Tuesday 4 September 2012

Paralympics - Crowds, fine dining & crazy ladies

So today is a day off for me, a chance to give my knees and feet a rest, catch up with rest of the world and to reflect on the last five days at the Paralympics.

I've been on most of the teams now and done most of the jobs that the Event Services Team are in place to do. Generally I have loved everyday, with a few ups and downs as you would expect. So in a lot of ways the Paralympics has been everything I expected but there has been a few surprises

The Crowds - once the athletics events started in the Olympic Stadium the crowds in the park were incredible. With the Aquatic Centre, Velodrome and Stadium all sold out that meant well over 100,000 coming to these venues alone. Seeing the crowds streaming towards you is a site to behold.

The Food - everyday we get two meals for our 10 hours of serving and the revelation is that the meals are really rather good. I have eaten Moroccan lamb tangine, fish pie, lasagne, lancashire hotpot and pork and apple pasty for lunch and everyone of these was really good. Actually apart from the lasagne which was very nice everything else was superb and would have been acceptable fayre in any restaurant. Breakfast is perfect, bacon rolls or ham and cheese croisants.

Crazy Ladies - there are many entertainers around the Olympic Park - brass bands, morris dancers, circus style entertainers, hula hoop girls and then there is Miss Timed & Miss Judged (pictured). These two 'slimline ' ladies are international adjudicators that have been roaming the park awarding special gold medals to spectators who have those special talents that these ladies have a particular gift to spot. I met these lovely ladies in the canteen and they gave me my own gold medal so I feel proud they saw the talent hidden in me.

There is still so much I could write about but that's all for now folks. Tomorrow I have my first night shift 1pm-12am then straight into my next morning shift at 6:30am the next day.

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2 comments:

  1. Worth it just for the food, alot of my favourites...

    Where's the picture of your medal???

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  2. My medal, well actually medals as I now have two will be displayed in the memorabilia post in a few days

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