Day 81

Wednesday, July 32 -

I refuse to believe it's already August, so I changed the date.

I had the worst time with the Tube this morning. When I left my flat, I thought to myself, "My days here are numbered so I'll walk over the Thames to the Tube to get to work," instead of taking the train, because the view from the river is so beautiful. I get right on the Tube and put in my headphones and stop paying attention. We pass the station where the train line splits into two different directions, and my train starts going on the wrong one. This is what I get for not listening to the announcements they make on the train. I get off at the next stop and get on the train back to the other station and wait for the train towards Richmond to come.

They announce the trains to Richmond have been suspended due to a signal failure. Plan B is to wait for the train to Ealing Broadway and get off at the stop that's around a 15 minute walk from work. Then I hear the announcement that there are no trains to Richmond or Ealing Broadway because of a signal failure. Now I'm really mad at myself for not taking the train, because I would have been to work by this time.

I get on a completely different line and I run into the other intern on the train! Things start to look up because now I'm not in this situation alone. We get off at the closest stop to work, which is still a really long walk away. Luckily the other intern can work the bus system so we managed to find the bus to our stop. Once we finally made it in, we saw one of the staff members sent the CBS staff email listserv a message saying the Tube was closed between Earl's Court and Richmond, so everyone may need to find an alternative route to work. It was sent at 8:01 a.m. If I was on that email, I would have gotten it before I left and I would have been able to avoid the whole situation.

Work was pretty boring, so I don't even know if it was worth the hassle. I just did Eurovision all day and watched the Olympics. It was pretty exciting. Team GB won their first gold medal in rowing. All the Brits in the room got pretty excited.

Then I got to GO to the Olympics! My program was raffling off tickets, and whoever originally won the one I got couldn't accept it, so my name was drawn! I still had to pay for it, but it was pretty awesome.

Wembley Stadium, where the match was held

London 2012 logo on the stadium

Wembley Arena 

Sooo many people headed to the stadium

The match was men's football (soccer), Korea v. Gabon. Our seats were amazing! We were on the very first level and only row 16, so it was pretty close. The seats were also really comfortable.

Waiting for the game to start

Inside the stadium!

The other side of the stadium 

A Gabon player got injured in the first 2 seconds of the game

Doing the wave! 

Playing football

I was routing for Gabon because they were wearing bright orange shoes and they speak French there. Neither team scored and they ended the game tied at 0-0. I'm confused about how the bracket works and how they plan on picking a winner. After the match, all 80,000 some people all left and all went to the Tube. It was ridiculous, but we made our way slowly but surely to the station, onto the Tube and back home.

Everyone leaving. There was also about this many people behind us.

Cop on a pony! Protecting the crowds

Making our way into the station