Olympics Adventure: The Arrival
Well, I've arrived here in London, and the Olympic spirit is in full force. I was a bit worried at the beginning of the trip when, as we sat in the packed plane at the end of the runway, the flight attendant came on and told us we were heading back to the gate because of a technical issue and because of an issue with a passenger. Umm... what? Some dudes in orange vests came onboard and checked something in the back of the plane, and the flight attendants kept messing around with the emergency exit in front of me. Eventually we were told that a passenger was sick and was deboarding, but that the big delay would be because we had to unload their baggage, and nobody knew where that baggage was within the cargo hold. Lovely! About forty minutes later we were heading back to the runway. We never heard anything further about the technical issue. But presumably it was fixed since we did not crash. The flight was otherwise uneventful, and I crammed in 3 full movies (21 Jump Street, Young Adult, and This Means War, for anyone who cares).
The airport had pink shirted volunteers standing around to usher the athletes, which was kinda cool to see even though there weren't any actual athletes anywhere. I was prepped for some serious crowds and chaos for us normal folk, so I was pretty shocked to walk into the passport control area which is usually a complete zoo and find that there was no queue (that's Brit-speak for “line”) at all. The lowlight of the day was that I managed to drop a chocolate-covered peanut during the flight and couldn't find it. I assumed it dropped on the floor. Nope- it dropped into my sweatshirt, and has left a giant chocolate stain on my favorite T-shirt. Lovely. I admit that I was a little nervous about finding my way to my friend's house, but a short ride on the Piccadily line towards Cocksguard (a name that probably wouldn't fly in America and that made me crack up to myself like a twelve year old boy every single time it came on over the loudspeaker) and I found myself standing on front of a lovely house somewhere in the far west end of London being greeting by my friend's father-in-law.
My hosts have been awesome so far. My friend and her husband were at work when I arrived, so I spent most of today sleeping. Followed it up with some P90X. I'm very worried about whether I'll have the resolve to stick with this P90X program while out here. Yeah, I got through it today, but I so didn't want to. I'll have to skip Kenpo tomorrow and do it Sunday. I'm also using bands instead of weights, and am sad to find that I should have bought a higher resistance band. My quasi-pullups today were way too easy. Duh oh.
My friend got home from work and we went to pick up her adorable kid from daycare, so I've spent the past few hours playing with this little guy and/or watching my friend care for him. I burned my finger in the process (heads up people: do NOT dump boiling water onto your hand while straining pasta). I also removed my first diaper ever, which was not very exciting as far as Firsts go.
Time to watch the opening ceremony on telly (that's Brit-speak for TV). Tomorrow will be the craziest busiest day ever.
The airport had pink shirted volunteers standing around to usher the athletes, which was kinda cool to see even though there weren't any actual athletes anywhere. I was prepped for some serious crowds and chaos for us normal folk, so I was pretty shocked to walk into the passport control area which is usually a complete zoo and find that there was no queue (that's Brit-speak for “line”) at all. The lowlight of the day was that I managed to drop a chocolate-covered peanut during the flight and couldn't find it. I assumed it dropped on the floor. Nope- it dropped into my sweatshirt, and has left a giant chocolate stain on my favorite T-shirt. Lovely. I admit that I was a little nervous about finding my way to my friend's house, but a short ride on the Piccadily line towards Cocksguard (a name that probably wouldn't fly in America and that made me crack up to myself like a twelve year old boy every single time it came on over the loudspeaker) and I found myself standing on front of a lovely house somewhere in the far west end of London being greeting by my friend's father-in-law.
My hosts have been awesome so far. My friend and her husband were at work when I arrived, so I spent most of today sleeping. Followed it up with some P90X. I'm very worried about whether I'll have the resolve to stick with this P90X program while out here. Yeah, I got through it today, but I so didn't want to. I'll have to skip Kenpo tomorrow and do it Sunday. I'm also using bands instead of weights, and am sad to find that I should have bought a higher resistance band. My quasi-pullups today were way too easy. Duh oh.
My friend got home from work and we went to pick up her adorable kid from daycare, so I've spent the past few hours playing with this little guy and/or watching my friend care for him. I burned my finger in the process (heads up people: do NOT dump boiling water onto your hand while straining pasta). I also removed my first diaper ever, which was not very exciting as far as Firsts go.
Time to watch the opening ceremony on telly (that's Brit-speak for TV). Tomorrow will be the craziest busiest day ever.