The Olympic Opening Ceremony

Anyone who has been paying attention to the blog over the past few months will be aware that Freyja is making her International Debut in the Olympic Opening Ceremony.  And as a participant, she was given two free tickets to the second Technical Rehearsal. She gave one of those tickets to me, and one to her dad.

 

Now.  The rehearsal didn't finish until 10:15 in the evening, and I really didn't want to have to go back to wherever the car was parked and then drive back to Chesterfield via Sheffield at that time of night. I'm nearly always in bed by 10:30.  Driving any sort of distance after a mighty show seemed foolish in the extreme.  So I checked that Ross could stay at Freyja's place, and then went to book me into the Premier Inn at Beckton, near to where Freyja lives. Then I realised that it would cost no more to book a double room than a single, so did that so The Builder (who wasn't going to the rehearsal) could go too.  Might as well make a proper trip out of it!

 

Wednesday morning dawned bright and clear and sunny in Tupton.  I checked the forecast for London - and put on shorts, a short sleeved shirt and a pair of sandals.  At which point the clouds all came flooding over to inspect this unlikely sight :-S  It was cool and cloudy in Sheffield too, when we went to collect Ross :-S  This confidence in the summery weather was beginning to look a bit misplaced :-S

 

Fortunately, as we headed south the clouds cleared and the sun came out and the temperature went up.  Despite the dire warnings about traffic chaos in central and East London we had a fairly good run to Beckton (though we were very glad we weren't heading to Stratford!!) and arrived in time for a late lunch in the pub next to the Premier Inn.  And for a Brewer's Fare pub, the food wasn't all that bad at all.  And while Premier Inns would not normally be my hostelry of choice, I have to say that our room was spacious, bright, cheerful and very comfortable. We will certainly stay there again - it's very handy to Freyja and makes weekend visits to her entirely do-able.

 

So, Ross and I left The Builder to his own devices (which appeared to involve watching sport on the telly, and eating curry in the pub) and made our way to Stratford, where we were meeting Freyja's pal Alec who had the tickets. Then we made our way along with crowds and crowds of other people to the Olympic Park, where we three and a friend of Alec's had plenty of time to stroll around in the sunshine and explore the park. 

• The Park is beautiful.
• The gardeners all deserve knighthoods for making such beautiful gardens and for making the flowers bloom at the right time - especially after all the horrible weather we've had this summer
• There were police officers and armed forces there but mostly there were London 2012 volunteers all over the place. Every one was cheerful and friendly and helpful and smiley
• Going through the airport-style security was painless and efficient
• The Park is beautiful
• Food and drink were not as vastly over-priced as I had expected them to be. I bought a good sized box of vegetarian sushi for £6 which is what I would expect to pay in London for a good sized box of sushi
• The crowds were good humoured and very well-behaved and all seemed to enjoy strolling around admiring the park
• The sun shone and the temperature held
• Did I mention that The Park is beautiful?

Here are the photos:

 

Click on the photo to reach the album

To get into the stadium, which is surrounded by a moat made up of the River Lee and gardens and flower meadows, you have to cross one of the bridges.  Once you are in the stadium you can't leave (unless you don't want to come back) but there are food and drink vendors inside, not to mention loos and water fountains where you can fill your water bottles (you can take food into the Park, but not liquids and not huge picnic hampers either). So Ross and I abandoned Alec and his friend and made our way to our bridge (Bridge C, since you ask) and went in to watch the show.

 

I do have photos of the ceremony

 

But I can't show them to you yet

 

 

No peeking now!

 I will tell you, though, that it was AMAZING.  We didn't see all of it (obviously no athletes were available to parade and funnily enough they didn't show us the flame being lit and there were some bits of the show that we didn't see). But we saw a lot of it and you really shouldn't miss it if there is anyway you can watch it on the telly.

 

Then nearly 100000 people left the stadium at the same time, past smiling police officers and cheerful volunteers and almost invisible armed forces personnel, and made our way to Stratford Station, Stratford International or walked to West Ham. And it was all very orderly and very calm. We met Freyja at Stratford International and went back to Beckton. Then Freyja and Ross walked back to Freyja's place and I went in and didn't tell The Builder anything very much about what we had seen in the show.