All my bags are packed and I'm ready to go. OK, enough with the sappy John Denver music. I don't know why I am still up... it's 1:30 am local time and my dad is going to be mad at me for not getting any sleep. Oh well, my itinerary is condusive to sleeping, I'll be leaving the US to head to London Heathrow Airport at 10:00pm eastern time. 

I'll miss my family, friends and pets back home. I'll miss the California sunshine. I'll miss home cooked meals though I am excited to explore what new food London will open my tastebuds to. Still, to re-iterate my point, I don't know why I am still up at 1:30 am. Up to this point it has been what I like to call, 'organized chaos'. 

Between finishing the requirements for the course, visiting my grandparents and playing fetch with my golden retriever, it has been a busy week. But now is the time, London is calling. It'll be awesome to get into London and start exploring. Our first activity is to attend a Torch Run Celebration concert in Hyde Park, the next day is the final torch run into the Olympic Stadium for the Opening Ceremony. 

So let the games begin!

Preparations for this for this trip have been ongoing upon admittance to the Olympic Academic Experience in October of 2011. Some parts have been easy while some aspects have been time consuming. Dont' get me wrong, I love to elarn and this course presents an amazing educational experience but the course has been time consuming. I have to find time to enjoy my summer while satisfying the requirements for this course. It has been awesome to dive into the subject of the Olympics, and with my academic focus at Oregon being Sports Business, I am consumed and enthralled with the course. To support the academic writing this course entails, I'll refer to my favorite academic texts such as the Writers Reference - Sixth Edition, They Say I Say and Writing Logically, Thinking Critically. I am learning a lot about the theory and organization of the Olympics. 

This will be my third time traveling to the European continent. I am lucky and grateful to have been to the great continent as a young adult. Being experienced with foreign travel will bode well for this trip. I already had my passport and ordered an International Student Idenitification Card. I look forward to traveling through the London Underground with ease and confidence after a few days in London. I purchased a Lonely Planet guide book on London and have spent time going over its pages and trying to figure out what sites I want to see in London. One day, some of my fellow classmates and myself will board a train and spend a day in Paris. It'll be nice to get out of London and explore the great city of Paris, cue the 'Tale of two Cities' jokes. 

Currently, I'm trying to get a sense of what free Olympic viewing opportunities there may be. I was in Germany during the 2010 World Cup and there were opporuntiies to view the games at restaurants and on city blocks. It will be amazing if there are opportunities like this in London. Tickets were available on the ticketing website 'Cosport' and I purchased a ticket to see a boxing event. I chose boxing because I've never seen a boxing match live and want to experience this sporting event. It is the only Olympic competition I'm going to, the tickets were rather expensive due to market demand and supply economics for Olympic sports. However, I do plan to spend time at the Olympic Park and will make it a point to see the cycling and marathon road events. 

I look forward to forging great bonds with my classmates while we are in London. It'll be great to meet my crew in the Newark airport and hop across the pond to London. I also look forward to meeting people from all over the world and to catch the Olympic Spirit. Go Team USA!!

I heard about the Tiffin University Olympic Academic Experience last summer, around late July. I remember checking my e-mail one summer day and got e-mail from the club advisor to the Warsaw Sports Marketing Club. It is exciting to get these e-mails, as you never know what amazing details are enclosed in the unread message. Obviously, when I saw the word ‘Olympic’ in the subject line, my heart skipped a beat. I was surprised. From the basic information about this program, I knew it was an amazing, once in a lifetime opportunity to dive further into the subject of the Olympic Movement.  I soon closed my MacBook and went on with the rest of my day of sports and homework. But I wouldn’t let my mind forget about the e-mail and took down the application deadline. About 5 days later, I talked to my parents about the e-mail and asked them if I could apply. I made the decision to apply after reviewing information online and once I had the realization that there would be no language barrier, albeit a slight linguistic deviation from American English, in traveling to London. So I applied, and originally made the waiting list. Through attrition, I registered for the class and am here explaining how I heard of the Olympic Academic Experience. It all started that fateful day when an email was sent out to the Warsaw Sports Marketing Club.