grilled up some burgers and sausages and we reveled in the calamity that ensues every time an Olympic Games is opened. I actually liked the ceremony, especially the beginning where it went from grassy fields to the industrial revolution, but like many people, I found the technology/flashing house segment a bit hard to follow. The best part of all was that out the window you could hear people cheering and fireworks going off over London.

I should just say here that I'm an absolutely HUGE fan of the Olympics. When they get going they basically absorb all of my attention/focus for the two week duration. In 2008 I daily DVR'd about 15 hours of footage and stayed up every night pouring through it. I LOVE these games. It's just so incredible, athletes from all over the world set aside the differences of their nations in a show of sportsmanship to compete against each other and represent their countries and people. Little known athletes in sports that are lightly followed are suddenly huge names, mega-stars stay in the athletes village and mingle with regular people, and global professional athletes take to the field/pool/floor/whatever for simply the pride of representing their home. I can't understand how anyone could not love the Olympics.

But enough ranting, I was in London to see these games and lucky for me, Mike had scored us some tickets to a few events throughout my week in London. The first up came on day 1- USA women's basketball vs. Croatia. A while back Mike and his expat pals decided they wanted to dress up for this particular event. Apparently wearing costumes is huge here in London. They call it "fancy dress." That makes no sense to me, but hey, no time to think when you're busy getting fancy. Since I'm traveling with a backpack and therefore don't really have space for a costume, I was (perhaps for the first time in my life) the least costumed one of us.

Mike went as Uncle Sam, Tony as Redman (morph suit), and Brad as the immensely popular Captain America. This is them at Picadilly Circus. Definitely worth checking out the other pictures on flickr as there's some great shots of the guys riding the metro.

Needless to say, the costumes were legendary. Shockingly, despite London's love for "fancy dress" we were the only costumed people on day 1. As such, we were immensely popular. It took us over an hour to walk a distance that should be coverable in 20 minutes because we had to keep stopping to take photos with people. Here's us at the entrance.

Since our game was the second in the session we took a few minutes to wander around the Olympic Park. The facilities and layout are wonderfully well designed. Here is a shot of the swimming venue with the characteristic dipping roof.

In addition to just generally being awesome and insanely popular, we also acquired some beers. Naturally, this led to us needing to use the facilities where I got perhaps the photo of the day. Even heroes pee too kids.

One of the coolest features of the park are the numerous green spaces scattered around where you can relax and see the giant screens which display the action. At the top of a hill at one of these are the giant Olympic rings where it was seemingly a right of passage to have your photo taken. I think more people took pictures of us than we got of ourselves. There must have honestly been 3,500+ pictures of us taken that day.

Finally, inside the arena we got down to business. The first thing we noticed was that our seats were WAY too high up for our costumed efforts. I mean, look at this:

So, obviously we needed to move lower. After spending some time posing for pictures and sweet talking the security guards we were able to score some seats behind the basket on the lower level. The highlight of the event came when Croatia went to the stripe for some free throws at our end. In the US it's customary for the opposing fans behind the basket to make noise and try to interfere with the free throw of the other team.

Well, as we found out quite harshly, that is not the case in the UK. It was completely silent except for us 4 idiots screaming at the top of our lungs as 20,000 people simultaneously turned to glare at us in disapproval. It was so quiet that we could hear our own voices reverberating around the arena. People came up to us all day after the game was over asking us if we were the four people screaming during the free throw. Several told me it was poor sportsmanship. Maybe in the UK, but not in the land of basketball my friends. In any event, shouting the classic "Steve Perry" yielded the desired result as the Croatian girl missed the second free throw.

After the game we had tickets to go up on the Olympic tower which is next to the stadium. The top of the tower offers some great views of the city.

And no blog about Olympic Park would be complete without a shot of the Olympic Stadium itself. I was lucky enough to get a great one as the sun was beginning to set on the Park.

It was an incredible day overall- a perfect start to my Olympic experience. As a nightcap we met up with the guys' wives at an American BBQ place to watch the swimming events, knock down some cold Coors Light, gobble up some good southern cooking, and mostly just kick back and revel in American glory. On the way we walked right past the Tower of London.

Before wrapping up part one of the London entries, I would just like to further emphasize exactly how huge we went over in the Olympic Park. Below are some screenshot images from various media outlets that had us on TV. We were also interviewed by NBC, the LA Times, Men's Weekly, and were interviewed at a timeout by the MC in the arena. It was like what athletes and rock stars must deal with all the time- being mobbed for photos, etc. I certainly have a new respect for them.

Us on Men's Weekly Site: