American Mom in London: Olympics & Paralympics

Now that the Olympics and Paralympics are officially over with, I thought I would do a quick post about our experience and share some of our pictures. We were nervous about moving to London right before the start of the Olympics not knowing how it would impact our apartment search and how crazy the city would be. It didn't seem to have an impact on our apartment search at all. Most landlords were not interested in renting out their places to short-term tenants here for the Olympics even if it meant a lot of money for a few weeks. It wasn't worth the hassle to them. The city did not seem significantly more busy either. There were warnings to avoid public transportation and tourist sites during the Olympics. However, David had no trouble at all getting to work during the Olympics. Most business actually complained about business being down over the Olympics as locals were too afraid to come out due to all the warnings and the tourists were here simply for the Olympics, not to spend a significant amount of time sightseeing or shopping.

We were fortunate to secure tickets to a Team USA vs. Turkey Olympic volleyball game and a session of Paralympics swimming and athletics. Before we moved here, a lot of tickets were given out in a lottery type system. However, the official ticket site held on to some blocks of tickets that were released randomly. The lower priced tickets also had options to buy child tickets for significantly reduced prices. We were able to get Colin these tickets for swimming and athletics which was really nice considering his attention span usually means we only see about an hour of each event. Our volleyball event was outside of Olympic Park at a venue called Earl's Court that is normally used for concerts and exhibitions. The swimming was at the Aquatics Centre and athletics was at Olympic Stadium, both within Olympic Park. We were super impressed with how organized everything was. You had to go through airport style security but all lines went extremely fast. Buggy parks were set up to leave our stroller before going to our seat. If anything, we noticed there were too many volunteers; a problem I am sure they were happy to have.

Olympic Park was really nice and there was quite a bit to do outside of going to events. We enjoyed walking around to see all the venues and trying some of the different food and drink options. It should be interesting to see what happens to the area now that the Olympics are over. A lot of the venues were temporary and will be taken down; others have been sold. There was quite a bit of infrastructure built around that area (a giant shopping mall, various hotels, extended transportation links) so time will tell what happens with those things.

I am glad I can now cross "Go to the Olympics" off my bucket list! Here are some pictures from our Olympic and Paralympic Events.