This summer I was a part of the Harding Olympic Tour. We were a group of students and staff members, Dr. JD Yingling, Dr. Jessica Moore and Noah Darnell, who visited Olympia, Athens, Rome and Munich, and saw the old Olympic site in each place.
The grand finale was ending the trip in London to see the first week of the Olympic games.
When people ask me what my favorite part of the Olympics was, I am suddenly at a loss for words. Words literally cannot describe the time we had in London because it was definitely an experience of a lifetime.
First off, being in London is an experience in itself. It is a must to get fish and chips and shepherd’s pie. And, of course, we saw Big Ben, the London Eye, Trafalgar Square and Westminster Abbey.
So when you added the Olympics into the mix, it just created a whole new and thrilling atmosphere.
On our first day in London, we just happened to make it in time to see part of the Olympic torch relay. Seeing the torch first hand was completely surreal.
There were so many people lining the street with their cameras out and ready to get their own picture of the torch.
When it finally passed us, my eyes were big and my mouth was wide open because there was the torch, feet away from us.
It was unreal.
In the week following, each of us in the group had tickets to four different events during the course of the week.
I had tickets to a men’s double-header soccer game, which the entire group attended, beach volleyball, a women’s soccer game and a table tennis match. Each of them was just as exciting as the next, and I honestly cannot pick a favorite.
The men’s soccer game was exciting for multiple reasons. Number one, it was in the iconic Wembley Stadium, which is huge and holds close to 90,000 spectators.
We also got to see the home team, Great Britain, play in front of a full house. That made the game even more exciting.
Beach volleyball was held at historic Horse Guard’s Parade, and we were able to see four matches over the course of the evening. Not only did we get to see four matches, but we got to see two American matches, and one of those matches happened to be Misty May-Treanor and Kerri Walsh.
It was so cool being able to see them win a match on their way to winning their third Olympic gold medal.
The women’s soccer game was just as exciting as the men’s because it was also in Wembley Stadium, and Great Britain was playing.
What made it even better was that they were playing Brazil, one of the best women’s soccer teams in the world.
The final event I attended was table tennis, and it was probably one of the coolest events in the Olympics.
People might laugh, but it really does take a lot of hand-eye coordination to play, and you have to have perfect reaction time because the ball moves across the table in less than a second.
All in all, this trip was incredible.
I got to see many different places and experience different cultures, and I went to the Olympics, which in itself is pretty amazing.
