I promise I'm still alive!!

Sorry I haven’t updated in a couple of days. We have extremely limited Internet access at Camp right now and I had a minor adapter issue, but I’m back up and running!! Let’s do a recap of the last few days:

Wednesday: The Uxbridge Group (that’s where we were staying) decided to go into Central London and sightsee a bit. Fortunately, Ethan and Brooke had a good idea of where they were going so they could lead us pretty well. We saw the majority of the things to see in Central London and walked very, very far. It was also a bit warm and I got a little sunburnt in my tank top. After we got back from the city, we got cleaned up and met up with Steve for dinner and drinks.

Thursday: A van picked us up from our hotel to bring us to Camp. Unfortunately, the hotel was in North West London and Camp is in East London with the most direct route cutting straight through the city. A 30-mile distance took us 2 hours! When we finally got to Stratford, our driver had no idea where Camp was and neither did we. The address we had was for a drama academy, which turned out to be right next door to our Camp. As soon as we arrived to Camp, we were shown our way put the main road to the bus stop and the main area of Stratford, including Westfield (the four story mall) and the Underground Station. The four of us who had been in the hotel had to come back early and were put to work while everyone else was allowed to go explore Stratford. Our task was to set up the Recreation Tent, which has couches, tables, chairs, a pool table, a ping-pong table, and a foosball table. Later, we hung around with some of our other interns and made friends. After everyone had dinner, we walked about halfway up toward main Stratford to go to this pub we’d passed earlier called The Builder’s Arms (or the BA) for some pints. The bartenders got a kick out of us and tried to teach us some fun Cogney phrases (Skin and Blister means Sister, Apples and Pears means Stairs).

Friday: We had about a 3-hour long training session this morning going over some general knowledge about the company and some of the operations aspects of what our responsibilities might be. After, we were led about a mile and a half out of Camp to pick up our Olympic Accreditations. This place was in the middle of nowhere and why it was so inconvenient is beyond me. On our way back to Camp, I caught up with Kallie, one of my CP people, and we discussed finding a Café for coffee and Wi-Fi/excursion planning. I was almost out of cash, so we walked all the way up to main Stratford to get to Barclay’s, and then stopped at about 5 different cafes looking for Wi-Fi until we found Moka Mia Café (www.mokamia.co.uk) and its owner, David. This tiny little place was just what we were looking for. We ordered some coffees and talked with him for a few minutes, telling him that we were just down the road and would be here all summer. We picked up his frequent-buyer card and he gave us 4 punches instead of just 2, since we were first timers. We’ll definitely be going back there. When David closed up, Kallie and I headed back to Camp for dinner. As it got later in the day, the temperature went down and it got a bit chilly. Some other interns found a pub in Central London that would play the Carolina Baseball game, so everyone made their way there for a bit. A small group of us decided to head out early before the Tubes stopped running, but after a couple of stops on the line that would get us home, they had a communication issue and had to stop running. We had to leave the station and find a bus, which was extremely confusing and took about an hour. When we finally got on the right bus, it took another hour for us to make it back to Camp. The group that left the pub after us had already been back for a while. At this point it was 1am and I just went to bed.

Saturday: I met up with some of the interns at breakfast and they were talking about heading into Central London/Westminster for sightseeing and Jubilee festivities, so I joined them. I was very happy that I decided to wear a scarf and bring my jacket because the majority of the day was overcast and a bit cold. We saw some of the same sights from Wednesday and some new ones. At this point, I think I have around 170 pictures just from the last 5 days. I’ll try to upload most of them. I had a traditional English dish at the pub we stopped at for lunch: Bangers and Mash. It was wonderful! After a bit more sightseeing we headed back to Camp. We are definitely experiencing “London Weather” now: it’s raining, cold, and windy. I definitely plan on investing in a London 2012 hoodie in the next couple of days. One of the guys here at Camp was able to get ESPN 3 on his iPad, so we were able to watch Carolina beat Clemson!

Today is the Queen's Diamond Jubilee. A group of us got up and left Camp around 10am to head into the city. We made our way through the crowds of people and through the various parks and streets. We grabbed some lunch near Waterloo and walked a bit more. After lunch, we found a park where one of the many screens had been set up for people to watch for the Queen. We got to watch her arrive to her boat, then go from her boat to her ship for the parade down the River Temps. We knew that there was no way that we would be able to actually get close enough to the river to watch the Royal Family go by, so a few of us decided to head back to Stratford before all of the crowds tried to leave the city. 

Camp is… limited. We like to call our sleeping areas storage units, because that’s basically what they are. Currently, my space has two bunk beds and one roommate, Sarah. Over the next couple of days, they will bring in three more bunk beds and when the Leeds students arrive on the 11^th we’ll get more roommates. There is about a 10 foot radius up near the front of Camp at the main office where we can get Wi-Fi and this is usually where you can find 5-10 people huddled on their phones and computers—apparently the whole Camp will have Wi-Fi. The Rec Tent will also have a bar, but Camp doesn’t have its liquor license yet. We also have a small kitchen that was very limited at first, but they’ve gotten it set up and the food is actually pretty good. Our bathroom situation is probably the roughest part of Camp. Currently, we only have two showers and about four bathrooms. They keep telling us that they’ll be bringing more. So far, only our interns are here so the numbers are pretty low with around 40 people. Come Games time, there will be roughly 1100 people living in this compound. At this point, it seems extremely far-fetched. We are the first group here, but I don’t think many of us were expecting to live quite so primitively. I think it will be better once more amenities are up and running.

Many things around here are very up-in-the-air. Communication is definitely not up to my standard, but there are a few variables that are still being figured out from all sides. Everyone here is really nice and inclusive, but there are definitely a few cliques. I’m the only Grad student, so everyone else has had classes together and has an idea of who people are. I do not have the title of oldest intern, however, as I discovered that one of the guys is 26 who started college a few years out of high school. It’s pretty easy to find groups to do things with, all you have to do is ask. It’s definitely an adjustment, but it’s been pretty fun exploring and getting to know the area and the people. I can’t wait to really get things rolling!