Opening Ceremony

The biggest symbol of Olympic game for me tonight had to be the simulated forging of the Olympic Rings during the "Industrial Revolution" stage of the performance.  The sight of the 'glowing steel' rising into the sky and joining with the other rings was pretty spectacular and special.  The hard work of the old forging a path for the new Games and a new generation of athletes.  But enough flowery metaphor from me.  Here are my highlights of the evening

The show opened with a pastoral imagining of Britain complete with sheep fields and little girls dancing around a maypole.  It kind of looked like Hobbiton, for you Lord of the Rings fans. A choir in the stadium joined with televised choirs pictured in Scotland and Ireland to sing Danny Boy.  I have to admit, this brought a few tears to my eyes.  It was beautiful.

Next, we were taken to a new period in British history, the Industrial Revolution.  The sod and such that made up the pastoral setting was taken away gradually as large smokestacks grew out of the floor.  A map of London was revealed in the floor beneath the grass and a trail of molten steel followed the outline of the Thames into the mould where they 'forged' one of the Olympic Rings.   The ring raised up into the sky to join four other rings that formed the Olympic Rings, which also rained fire down onto the stage.  Wow....Awesome!

James Bond and the Queen parachuted into the stadium after leaving her adorable Corgis back at Buckingham.  That must have taken a lot out of her, because she didn't freaking smile the rest of the evening.

After that they transitioned into this weird homage to the NHS (National Health Service) which kind of seemed to give a nice middle finger to Romney, who was there.  That's right, the Brits are so pleased with their National Health that they include in their Olympic Opening Ceremony Presentation. Get the message much.  Also, represented the Great Ormond Street Hospital who apparently owns the rights to the Peter Pan stories because J.M. Barrie gave it to them, which is cute.

The coolest thing about this was the kids in their hospital beds where the pillows and the bedspreads glowed.  The kids were then visited by the nightmares of Voldemort, Cruella DeVille, Captain Hook, and someone else who I can't remember, who were chased away by none other than a giant band of flying Mary Poppinses.  Odd and slightly disturbing.

Next was some random dancing music thing that had a love story going on with it, but I kind of missed it and didn't really care.


Mr. Bean joined the orchestra in playing "Chariots of Fire'.  He played the same note on the piano over and over and over, you know... the one that goes on and on and is the same note the whole piece.  This was hilarious as he checked his watch, his smartphone, got a tissue, and daydreamed about running in the scene from Chariots of Fire while playing that one note on the piano.  I can't describe it to make it funny, just trust me that is was and go look it up on Youtube.

Moving on to the parade of the athletes.

The Czech Republic wore blue wellies as part of their uniform...oh no.

The Germans wore terrible baby pink and baby blue jackets.

The Netherlands had terrible orange pants.

 And the US looked pretentious.












The lighting of the Torch was pretty spectacular though, with a very egalitarian way of going about it.  Seven young unknown athletes lit the torch by lighting the over 200 copper leaves that were carried in with each of the delegations.  They then all raised up and joined together to form the torch.  It's kind of short compared to previous torches and it can't be seen by people outside of the stadium, but it is very cool and very pretty.

I think my favorite part of the evening though was in my house.  We ate Steak and Ale pies and pasties and had strawberries and cream to be very British.  Then we called my sister, Sarah, in Korea on the iPad and set it in front of the TV so she could watch the opening ceremony with us, because we are ridiculous.  To me, the Olympics Opening Ceremonies is one of my favorite family activities and I love watching the wonderful and crazy things that these countries are able to present to the world with them.  YAY!  On to the competition.