In Which Team USA Takes Gold on Hava Nagila

Well, dear readers, by now, as some of you know, I’m already back in the States and yet, I failed to tell you anything about the last several days of my trip.  Sorry again, but as I was running hither and yon from dawn ‘til dusk, I simply didn’t have time to do justice to how awesome those days were in the blog.  So I hope you’ll stay with me, and keep reading for the next few days as posts appear more quickly!

Ok.  So I left you at Tuesday, which contained the highlight of my Olympic experience.  Tuesday morning was considerably less exciting, as I spent much of it asleep before running out for a quick Vietnamese lunch prior to heading over to North Greenwich again for our second gymnastics event.  And though our first event was awesome, nothing could really compare to having tickets to the Women’s Artistic Gymnastic Team Finals, so we were understandably quite excited.  

We were also in a bit of a tricky situation as far as loyalties were concerned.  This was the first event in which Team USA and Team GB would be competing head to head, and we weren’t exactly sure how to dress or for whom to cheer.  Luckily, GB and the USA share colors, so we went with neutrally supportive accessories.  By the way, as I noted in the post about the hockey game, the general Olympic yay-for-everyone spirit is slightly diminished when you are really gunning for a particular team, or, in our case, two teams.  And since the crowd was positively roaring for the Team GB women (some of whom are favored to win individual apparatus medals), it was easy to get caught up in that excitement.

Hannah Whelan, a GB favorite for the uneven bars.

The other six teams competing in this competition included: Russia, Romania, Canada, Italy, China, and Japan.  I have to admit that I wasn't watching these teams quite as closely, as I found myself mostly following the US team around the circuit, but the Russian, Romanian, and Italian teams were really interesting to watch on the floor as well.  Because there were only four apparatuses in the women's competition (floor, beam, uneven bars, vault), it was a bit easier to keep track of what was going on than in the men's competition, but it certainly helped when the commentator pointed our attention to particular athletes on particular apparatuses.  I definitely noticed myself watching the floor competitions much more than in the men's competition, possibly because of the music, and after that, the balance beam, as these two events had the most drama.  I also found myself watching the scoreboard much more carefully this time, as the scores were extremely close at certain points, and I wanted to see how the judges differentiated between routines that all looked impressive to me (sitting way up in the stands and without the voice of a commentator telling me what was a double and what was a triple twist).

Because I was so intent on following Team USA around, I didn't get many pictures of the other athletes; however, I can't say that I regret it too much, as I now have proof that I watched the Fab Five winning live:

Jordyn Wieber on the uneven bars.

Kyla Ross on the beam.

Gabrielle Douglas on the beam.

Alexandra Raisman, the last Team USA athlete on the floor 

(performing to Hava Nagila, which basically made my life).

Team USA awaiting the final score to appear on the board.

There were a few moments of heartbreak during this event as well.  Even though I wanted Team USA to win and Team GB to do well, it was still impossible not to feel for the other athletes when something went wrong for them.  As I said before, there is a completely different attitude towards the performers that comes with being in the same arena with them.  Whereas I used to judge their mistakes harshly when I watched on the telly, all I felt when I watched a Chinese athlete fall hard off of the beam, or the moment when a Russian gymnast fell on her head in the last flip of her otherwise flawless floor routine, was sympathy.  The crowd cheered louder for the women who fell than for those who did well, because we felt a shared responsibility for cheering them up and showing our appreciation of their talent.

In the end, as you probably already knew, Romania took bronze, Russia took silver, and the USA took gold.  And being there for the medal ceremony, watching the US flag rise and the singing the national anthem was, despite my usual complete lack of national pride, one of the most memorable moments of my life.  

Whew.  So, after all of that excitement, we headed into Greenwich proper for dinner at a most excellent pub, which served Meantime beers (get it?  Greenwich Mean Time?  The Meridian Line? Yeah, that Greenwich).  And after dinner, because we were still too excited to head back to the flat, we walked around Greenwich a bit more and I made an adrenalin-fueled decision to acquire some bright pink Hunter rain boots (a decision that I only regretted a little bit when I realized that I had to carry those rather heavy things home).

Carrying this boot home might have been a bit more difficult.

As we made our way towards some form of transportation back to the flat, we came across the Cutty Sark, one of the fastest tea clippers ever built:

It's not very fast anymore, as it is currently surrounded by concrete, but it certainly is pretty.

We then proceeded to get onto another boat—a Thames water taxi—which, even though I normally am not a fan of boat travel, is actually a really fun way to get around in London.

The best part was when we sailed under Tower Bridge, 

and got a perfect view of this incredibly photogenic scene.

We alighted right next to London Bridge, where we had a lovely view of the Tower of London at night.

After a long, meandering walk in the general direction of the flat, we found ourselves outside of a very tall building which, according to Suzanne, had a brand new restaurant on the top level that we had to go and check out.  This involved a trip in a glass elevator up thirty-nine floors on the side of a building, which is actually one of my worst nightmares, but its doors opened to an incredibly beautiful restaurant and bar with a breathtaking 360-degree view of all of London, so the trip was worth the terror.  Since we were there, we had to have something at the bar, at least (duh); it was approaching midnight by then, but whatever.  I had the best drink that I've ever had in my life, though I'm not totally sure what was in it (there was a considerable amount of vodka, I can tell you that much, as well as Thai basil syrup and a very large green leaf), and I left in even more of a state than I came in, which is telling you something.

It was called a "Shiso Fine," but we renamed it a "Shiso Silly," because I couldn't stop giggling by the time I was about halfway through with drinking it.

We did eventually make it back to the flat; I was still too excited to sleep and thus stayed up much too late, but whatever.  It was a fantastically glorious day, and one which I'm sure I'll remember for many years to come.