Day 10: Lonodon

Day 10: London

Quote of the day:

When I'm walking beside her,
people tell me I'm lucky
Yes I know I'm a lucky guy
I remember the first time
I was lonely without her
can't stop thinking about her now

Weather: Sunny and slight breezes, perfect, a large shower missed while we’re in VB, gorgeous evening at OP for T&F

Pics: G with THB and KHB, Ken and Mike, Thai place from other night, Italian fresh-pasta fast food, Bolt on the scoreboard and at the starting line, the finish line from our seats

It’s Sunday. Grape nuts and fruit, not enough time for the fitness center (ie, RP walk). G, our host (see pic), accompanies us to Women’s VB. Dominican Republic crushes Algeria, which isn’t really saying much, these are two of the weaker teams. DR is most like USA’s opponent in quarterfinals. THB goes way out there to predict US makes the semis. In second game, China overcomes stubborn Korea by winning sets 1, 3, and 5, our first 5 set match. To keep us motivated during the session: coffee, muffin, cookies, energy bars, $14 (for THB, G treats for cookies).

One of the “entertainments” at VB is karaoke, the “emcee” picks out people in the crowd, and in a pleasant surprise G starts singing along! This guy is multi-talented…very good news for him: THB does not know the song, appears not to be one of Bob’s greatest hits.

Small lunch of Indian hot-tray spicy eggplant curry, rice and a veg samosa, iced tea (in bottle): $17, and very good! Much better than fancy Indian place across the street a few days ago.

Into the Tube to find route to OP from Earl’s Court. A very nice young woman (employee, or is it temp employee of Underground), I-pad in hand, advises us to get off at West Ham. THB thinks we may have shocked her (American directness? THB tiredness?) THB normal method of communication?) You pick!) by vehemently telling her that we found overcome elderly and disoriented children laying on the side of the road on the West Ham trek and she should not send anyone again into that abyss. And, THB was remiss in not tell the faithful: how long was the trek? Long enough that were Portaloos all along the trek. THB loves that new word: Port-a-looooooo!

We have a 3 hours before T&F so, since THB has his personal shopper along, we go shopping! THB now has a new hat and t-shirt with Athletics logos and NO Team GBR anywhere, $61. And, while we’re shopping, someone asked where THB got his list-of-the-venue t-shirt! Of course, they had never seen this one before (because….it has no TEAM GBR logo on it!). Out comes the phone so they can use the pics to make sure they get the right one later. THB as model….who knew!

Fast food Italian in a large stretch of restaurants and eateries in the mall. Taglietelle with ragu, two overdressed salads (doesn’t matter, THB devours the greens) of mozzarella (excellent, though of course they are out of our first choice of burrata) and tomatoes, bread and one limonata (cloudy lemonade), $35.

As we settle into our seats, KHB sez: isn’t that Ken a few seats away? YES! It is Ken, THB’s baseball partner: we’ve been sharing a 20 game package of A’s games for something like 20 years and Ken’s daughter Kristen was a long-time classmate of LHB (KHB’s older sister), and KHB wore Kristen’s hand-me-downs for years! Ken is here at O’s with Kristen (same-same as THB) and Mike (Kristen’s hubby, not same-same, KHB is here on pre-honeymoon without her fiancee), Kristen’s taking the night off and Ken is here with Mike. Did any of this make any sense? In any case (see pic).

Plus we have great, great seats: middle of second deck, facing the sun (stays warmer longer), right on the finish line across the field from us, overlooking triple jump, and we can see one of the two scoreboards. Price is mid-range for this event; THB thinks we’ve done better than the A and B seats. As most of you have noticed, THB has not been listing tix prices, he’ll talk about them in the wrap-up.

As always, T&F at the O’s does not disappoint. Bolt does his thing in the 100 (KHB is sitting next to a guy that went to high school with the Jamaican that finished 2^nd to Bolt, and knows Bolt too). There is a long list of what went on, with medal ceremonies interspersed including those for Men’s Long Jump (Brit gold) and Men’s 10k (Brit gold). If something Brit is on, you cannot hear the announcer, the locals are well represented. Highlight for us: Richards-Ross takes gold in Women’s 400M, and we stay for the medal ceremony, our first of these games for an American.

THB and KHB are aglow (and not just from the shopping or the sun): we’re at the world’s greatest track meet! Again!

That means we are in the last group to leave the stadium (supposedly, as they keep announcing, there were 2 million tix requests for T&T and the 80k per session that fit in the stadium). And, we hit our first bottleneck where we actually slow down and stop while walking in with the crowd. Very unusual, they have done a great job of organizing flow here. Turns out to be momentary, we get seats on the Tube, and on the train, and are back right at midnight.