Going behind the scenes at the 2012 London Olympics

The 2012 Olympic Games will be London's third time as host of the summer sports extravaganza, but it will be the city's first chance to truly wow the rest of the world. Their two previous Games were both hasty affairs by necessity -- in 1908, London agreed to take on the Games after the planned host, Rome, had to pull out because Mount Vesuvius erupted, and in 1948, the city was still scrambling to recover from World War II.

Logo courtesy of the London 2012 website. It was not universally liked over here. 

London was awarded these games in July 2005, and spent two years planning before any demolition or construction was done. The organizers used that time to figure out how to truly benefit London and Britain both during and after the Games, with some impressive results.

The start of the Orbit Tower, which will be 459 feet high, next to the aquatic venue.

The Olympic Park is located in London's East End, a former industrial center that was heavily bombed during the war. The area never really recovered, suffering from poverty and dereliction for decades. In fact, the five boroughs that border the Olympic Park have been some of the poorest in the United Kingdom.

 

The Three Mill area in London's East End relect the area's industrial past. Only two of the mills that provided the name remain.

 



Abandoned warehouses and grafitti-marked buildings can still be seen near the Olympic Park, though it is expected that the land will be sold or refurbished in the coming months.

But the Games offered London a chance to change that. Millions of pounds have been poured into revitalizing the area. Some of the improvements that have been made:

• Waterways that were severely contaminated with oil, petrol, arsenic and other toxins have been cleaned.
• More than 1.4 million tons of soil were washed
• Local ecosystems were rebalanced and wildlife is returning
• Transportation facilities and options have been upgraded
• More than 400 apprenticeships were awarded to neighborhood workers, giving them skills and a trade that they can pursue after the Games.

East End waterways were cleaned up. Shopping carts, tires and occasionally entire cars were removed.

The organizers were also very focused on making these improvements while keeping the environmental impact minimal. More than 50 percent of construction materials were transported by water and more than 90 percent of the building materials were reused or reclaimed. In fact, the white piping used for the Olympic Stadium was purchased for another project and never used, so it was re-purposed for this one.

The Olympic Stadium. The field is sunken below the ground, which should reduce wind and make the facility more friendly to record-setting performances in the track and field events next year.

And London has specific plans about what will be done with the Olympic Park and venues after the Games to ensure that the facilities don't go to waste:

• The Olympic Park will be turned into a 500-acre urban park, the largest to be built in Europe in more than 150 years.
• The Olympic Village where the athletes will be staying will be converted into more than 2,000 homes.
• The athletic facilities will be downsized and adapted for use by local clubs and communities.
• Bridges will be reduced to half their size to match predicted traffic needs.

Playing ping-poing at one of the parks being renovated near the Olympic Park.

I've tried to resist sounding too much like a tour book on this blog so far, but I really have to emphasize how fantastic it was to have Sean as our Blue Badge tour guide; otherwise the magnitude of what the Games mean to London and specificially the East End would have been lost on us. Rick Steves himself benefited from Sean's expertise -- you can see Sean in the 2011 London guide.

Photo from Rick Steves' 2011 London guide.

If you are planning a trip to London in the next year, you should definitely consider hiring a guide and visiting the Olympic Park to see it for yourself.

Honoring the dead at Westminster Abbey

For anyone who has visited the tomb of the unknown soldier in Washington, D.C., it turns out that we got the idea for that particular memorial from the British.

Today we toured Westminster Abbey. Photos are not permitted inside of the church.

The Unknown Warrior was buried as a tribute to all of the fallen soldiers from World War I. He was interred at Westminster Abbey on Nov. 7, 1920, and he remains the last full body to be buried in the church. Among the thousands of people buried on the grounds, his is the only grave that cannot be walked upon.

The idea to honor an unidentified solider as a tribute to all the soldiers who had died is attributed to a chaplain serving on the Western Front, David Railton, after he saw a cross marking the grave of "An Unknown British Soldier." He suggested his idea to the Dean of Westminster, Herbert Ryle, who embraced it and ultimately wrote the inscription for the slab.

The Tomb of the Unknown Warrior. Photo courtesy of Wikipedia.

The Unknown Warrior was selected from between four and six unidentified soldiers disinterred from graves at the major battlefields of the Western Front. The commander of British troops in France and Flanders, Brigadier General LJ Wyatt, made the final selection, according to the BBC. The selected soldier was transported to Dover, while the others were reburied. A French soldier was chosen for a similar honor and buried at the Arc de Triomphe in France.

It is intentionally not known whether the soldier is from the Army, Navy or Air Force. He was buried along with soil from France in a coffin of English Oak. The slab covering the grave is made from Belgian marble and is constantly ringed by poppies for remembrance. This flower was one of the few flowers to grow on barren battlefields, according to the BBC. The poppy was widely adopted as a symbol of remembrance after the publication of the poem In Flanders Fields by Canadian surgeon John McCrae.



