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Olympic London

I am failing at the Rav Games as I am too busy enjoying Olympic London. The atmosphere here is superb - friendly and polite, welcoming and quirky.

On Sunday myself and a few friends went on tour visiting national houses. Some countries have commandered buildings in London to showcase their culture. Most of them are free and they are good fun.

We started off in Casa Brasil aka Somerset House, where we saw some artwork, plus plans for their games in 2016. I think I'll go back in the evening and enjoy a caipriniha or two and pretend I'm on Copacobana beach.

To keep this linked to the fibre arts they had this fabric wall

Casa Brasil - fabric wall

and these freaky crochet dolls in part of an art exhibit.

Casa Brasil - freaky crochet dolls

We watched a little bit of the women's marathon

Marathon

which to be honest was a little tiring so we mooched along South Bank, stopping off at the Tanks at Tate Modern, taking a break from sport and enjoying some culture

Tate Tanks

I think Swiss House was my favourite as it had cheese and chocolate

ALL THE CHEESE

and we got to see a Master Choclatier from Lindt at work and sample his wares. A cunning move as we all bought some chocolate, I went for their new wasabi flavour.

Master choclatier

This loo door sign amused me in Swiss House

Loo door in Swiss House

I'm collecting photos of our mascots, Wenlock and Mandeville (or Stevenage and Mildew as I like to call them) and spotted a fair few, though apparently there are 83 of these all over London. Good job they're not like Pokemon.

City Hall Wenlock

We finally saw Tower Bridge with the iconic rings...

Tower Bridge

and then headed to Denmark where there were beautiful people, good design, and Lego

Lego Olympic Park

Plus I think we ended up on Danish TV. Tak. (I went into Sara Lund mode though I couldn't remember any useful Danish)

Denmark house

Lou and I were then going to head to Austria house for some thigh-slapping wurst but MrG phoned as he managed to get two tickets for Greco-Roman wrestling. Luckily we were next to a DLR station so we headed to the Excel Centre where we saw a sport that baffled both of us.

Olympic London

Nevertheless we enjoyed ourselves and the atmosphere. Plus I bumped into two twitter friends on the way out. Marvellous. London, I salute you.

Comments

mostcurious said…
I am, as a US citizen, horrified by the awful crochet dolls. HORRIFIED.

Also personally I'm insanely jealous of the LEGO in the Denmark house. FYI I am trying to vicariously enjoy the Olympics more through you. :)
10 August 2012 at 15:27
Anonymous said…
Pfeh. that was me up there.
10 August 2012 at 15:29
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