Thursday May 18

Today was a very informative day. We started at SU London where Professor Ryan gave us a long lecture on the history of the ancient olympics. By ancient olympics, I mean anything and everything related to how the olympics began with the initial games first starting in 776 B.C. We learned about how the fall of the Titans (Greek Empire) affected the formation of the games. The leader of the Olympians, which was the group who overthrew the Titans was Zeus. With Zeus and his family in the power position, they made the decisions which eventually formed the first Olympic games. Zeus’ son, Hercules, came to power over the Roman Empire and he implemented the Olympic games in honor of his father.

We transitioned into another part of the lecture, which focused more about the Greek culture, the different societies within Greece, the first type of Olympic games which were known as the Panhellenic games, and also the ancient olympic facilities that hosted these first games.

Following the first lecture, we all headed to the London Museum. The museum was amazing! We spent the first hour or so focusing specifically on the exhibits dedicated to Ancient Greece. From the very detailed statues and carved stone heads of rulers and gods, to the intricate pottery and clay pieces, everything was so cool to learn about. One of the most popular exhibits was the Roseta Stone (which is the picture attached to this post), and while it is unrelated to Ancient Greece, it is obviously significant to the modern understanding of Egyptian hieroglyphics. After finishing our informational tour with Professor Ryan, we were given some free time to both get lunch and explore the rest of the ginormous museum on our own. We were all starving so we went to a nice restaurant for a quick bite, then headed back to the museum to look at other interesting and historically significant pieces. I think I can speak for most of the students on the trip in that the coolest room in the museum was the Ancient Egyptian mummy room. We saw both mummy caskets as well as some open caskets and even some real human bones that are still kept intact in the shape of a human.

Time travels fast when you’re having fun, so before we knew it, we needed to head back to SU London for a final lecture on the modern olympics. On the way back we got some ice cream as we were enjoying the nice weather. Back in the classroom, Professor Kim was talking to us about the modern Olympic games, starting with the games in Athens in 1896, up until the upcoming Olympics in 2024 in Paris. She was teaching us about significant events in each of the olympics, such as in the early 1900s how the olympics was not that popular and there was only 1 ticket sold at the 1900 Olympics in Paris. Not only that, but we learned about many of the controversial things that took place that are still referenced today as moments that help define what the Olympics is about. For example, the creation of an Olympic Village, which is now a prominent part of the games, was first introduced in the 1924 games in Paris. Not only that, but I thought it was interesting to learn how the different International Olympic Committee (IOC) presidents make different decisions on controversial events, such as the events surrounding the Munich Massacre.

Once we concluded the lecture, we went back to the hotel and then went to dinner. Overall, it was a very long day filled with a lot of very interesting information and many fun activities in between.

London - Wednesday

We started off early this morning after trying to catch up on jet lag. After a big English breakfast we headed to SU London. Professor Kim gave us a very interesting lecture. I have always loved the Olympics but never truly knew the structure of how it was run. We then moved on to a quick workshop to learn about our research paper. At this point we were all hungry so it was time for lunch. Me and a few others wanted to try the pret a manger chain which was way better than I expected. After that, it was time to head to the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. London did one of the best jobs in reusing the infrastructure they built for the games. The park was beautiful. We walked by all of the different venues. I found the track turned soccer stadium to be the most interesting. Professor Kim told us when the built the track stadium they had enough seats for 80,000. Knowing they would never draw such a track crowd again they were able to take some stands down and turn it into a soccer stadium. This stadium is now home to West Ham United. As we were wrapping up our tour we passed by a wall of cubes. It has been an Olympic Odyssey tradition to make something Cuse related. After a lot of discussion we created I <3 Otto. All of the walking and exploring built us up an appetite. We ended the day at a pretty decent Mexican Restaurant before heading back to the hotel. 

Wednesday 5/17

Today we started with an early morning lecture at the SU campus in London. We learned about the general overview of the organizations involved in the process of making the Olympics happen and improve from year to year. We also started to discuss the topics for our research papers and relating them to our personal interests and studies. It was really interesting to hear about other students topics as there is such a broad spectrum of interests amongst us. After discussing our topics and doing research on the subject we left for lunch and had a small break prior to our tour of Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park where we saw the cycling, aquatics, soccer, and track venues. The West Ham Stadium also (the soccer and track venue) was also the location of the opening ceremony in London, where the youth of the city lit the torch to represent the upcoming generation’s interest in the Olympics. One of the main goals of the London Olympics was to promote the new generation’s interest in the events. The Olympic committees took actions such as this to make the games appeal to younger audiences. Other games have also incorporated events, such as breakdancing or “breaking” as it appeals to you younger audiences. We ended the day by heading to dinner and taking the subway or “tube” back to the hotel.