From a Yellow House : Our Olympic Adventure

Today I'm continuing my posts about our Olympic experience and if you've missed the other two posts, they are here and here. So on we go! On the next day, Saturday, we had a day off from Olympic things. We went to have lunch, walked around Covent Garden, and then we visited the National Portrait Gallery. We've been to Covent Garden several times and it's one of my favorite places because it's so varied. There are all kinds of places to shop, eat, and people watch. This was our first trip to the National Portrait Gallery and it was very interesting to have an artsy buffer in the middle of all of the sporty things. Brit Boy and I have visited a lot of the other museums in London, but this is one we have always missed. So it was fun to finally visit. Loved it!

Then on Sunday, we went to see the women's basketball and it was fabulous! As I mentioned in my previous post, the basketball arena is a temporary structure, but inside you would never know. I used to be a big basketball fan back in the day, but I don't follow it nearly as much nowadays. However, watching the ladies play has rekindled my interest in basketball again :-)

We saw two games on this day: Australia vs Canada and USA vs China. Both games were great! It was so great to see women doing their very best and being great on all of the teams. This Olympic Games was historic because for the first time there were women participating for every Olympic team and another interesting fact is that the USA team had more women in it than men for the first time. Progess indeed! :-) The second game between USA and China was very fast-paced and it seemed to be over before we knew it. Those ladies can really play! And as I'm finishing this post, the USA have just won the gold medal. Well done ladies! I feel privileged to have seen the eventual gold medalists and bronze medalists play. Here are some photos below of some of the basketball action.

Above: Canada and Australia during their warm-up

Above and below: China and the USA warming up

Above: China and USA playing

Above: USA and China at the end of the game

I really enjoyed the basketball! All of these ladies on all four teams are great athletes and I was so pleased to get to see my home team do so well! They were awesome!

In my post yesterday, I mentioned that we also saw some familiar faces from back home. For anyone from elsewhere who isn't familiar with the Today Show, it's one of the morning television shows in the USA. They have a studio set up in the Olympic Park and we were able to stand there and watch them broadcast live to the folks back home. We were there on Friday a week ago and this past Monday. It was really interesting to see how they go about making the show. They move from one set up to another and in between the cast comes over and talks with everyone along the barrier. They also take the time to have photos taken with the people. They were very accessible.

Above: The production in full swing and in the center of the photo, in the navy jacket and the light colored pants is one of the hosts, Matt Lauer

Above: This was from the day after Gabby Douglas on the far left won her all-around gold medal. They had the gymnasts on and they were joined by the gold medal Olympic gymnast from the 1984 games, Mary Lou Retton, far right.