Monday, October 29, 2012

Pin Trading Venue in the Olympic Park

So many distractions since I last wrote including my Southern New Jersey Shore stay at 3 North, a rad basement dwelling which I heard today is under a foot of agua and rising! Superstorm Sandy 2012!

Continued my Olympic Park strolling.  Stopped to chat often.  Everyone was eager to share their excitement, met mostly British.  The foreigners I met that first day had primarily come to the UK with an organized tour group.  Most were not hesitant to express how expensive everything was.

When I got to the Coca Cola Pin Trading building in the park, was surprised to see a line primarily because I hadn't seen many Olympic fans walking around with lanyards of "metal" hanging around their necks or hats covered with Olympic pins.  Waited about fifteen minutes to enter and had a bit of a "walk through" to familiarize and update myself.  This pin trading center was quite different from previous games; all the pins were Coca Cola pins.

I set up my pins from previous games, on the only empty table.  My first trades were with folks I chatted with while I cued up for entrance.  Then there were a few others and then, many young kids with their parents who I ended up giving pins to in order to get them started.  It is always fun to trade and chat, as most agree.  The most enjoyable part is meeting interesting people from all over the world.

Never found the Hyde Park Coca Cola Pin Trading Venue even though I was in the park many times. The park was across from my temporary home near Lancaster Gate.  After one of the swimming events there I saw a great sign, one sign leading the way to "Pin Trading", I headed in the direction the sign was pointing then nada, niente!  Decided to go to the Serpentine Museum instead and it was a great decision.  It featured Yoko Ono's exhibition. (Yoko walked right next to me when she entered closing ceremony btw.)

Did have some good fun trading at the entrance to the Olympic Village one day as well.

Now back to Twitter and the news about Hurricane Sandy and our wet boxes under the beds.