Olympics, you are here. Finally.

It’s time. Oh yes it is, and I, like a lot of you I’m sure, have waited long enough for these epic Games to start.

It’s been seven years since we were designated to host the 2012 Olympics, VS France who was left very vexed. Well the years have gone by and now it’s time for the show; they say it will be ‘the most extraordinary games in the Olympic history’.

Yes, this year Britain has been motivated to host internationally relevant events. Indeed our Queen was watched by a 15 million people last month, and in her honour (if not just as an excuse) 9,500 street and private parties were hosted around the Capital. The Diamond Jubilee was a spectacular event, for locals and tourists alike, who witnessed 1,000 boats float in chaotic formation down the Thames, or attend the concert hosted at Buckingham Palace.

The Jubilee Mania being over, I thought things were getting back to normal. I was expecting a busy, humid, sun-free summer like the kind we usually experience, with a break in the rain schedule a hopeful highlight.

However I was surprised by the wave, well, the tsunami overwhelming the city with the Games. Indeed it has all changed. Tube stations have been rebuilt, roads cleaned and graffiti whipped off walls in Brick Lane. Tesco’s has even changed their opening times, thinking we would, as day-to-day customers, be happy to find it opened at 5am instead of 7! But that’s just me being cynical, as tonight it’s been said that a 4 billion people are going to be watching the opening ceremony. And London will receive an extra million people during the month surrounding the Games, all eager to attend the 302 events coming up.

Meanwhile, the debt seems to have reached the thousand billions, so what would that be in numbers? Next to that it’s true that the 3 billion spent on her Majesty’s Jubilee isn’t much, nor the 110 million pounds spent on security during the Games.

We can argue that sales during the Jubilee went up 120 million pounds, and that McDonald’s will be serving 1.75 million meals, so in the long term, maybe it is helping our drowned economy.

But no matter the crisis, the starvation and unemployment, millions of people sang the British National ‘God save the Queen’ Anthem, and they all definitely meant it. That’s the beauty of England, and we are all ready to shout for our athletes, no matter how much of a hassle taking the tube is these days.

26,000 members of world’s media are waiting in the city, making it the biggest event in history. So it seems truthful to say that tonight and for the next two weeks, the worlds’ eyes are on us.

By Mona Malca