The London 2012 Paralympics - Meet the Superhumans

Following our wonderful experience at the London 2012 Olympics Beach Volleyball and hearing about people's trips to the Olympic Park, we were lucky enough to secure tickets to the Paralympics. The tagline for television coverage here in the UK was 'Meet the Superhumans' and boy were they right! It was truly amazing to watch these people compete with the various disabilities they have, and to do it as well or better than many able-bodied athletes.

We had two tickets to an evening session of Athletics at the Olympic Stadium, but with those we were able to access the Olympic Park as early in the day as we wanted. Taking advantage of a lovely sunny day, we left work early in the afternoon and spent several hours exploring the Park.

They built the Park along the banks of the River Lea and several old disused canals, so water is a central feature of the Park. There were grassy banks, flower gardens and lots of art installations along the riverside walkways. One of the installations was set under a bridge and features words formed of water cascading down. It was slightly difficult to see the actual letters in the droplets of water, but it was a cool bit of technology. Other places included a butterfly garden and the main spectator area called Park Live.

Park Live featured two enormous screens set-up in the river and facing out towards seating areas and grassy slopes, thereby allowing people to sit outside and watch some of the events. It was a great atmosphere and we heard from others that when the Brits were winning lots of medals the atmosphere was electric. When we were there it was Men's Quad Doubles Tennis featuring a British pair, but they ultimately lost to the two-time defending champions, so unfortunately the atmosphere was more muted. Still it was amazing to watch these incredible athletes - including one guy who served the ball by kicking it up into the air!

After experiencing the world's largest McDonald's, official Olympic sponsors (yes that is irony for you), we entered the 80,000 seat Olympic Stadium. The stadium is surprisingly small feeling and it was easy to watch the various events regardless of which side of the field/track it was happening.

The Paralympics features athletes with a variety of disabilities, and therefore there is a rather extensive classification system for each sport. In Track and Field there are five general classifications and then within each of those 3 - 8 further distinctions. The general classifications are for visual impairment, mental disability, cerebral palsy, amputees and wheel chair based athletes.

We were lucky enough to see quite a few track finals as well as several field competitions, including the Men's Long Jump for those with cerebral palsy and the Women's Sitting Javelin. On the track we saw the heats of the Men's Amputee 100m, which included Oscar Pistorius from South Africa - who is the Usain Bolt of the Paralympics, as well as a young British guy who ultimately would win gold the next night. Pistorius is amazing, and his best event is the 400m which he went on to win in London by more than 3.5 seconds! In fact, he is so fast, he competed in the Olympics three weeks earlier, making the semi-finals.

It was uplifting to watch the joie de vivre of the three visually impaired Brazilian women 100m sprinters, and their male guides, who took a 1-2-3 finish and quite literally danced up to the medals podium!

Anyone who thinks the competition isn't real should spend an evening watching these true athletes battle it out and see the emotions - both good and bad - that come after the results.

These were the most successful Paralympics yet, with close to 3 million tickets sold and UK viewing figures peaking at 8million viewers or roughly 1 in 7 Brits. The British Paralympians rightfully stood shoulder to shoulder with the British Olympic heroes during the athletes' victory parade in London and hopefully their exploits went some way in showing people what is possible in the face of adversity. Meeting the Superhumans indeed!

The Home of Guinness

In an effort to get away for a few days we planned a last minute weekend to Ireland to celebrate our wedding anniversary. Cora had never been and we both really wanted to go to the 'Home of Guinness' so it was a perfect option. We flew into Dublin and then rented a car to drive down to the southwest of the country before flying back from Cork.

As it was so last minute we didn't check to see what might be happening that weekend in our chosen locations so we had a few surprises.  We arrived in Dublin early on Friday morning and were treated to an entire city geared up for the Notre Dame v. Navy 'Emerald Isle Classic'.  We had literally walked into a college football tailgating weekend. The Irish had gone all out to welcome fans from both sides and there were flags flying everywhere from various pubs, bars and hotels and there was even a shop selling game merchandise to all the fans. We dropped our bags and waded into the masses. Dublin is a wonderfully compact city and we spent the morning wandering around Trinity College and the Temple Bar area before making our way to St James Gate Brewery.

This was really a bit of a pilgrimage for us. Although our Guinness was not from Ireland, nor did he ever set foot on the island, his name was Guinness St James for a reason. We spent a long time wandering the various exhibits and had a nice little lunch before going to the 7th floor Gravity Bar for our 'free' pint of Guinness. The view was great, the Guinness was better and the crowds of Americans made it feel like a sports bar. It wasn't the exact experience we were expecting to have, but we both really enjoyed spending the time at the Home of Guinness.

We spent the rest of the day wandering the various Dublin neighbourhoods and then having a lovely Italian dinner before ending a very long day by standing in the street listening to a live band and enjoying the warm summer evening with a drink.

Driving out of Dublin we figured the rest of our time would be spent in small, sparsely populated towns and villages hugging the rugged Irish coastline. We were mostly right, except we drove to Dingle Town on the evening after its annual marathon! So we went from 35,000 Americans asking us who we were supporting to a 3,000+ marathon runners asking what our time that day was! The atmosphere was very festive and we again had a lovely meal out and then went to a couple of different pubs for some good Irish music. It was lovely to stand in a cramped Irish pub listening to traditional music while the rain hammered away outside.

The coastline of the Dingle and Kerry peninsulas is breathtaking and we took advantage of having a car to drive along some very small and windy roads - shared occasionally by patriotic sheep!

We preferred Dingle, because it was more wild, rugged and with fewer people/cars. We drove the Conor Pass on Saturday evening literally in the clouds, not being able to see more than twenty meters in front of us! Going back the next day we were treated to lovely views of both coasts of the peninsula - perfect for a picnic lunch.

We explored quite a few out of the way tracks, once even finding ourselves on a rutted, unpaved farm track that wound its way back up a hillside - the local farm dog looked quite intrigued to see us coming from that direction.

We ultimately found a wonderful spit of land that afforded a beautiful sunset with the Skellig Islands in the distance. We huddled up against the harsh Atlantic winds and watched the waves thunder and swirl around the jagged rocks below us.

We wanted to leave a bit of Guinness in Ireland and this seemed the perfect place - facing West towards home, surrounded by water and deep in the natural settings he loved to explore alongside us. It was hard to scatter his ashes - to let go really - but we know his spirit is free in that wonderful place.