Day 10: Would you like some more
gold to complete your trip?
The tenth and last Olympic day is finally upon us. The
schedule is simple. Much like the first day we had, this one was devoted to one
of the biggest chance of gold for France. French handball was ruling the world
for quite a while at the time, as they were the current Olympic and world
champions. They made it to the final, not without fearful moments, where they
were set to meet a Swedish team who already overachieved in this tournament.
We took advantage of the late afternoon kick off to
add something we truly missed about London but did not have any time to do
before, I mean a pub lunch. Yes, I miss my perpetual hesitation when standing
at the counter, ready to order. Should I take a burger or go for a fish and
chips? It was always the same dilemma and it still is. In order to satisfy our
desire but also considering our travelling plan for the day and our knowledge
of the London pubs, we decided to go towards the Limehouse basin and settle on
”The Narrow” terrace. This pub, belonging to world famous chef Gordon Ramsey,
was amongst the ones we tried, enjoyed and recommended during our London life.
There we enjoyed a delicious burger perfectly
accompanied by a real London brewed beer called “Meantime”. Added to the
sunshine and the view over the Thames and its slowly sailing boats, this made
an excellent last lunch in Great Britain (until the next).
Once the plates and glasses emptied, we went for a
digestive walk through the Docklands until we met a DLR station with trains
leading us straight to Stratford. The Olympic park was a lot less busy than it
was for my two previous visits. The reason was simple: there was not much
happening within the park. On the final day of the Olympics, there were only
three valid tickets to allow entry to the area: the men water polo final
happening early in the afternoon, the men handball final a bit later and
finally the closing ceremony late at night.
We took advantage of this relative tranquillity to
wander around the park, having a look at all the sports venues one by one.
First as you get in, was the curvy aquatic centre which had the particularity
of having a few sits on the top of each stand actually higher that the roof
over the pool, meaning that people on opposite top rows could not see each
other. Facing it on the other side of the main access to the park was standing
the cubic Water Polo arena which was hosting the men’s final as we walked by.
At the end of this main strip was erected the Olympic stadium looking not so
tall even from a close range. Nest to it was the weird steel structure named
Orbit Tower which you could climb to have a bird’s eye point of view.
A few steps further, you could notice the BBC
headquarters and the Copper box which saw the preliminary rounds of the
handball tournaments happen. Still further on this bank was located the
Riverbank arena we discovered a few days earlier for a field hockey encounter.
Then, when you though you were reaching a dead end, you actually could find an
escape over the river Lea, leading you to more venues.
There you would find the BMX track, the cycling track
and the bubble wrapped box used for the basket-ball preliminary rounds and the
handball finals. This is where we were going.
We eased passed the ticket control to reach the
pushchair parking area and moved to our allocated seats in an upper corner of
the arena. The room could contain up to 12 000 people and by kick off time
there was indeed as many people. The crowd was in its major part composed of
French fans but you could also notice a few yellow patches here and there
cheering on the Swedish team. Andrew tucked once more against me, was fitted
with his noise reduction helmet and once more found it comfortable enough to
fall rapidly asleep.
The final started and quickly, the French took the
lead to never leave the Swedes come back. The steamy atmosphere was clearly entertaining,
as the French team showed so much confidence that every blue fan was cheering
for the upcoming victory. Bizarrely nobody seemed to be worried by the narrow
lead which never exceeded 3 goals throughout the game. When the final buzz rang
most of the arena was already standing and singing for a while.
We decided to walk down a few steps for the
celebrations and discovered that the air conditioned was on in the room but
sadly inefficient from where we were previously sitting. This was when Andrew decided
to put a two hours long nap to an end and enjoy what he seemed to like best,
the medal ceremony. In a brilliant mood and delighted my all the smiling faces
around him, he joined the party as if he never left it. Sitting on my shoulders
and still wearing his hat, he stared at the Croatian, Swedish and French
players receiving their silverware while being photographed by many foreign
cameras.
A Marseillaise later, we exited the place and started
our long walk towards the park exit but decided to have a rest on a bench,
enjoying for a few more minutes the Olympic Park experience. While Andrew was
having his mid afternoon meal, Alexia spotted a familiar face walking by us.
‘JC’ as he was known to us was a long lived Londoner we met at the same time I
met Alexia back in 2005. Other known faces were accompanying him, including a
young mum who invited us to her place for dinner with son and boyfriend.
Melissa and Fabrice are very influent people amongst the French community,
involved in tons of evening activities gathering incredible quantities of
French faces. As their were living in the east end, we could not avoid a Indian
take-away to have in their living room while the closing ceremony was happening
on the background screen. Andrew met Elliott and engaged in a grissini fencing
encounter of some sort with him, expressing fully his Olympic spirit!
Then it was time to go home, travelling underground
across London one last time, and pack up our things and get ready to face the
touristic exodus we should expect at a London airport on the day after the
Olympics.
Day
11: And then, they came back home
Monday morning, Gatwick airport, that’s the when and
where we waved goodbye on our first ever Olympic experience. Olympic Games are
a great thing. Living them from their momentary home is better; watching some
of them live is even better; sharing this experience with wife, son and
thousands of crazy fans from around the world is topping this up wonderfully.
These ten days were amazing all the way through even if I consider the
exhaustion we felt every evening of this trip.
I promise I’ll come to see you again dear Olympic
torch…
