London 2012 Olympics

The Olympics are gone. There was a collective sense of deflation in the UK when it was all over. The Paralympics closed and the Olympic Park shut its gates for the next 2 years as it goes through a transformation for post Games use. The consensus is that no one knew what to do with themselves when it was all over - like the deflation of coming home from an extended vacation to bills, chores and work. The consensus is that is that it was a resounding success despite all the worry and cynical Op Ed pieces in newspapers across the country. The Brits love to complain... and those that did wound up enjoying it all along with the rest of us.

For over a month I went in to London regularly for Olympic events and to soak up the fever. Good show, London!

The Olympic Park in Stratford was massive and reminded me of Disney World. You didn't even have the sense that you were in London and upon entering you were greeted with all kinds of signs indicated how far it was to each venue. The wheel chair tennis match I attended was a 35 minute walk from the entrance. I think I must have walked 10 miles by the end of that day.

USA Women's Volleyball match vs. Serbia at Earls Court. USA won!  

@Wheel Chair Tennis Match at the Olympic Park

@Wheel Chair Rugby at the Olympic Park

Watching the Men's Marathon @Monument, London

Waving at Jessica Ennis, Gold Medal, Heptathalon - London 2012  athlete parade

You can click on the album below to see more pictures:

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I have no idea what to watch on TV now. I guess its back to talent shows and How I Met Your Mother re-runs.

Football Fodder

It's Euro Cup 2012 month... and that's all anyone is talking about. For 3 weeks, European nations battle it out for Football bragging rights for the next 4 years.

My international friends are all assembling at various pubs to watch their countries play one another and it has led to some heavy banter and constant speculating on what is going to happen next.

All of this football talk goes right over my head of course. At work it has replaced the weather for a safe and neutral subject to talk about in a corporate setting and my eyes glaze over when it comes up....

The BBC touched on this subject this week... I thought it was rather timely and appropriate as I was starting to wonder how much more I can fake interest when clients bring up last night's field goal.

In very British fashion, this piece addresses concern about how rude it might be to talk football in front of non-fans.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-18518186

How much football can you talk about to a non-fan?

By Vanessa Barford BBC News Magazine

Millions of England fans are celebrating reaching the Euro 2012 quarter finals, with many wanting to talk about it. But at what point do football conversations become boring, or even rude to a non-fan?

Usually conversations about football are reserved for football fans. The less enthused tend to nod and smile, or subtly zone out, when football comes into bus stop banter or office water cooler chat.
But now England have reached the quarter finals of Euro 2012, football fever is sweeping the nation.
There are thousands of people suddenly engaging in debates about goals, free-kicks and possession.
A YouGov poll in May suggested 56% of the whole population are either "not at all interested" (37%) or "not very interested" (19%) in football.
So for those who can just about tolerate an office sweepstake, but have no interest in banal office football banter, at what point does talking about football become boring, or even rude?
Etiquette expert Simon Fanshawe, who is not a football fan, says he cannot stand the assumption football fans make about how much others understand, or even care, about the sport.

Continue reading the main story

Chicago Bears @ Wembley

Bears. London. America.

As I've said to many friends here in the UK, I've never been to a Bears game in Chicago for various reasons... the tickets are super expensive because there are so few games in a season, they're hard to come by, the weather at the end of the season is a gamble as you might be sitting in sub-zero wind chill with the breeze coming off the lake.... The fact there are only 7 home games in an American football regular season was mind boggling to my football (soccer) loving friends.

Over the past 6 years living in the city, I routinely gathered with friends to watch Sunday football but I never actually made it to Soldier Field. Never mind, they conveniently came to me and the tickets were easy to obtain!

Last weekend I attended the Chicago Bears vs. Tampa Bay Bucaneers NFL game at London's Wembley Stadium with some friends and it was bloody brilliant. 

Because your home is in London but your heart is in Chicago

Entering the tailgate, it was apparent that this was a celebration of American football for any fan, as we saw pretty much every NFL team's jersey represented and of course the cheese heads were out in full force (I had to explain this costume). The crowds were taking in football throwing "festival like" games, the Chicago Bears drumline performed, there were competions for fans to win prizes, an NFL apparel store, foot long hot dogs, and..... Budweiser. I haven't had a Bud Light in months but being a Miller Light fan, it sufficed and definitely felt like a taste of home. I steered clear of the hot dogs however, I didn't want to be disappointed!

On to the best part of the tailgate... WGN news was wandering nearby and I said "oh, that's a Chicago TV station". That's all it took to get dragged over to see if they'd talk to us. We made it in the segment on the 9pm Chicago news that night. My 30 seconds of fame! Too bad they cut me off mid-sentence and didn't air much of what we said, but it was good enough! My parents were super excited to see me on TV at home.

The Goo Goo Dolls randomly played, the "Star Spangled Banner" and "God Save the Queen" was sung and then the game began. Aside from the streaker that stormed the field and took his shirt off running around like a mad man high-fiving players before getting tackled by security, the crowd was relatively tame and the stadium was pretty quiet! I know the football (soccer) matches aren't like this though. It seemed like a lot of people weren't rooting for a particular team and waved their free Tampa Bay flags every time the jumbotron told them to.

 
Bears won 24-18. The only thing that was missing was the Chicago Bears song at the end!

Oxford Softball League

Back in July, about 2.5 weeks after I moved to the UK, and a few days after settling into my new flat, I was looking on the Oxford http://www.dailyinfo.co.uk/ website for things to do and see, and stumbled across this ad.

New Players Needed! (Especially Ladies)

Oxford Globetrotters are a team drawn from University Departments and several nationalities. They are keen to recruit some additional players to plug the holes appearing in their line-up now that the University term is drawing to a close.

Softball? In England? I decided to join. Apparently, it is actually a pretty big sport here and people from everywhere participate. Players in the league seem to be any age from 16 to 60 years old and my teammates were mostly Americans but we had players from Germany, Venezuela, England as well.

The Oxford Softball league has 10 teams and the some of them are really quite good and play in tournaments all over the UK. About Oxford Softball

The Globetrotters ended the season 3-10 (5 forfeits due to not enough players). I played the last 4 games of the season and we won 3 games. Coincidence? I think not. ;-)  But really, the team recruited about 5 new players to finish out the season and I met some new friends on the team.

Games are played at the Rover Sport & Social Club, next to the BMW Mini plant's test track. Occasionally we watched all the new Mini models speed down the fenced in road behind our field and then slam on the brakes!