Crowds, flags, tall Tunisian basketball players, x-roomate meet-up, parties till 5am with medical students, chilling with my awesome aunt, Wimbeldon soccer stadium, brazilian drumming party for 1.5 hrs until we get to the tube station with 70k other fans of the women’s Brazil/GB semifinal soccer game… and it’s only been 3 days here. Oh and not to mention only about 9 hrs of sleep in this time span. A little story about my unexpected acquiring of tickets to view the women’s fencing finals that will go down in history:
I had 1 ticket to boxing, but needed 2 (or to get rid of that 1 because I was with my roommate from france, and wanted to spend time with him).. so we went to the venue, and there was a box office, and some people standing around.. with tickets in their hands, asking if we wanted them.. for free.. and these were official people (with those lanyards with their pic etc..) so before taking them, I candidly asked another guy who was controlling the box-office line my situation, and he’s like well it’s illegal to sell the tickets or buy them from non-official people. So i said why aren’t you doing anything about those guys behind you. He’s like, well it’s not my place..
so we grabbed 2 fencing tickets they were handing out for free, and headed towards the gates. And lo and behold, there’s a dude sitting on the concrete side-line of some grassy area holding a handwritten sign: “I need boxing tickets”. So i go up to him, and say, you need tickets? For what time? He’s like: Tonight’s events. I show him my ticket, and he’s so excited, almost hugs and kisses me. He’s like so how much was it, i said i paid 95 pounds but I can give it to you for less (at this point, i’m just thinking, i want to be nice and I’m glad to not have lost 95 pounds..), but he insists “No no, I’ll pay you the full price!” so he hands me 100pounds, and I’m rummaging for change. I want to give back 10, he hands it back to me, no no that’s too much. Don’t worry about it! I’m feeling like I’m handing out crumbs to pigeons at this point, because a couple other guys rush over, asking if I have any more, and are kind of sad to see that I don’t, complaining: hey he’s already got a couple. Turns out the mec i just sold my ticket to was looking to buy about 10 tickets. At this point, I’m thinking to myself – I can’t believe I just got 2 free tickets, and I got back more than what I had paid for the boxing ticket! So the dude is looking around for the ticket I gave him, saying hey where is my ticket? .. in my mind: shit is this guy just looking around for scalpers and is going to arrest me? So i say, hey i already gave it to you, you’re sitting on it, or it’s in your pocket! So he starts rummaging around in his pockets.. under his butt, and finally finds it. Whew. Nice.
I guess I didn’t need a tomahawk.