After a breakfast
buffet at the Marriott Heathrow, we headed down to the lobby with our bags to
meet the GSK Hospitality team member waiting for us. With her GSK Orange polo shirt and clipboard,
she wasn’t hard to pick out. The
“private coach” (translation: high-class bus) was running a bit late, but by
noon we were on our way into the city.
Some background about
this trip: A total of 100 GSK employees won Golden Tickets and were split into
ten separate groups. Each winner was
allowed to bring one guest for a total of twenty people per group. The ten GSK employees in my group were split
between North America Pharma (aka sales) and US R&D.
Driving into
London, we passed by GSK House, which had this multi-story ad shown below.
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| GSK House during the London 2012 Olympics |
Similar ads were
found in a few places throughout London, but overall, GSK’s presence at the
Games was understated. I saw GSK listed
on a board within Olympic Park as one of the many “Suppliers and Providers for
the London 2012 Olympics”, but that was it.
London was much
less busy than on a typical London weekday.
LJ (my husband and the lucky person who joined me on this adventure)
said that there are way fewer people in London than he’s seen on past
trips. The news programs said that
typical tourist travel is down 50% and it hasn’t (yet) been made up for by
Olympic travelers. I later heard that
the entire civil service was told to work from home for six weeks.
************
After checking in
at the Hilton Tower Bridge, we had some down time before meeting at the GSK
Hospitality Suite for drinks and a welcome from…. Deirdre Connelly, the lucky
CET member who was given the opportunity to attend the Games with us. She said as much during her opening remarks
when she made it abundantly clear that it was thanks to us being there
(probably more specifically the NA Pharma folks) that she was there.
During this intro
reception, I got to play with the Scientists in Sports kits under the direction
of a “fake scientist” (not my description) who was running the experiment
table. My lab skills were in evidence as
I remembered to ask him for a pair of gloves in addition to the lab coat and
glasses. The group photographer, Ian,
took plenty of pix of me working in the lab but, unfortunately, I don’t have
them yet.)
Post reception, our
hosts led us to dinner, giving us our first chance to see the London Tower
Bridge with the Olympic rings.
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| LJ and me in front of Tower Bridge |
Throughout the
two-day affair, our hosts had to herd twenty of us around London and the venues
with nothing more than a small GSK placard. Combining the sign with the nametags we each
had hanging around our necks, we drew lots of interested stares from passers-by—kinda
reminded me of the Intel “our rock stars are different from yours” campaign.
************
Arriving at Horse’s
Guard Parade, we were dropped off at the group entrance and went through the
airline-style security screening that is a fixture of all Olympic venues at
this Olympic Games, including the rule that no full water bottles could be
brought in.
Our group was split
across two sections of seats up in the upper corner of the stadium, giving us a
fantastic view of the stadium as the sun set.
The British announcer for the beach volleyball games was in rare form,
spouting all sorts of British phrases, such as “Looks like this is gonna be a
cracker!” The atmosphere was more
Carnival than competition, with swimsuit wearing dancers at every break and an
occasional impromptu Conga line. A short
rainburst late during the night barely put a damper on the fun.
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| Sunset during beach volleyball at Horse Guards Parade |
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| The beach dancers |
Two men’s games
were followed by two women’s games, giving us plenty of opportunities to see with
amazing dives into the sand and massive blocks at the net in these preliminary
matches. Since it was a night session,
the women’s teams were wearing long sleeves and long pants. All except the Austrians, that is, who made a
calculated move and turned all undecided fans to their side when they pulled
off the long pants to reveal their bikini bottoms. Between that and the rumors that the US
women’s team skipped their usual warm-up, we saw Misty May-Treanor and Kerri
Walsh lose their first (and only) set in three Olympics. Luckily, they still won the match handily 2-1.
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