Magic at the Olympic Park

Tube travel from Lancaster Gate to Stratford was direct, longer than expected and crowded.  I stood all of the way and chatted with an enjoyable young man with a stronger than usual accent.  He spoke quickly and I found myself straining a bit to understand his English.  He worked at the Olympic Park's McDonalds.  He was excited to work 'inside the park' and hadn't seen any events or any pin trading.  He didn't even know pin trading existed although at former games it often took place around McDonalds so naturally that took me by surprise.  Especially by the second week.

I wasn't wearing my olympic vest with patches from most of the former games and wasn't wearing my lanyard with hunks of metal around my neck.  For that matter, didn't see anyone else wearing their metal pins around their necks or even on their hats.  I remember thinking that this was a bit strange because by the second week of most Olympics, pins were everywhere, along with the fun conversations and merriment that went along with pin trading.

At Stratford crowds from our train and huge crowds from many other trains were guided around to the right to the long walk to the entrance to the park.  "Have your tickets ready" was one of the most common announcements from guides along the way.  I finally got close to the entrance and then after inquiring, found that tickets were returned via "the collections booth".  Hmm "collections".  Got in line for collections booth and asked about returned tickets and was told that they didn't know what happened to those tickets that were returned but they did know that they could not sell them.  Much later heard that there was a place inside the park where purchases could be made.  But how to get inside...that was the question.

Made a few more inquiries and got negative answers.

Then resorted to my favorite "old faithful" Olympic MAGIC PLAN.

Yup, as in MAGIC MARKER!