A Day in London (Olympic Park)

The alarm went off, as set, at 3.30 a.m. and we were on the road to London by 4.15 a.m. (me, Sara and Thom).  We had an easy journey up to Surbiton where we caught the 05.58 train to London Waterloo and from there the Jubilee Line to the London 2012 Olympic Park for Day 3 of the Paralympics.  We had to wait about 15 minutes for the gates to open but once through the security checks and inside, we had plenty of room and time to roam around and look at the park before having a McDonald's Breakfast and finding our seats in the Riverbank Arena for the 7-a-side football.  We saw two matches - Russia 8-0 Argentina and Netherlands 1-4 Iran, before we had to leave the Arena and have some lunch (very good, though pricy, haddock and chips). Our day passes allowed us to enter some of the other venues but, unfortunately, all were already fully booked.  By 2 p.m. the Olympic Park was extremely crowded  - there must have been 100,000 - 200,000 people there and so we decided to leave and catch a tube into central London and have a look around the National Gallery.  On the way to the tube station, Thom was delighted to find a shop which sold USA sporting caps and he was able to get one for his beloved Washington Nationals baseball team (he had been hoping that his Grandpa could send him one from America at some time).  He hadn't expected to find a specialist shop in the UK although I did tell him that you can get most things in London if you look.  We caught the Central Line to Mile End, changing for the District Line to Embankment where we got off and walked up through Charing Cross to Trafalgar Square.   Inside the National Gallery we saw examples of Monet, Rubens, Manet, Turner, Constable, Rembrandt and other famous aritists - too numerous to mention here.  We stopped off at Waterstones Costa Coffee shop in Trafalagar Square before walking up Whitehall to Parliament Square, over Westminster Bridge and found a noodle bar for supper by the old County Hall.  We eventually caught a train back to Surbiton just before 8 p.m. and arrived back home at around 10.30 pm.  A really long day and we all went to bed quite exhausted.   An enjoyable day none the less and I'm glad we made the effort to do it.