Poppies are worn for remembrance. Photo by Hobvias Sudoneighm.


Brides married at Westminster Abbey typically put their bouquets on the Unknown Warriors grave after the ceremony. The first bride to do so was Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother. Her brother Fergus perished in the Battle of Loos during the First World War. Kate Middleton recently upheld the tradition at her wedding to Prince William in April.

We had another excellent Blue Badge guide today, Brian (in center). He shared this story and many others with us.

In brief: St. Paul's Cathedral and Buckingham Palace

Coach tour on Sunday morning, since it's the least congested time for traffic in London. We were led by a registered Blue Badge guide named Sean, and he was the best kind of tour leader -- full of facts both useful and trivial. One of our first stops was St. Paul's Cathedral, where we hopped off the bus to take pictures and enjoy a better view.

Obligatory picture of St. Paul's.



St. Paul's is one of several churches built by Christopher Wren following the Great Fire of London in 1666. The site had been occupied by four previous cathedrals, and construction of this one took 35 years.

 

Our tour guide, Sean, noting how the different cathedrals occupied the site over the years.

As Sean was showing us where Julie Andrews sang while the woman fed the pigeons in Mary Poppins, he pointed out that Queen Anne serves as the "bird lady" now. On cue, a pigeon landed on the statue's head.





Yep, that's Queen Anne. And that's a pigeon's rear end above her crown.


Our next excursion was a short trip through St. James's Park, arriving just in time for the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace. Sean maneuvered us into a spot to get the ultimate shot of the exiting guards' processional. That's what you get with a professional guide.



Our excellent position for the changeover.

My flatmate, Theresa Wondracek, posted video of the ceremony on her blog, Theresa's London Expedition.

Me in front of Buckingham Palace. We'll be returning later in the semester. Photo by Tiffanie Fisher.


I'll be saving a bit of Sean's more interesting trivia for a later post -- Ryan already established our fact-checking credentials, and I don't want our blog quality to go down now that he's back home.

Jennifer Lopez's £10,000 visit to the BBC and other tales from the world's largest broadcaster



The iconic BBC headquarters in London, built in 1960. Shortly after taking this photo, our tour guides informed us that it's on the market as the BBC employees are gradually transferred to a new headquarters. 

As part of our tour of the BBC on Thursday, we stood inside one of the five "superstar" hang-out rooms where big acts relax before being taken to their dressing room/makeup rooms before a performance or interview. As part of the deal, the big names get to pick some amenities to make themselves feel more at home.

Our guides, Megan and Rachel, shared with us a few memorable requests the BBC has gotten from celebrities over the years (called riders). As Rachel listed a few examples of famous people's riders, she let us guess whether the BBC went along with the requests or not. It was so much fun -- and enlightening -- we'll let you play, too. Decide whether you think the BBC granted the following requests, then check your answers below.

1. Paul McCartney. Request: Fresh fruit and tea.
2. Elton John. Request: Sugar-free ginger biscuits from British luxury shop Harrods.
3. Jonathan Ross. Request: A Playstation 3.
4. Madonna. Request: A life-sized portrait of the Pope.
5. Mariah Carey. Request: A box of puppies to play with.
6. Lady Gaga. Request: A pair of additional refrigerators.
7. Prince. Request: To be carried around the BBC's campus to avoid going up steps or in elevators.
8. Jennifer Lopez. Request: To have her dressing room redecorated entirely in white, including new white carpet and two white sofas flown in from her Paris apartment, and dressing rooms for the 32 members of her entourage.




The BBC knows irony.



1. Yes, McCartney's request was granted.

2. Yes, the BBC sent someone to Harrods to buy the biscuits.

3. Yes, a BBC employee went out to buy the PS3. At the end of the night, Ross gave it to the compliant employee as a gift.

4. Yes, the BBC met Madonna's demands by borrowing a wax figure of the Pope from Madame Tussauds. It apparently traveled to BBC headquarters sticking out of the roof of a taxicab.

5. No, the BBC denied this request for fear of cruelty to animals.

6. Yes, Lady Gaga got her two fridges. She used them to store her wigs, according to our guides.

7. Yes, a security guard got the honor of carrying Prince from one floor of the BBC to the next.

8. Yes, Lopez got her redecorated room, couches and all -- but only when she agreed to pay for it. It apparently cost her more than £10,000, according to our guides. (The BBC is publicly funded, raising its revenue from an annual license fee of about £140 that every citizen who owns a TV must pay.)

And for all that trouble and expense, Lopez was only in the room for about 40 minutes, our guides said.