Olympics Kick-Off

Hello Everyone!

The last few days have been both incredibly awesome and relaxing.

I flew back to London on Thursday (July 26) from Norway and everything was just fine. In fact, it was oddly quiet considering the Olympics were the next day. But I did enjoy having an entire row of seats to myself on the plane :)

Friday (July 27) I went over to Charlotte's apartment to watch the Opening Ceremonies with her and some other people from Britannia Ward. Cortney brought some DELICIOUS cupcakes with the most incredibly yummy tasting icing in the history of icing (well, it's defiantly up there with Cinnabon's cream cheese icing. Don't know if it bet that classic taste) and we snacked on other foods like Toffee Waffles, Pringles, chips (fries), and juice to drink. As the ceremonies were proceeding, Amanda was telling us some fun facts about random things about the set, the animals, and the actors/performers. She is a volunteer with the Olympics so she was at the stadium while they had some rehearsals!
We all got a kick out of the Children's literature section of the ceremonies and especially when Mr. Bean was playing the keyboard for "Chariots of Fire" xD

As the countries were being announced, we all commented on their outfits. Well most of the time, the girls were just picking out which country had the most cute guys :P

When the fireworks went off at the end of the ceremony, we actually got to see them from the window which was so cool! Sure they were still quite a ways off, it was fun to see them live instead of through a TV.

Yesterday (July 28) I went up to Fulham Road to watch the kick-off from the Men's Road Cycling Race fairly early in the morning (9:15am). I thought there would be a small crowd starting to form by the time I got there, but no. I got to pick my spot from a whole lot of options. The crowd didn't start forming till about 9:45. As we all waited for the race to start, we saw all the country cars with the bike racks on their roofs, the press cars, and security cars. There were some policemen riding their motorcycles that passed as well. Some gave high-fives to the crowd, a few tried to get the crowd cheering, but mostly they all just smiled and waved. one policeman stopped right in front of me to have a cheer contest. My side was like "WOW OOOOOH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" and the other side was like "...Uh, what?" Guess it was still pretty early for them. The cyclists passed by in thirty seconds and about two minutes later, everyone walked away. Short moment, but it was a awesome moment.
After that, I went back to the Johnsons' to figure out my plans for the day but I ended up taking a long nap. Darn.

Today (July 29) was a great Church meeting! During sacrament I sat next to a lady who just finished her study abroad with BYU. She and I didn't talk a whole lot since she wanted to catch up with her journal writing but I did find out that she took Politics and British Literature classes while she was in the program. She also seemed very surprised to find out I had finished only my first year at BYU. Not the first time someone thought I was older then I am, but I find it entertaining when that happens.
after Sacrament I met two ladies who were visiting, Tipee (a great Thai name that I have no idea how to spell) and Jessica. We ended up hanging out the rest of church which was fun. They both graduated from BYU but will still be working in the area when we all return so I might be able to see them again! We managed to add each other on Facebook so we all have our contact info in some way.
After Church, we walked to South Kensington tube station together and Tipee gave me her spare Travelcard for the day so I got to save some money today! We had to take different lines so we said our goodbyes and went our separate ways.

Till next time!

Take care everyone