Welcome to London
From there, it was a 30 minute busride to the satellite village we'll be staying in through the end of competition, since the regular village is too far from the course. It's a college campus that's been locked down by the military - our areas are surrounded with 8 foot high portable blue fencing, all the entrances are manned by soldiers with assault rifles, they check the buses coming in for bombs, and we have to go basically through airport security to get in. Once we're in though, it's quite nice. Each team get's its own wing of a building, and each athlete has their own room with shower, wifi, and special Olympic duvets. There are workout rooms, a dining hall open 24/7, entertainment centers with computers and video games, and a medical center. It's crazy to think all of this is set up just for us and that we're at the center of it - the scale is so big, and the departure from reality so complete, that it really doesn't register.
After checking in at the village and grabbing breakfast, we headed off to the processing center which occupied most of our first day here in London. It was about a 90 minute ride in, and then a whirlwind of preparation. Fittings for opening/closing ceremony uniforms with Ralph Lauren reps, who tailored everything to make sure the looks were exactly what they wanted. Then on to pick up the rest of our gear packages, which were a packed full duffel bag and book bag each from Nike and Ralph Lauren. Everything had to be tried on, and much of it exchanged, but in the end everything fits. It's everything from our medal stand uniforms to tshirts and hats, work out clothes, sweat suits, casual clothes, polos, even a knit cardigan. Some of it is garish, some pretty tasteful, but it's pretty staggering to be handed that much free gear. After that (think about 2 hours of exchanging and trying on clothes) it was on to get sized for rings, get a watch from Hamilton, pick out one of a number of Oakley sunglass options, pick up a messenger bag from P&G filled with toiletries, get pictures taken, eat lunch, and then load the bus. The entire process lasted about 4-5 hours. Then we returned to our satellite village via the Financial District, St. Pauls, Thames, Parliament, and Westminster Abbey.The rest of the day has been unloading and unpacking clothes, setting up the room (I'm only about 1/2 done), and figuring out logistics for tomorrow.
The weirdest thing is that all of this is going on so out of the norm, and yet now that it's all finished we just pick right back up where we left off Monday morning, training and preparing to race/make weight. Somehow the whole process feels very removed from an "Olympic Experience" - I dunno if that's a function of focus, jet lag, the fact that we're the third team here so it's pretty empty, and the only other two are small (Zimbabwe and Brazil), or something else entirely.
-Will
