London - New Olympic Dicipline

I am at the Olympic Games in London. After almost 6 months in 3rd world countries it could not be more different.

This Olympic Games there seem to be a new dicipline: Buying Tickets. To win Gold you only have to get one. It would be nice to have one. Any ticket would do, any event - just one.

Before you can even check which tickets are available you have to register on the 1990ies looking website which is the easy part. Once you have done that you search for a ticket, unfortunately one dicipline after the other - the marathon starts. If you are lucky and found one then click on the link and wait. If you are lucky again that you got further, select the category and the price.  Most times only the 450+ pound  tickets are available. Then log in and the go though the identification check where you have to re-type some words. Usually once you are at the next step - to pay the tix - the tix which were available before , are gone. Go back to start and repeat the steps described above.

After you have repeated the step above a couple of times (in my case for hours) you might are a lucky one (I haven't so far) and you reach the payment page. Put in your Visa card number. Excuse me? What's about Amex? Mastercard? Paypal?...No no no. The box office exclusively only accepts Visa card as they are a 'partner' of the Games - not a sponsor of course. And believe me, by the time you find somebody with a visa card or even obtained one (which is pretty hard if you travel in places like Mongolia), the tickets you wanted so desperately are gone - again. Go back to start...

Olympic Spirit in London - just not at the ticket box office...