London 2012’s Olympic Park is a breathtaking place. It’s sheer size is mind blowing. We walked miles to the basketball arena after we were in the gate. Every step exciting.

Look who we bumped into along Charing Cross Road

Off to North Greenwich Arena to see women’s Gymnastics preliminaries. Thrilled to find out our session included Team GB, France, Canada, and Team USA!

We got our early start determined to visit the Tower of London and the Crown Jewels before attending our first event. London overall was surprisingly less crowded than we expected. We went into the Tower of London with no cue whatsoever. We enjoyed the Yeoman Warder (i.e. Beefeater) tour.

Sunday morning we woke up to voicemails bearing sad news. My Great Aunt Ruth has died the day before. We discussed whether we could cut the trip short, but travel realities didn’t leave us that option. We decided with heavy hearts to ‘Keep Calm and Carry On’ and return on our previously scheduled flight on Tuesday. http://www.legacy.com/link.asp?i=ls000158920723

Best laid plans… We set out to see Tower of London and crown jewels. Cab drives said ‘pick somewhere else’. He later explained the Olympic bicycle road race had the streets blocked. He saw Natalie and suggested a “tee oh why” store. He took us to Hamley’s. Natalie spent an hour playing with toys on all seven stories of the store. She was interviewed for TV news in Spain. Later we walked and shopped and walked and walked. Tomorrow we attend Olympic Women’s gymnastics!

Natalie visited the British Museum. She saw the Rosetta Stone, the sculptures from the Parthenon (the one in Greece, not the one near Lee Trevino). She saw mummies and Maoi statues and cool rubber duckies. The afternoon we had a bus tour, mainly just because we were too tired to do anything but sit down.

We visited Westminster Abbey and found Darwin’s tomb. The Torch Relay passed right in front of our hotel.

A spectacular view from atop the London Eye.