So, I forewent posting last night for a couple of reasons. Firstly, I got home at midnight, which I'll explain in a second. Secondly, I didn't feel like I could blog about the Opening Ceremonies before people had seen it.
Weren't they absolutely incredible?! I'll say, with all honesty, that the city feels different today than it did the day before.
But that could be that I had to be out the door at 7 in the morning to get to work. But, I'm gonna go with the Olympic Spirit.
We went, as I said we would, to Paul's Steak and Eggs for the Ceremonies. We sat down and I had a lovely meal of country fried steak, mashed potatoes, caesar salad and some black forest cake for dessert. The aforementioned cause of the late night was because the international feed we were watching decided to take a commercial break every 18 seconds...a commercial break that lasted 8 minutes. We counted.
Therefore, during the long long March of Nations, we would see about five countries and then have a commercial break. So, we ended up being about 45 minutes behind the live ceremony. To put it in another way, we left Paul's soon after the American team came out (in their stunning ensemble), took a taxi back to campus and got back to see the amazing torch lighting.
So, much to my chagrin, I went from that long long tonight to being up early this morning (the earliest I've been up so far here in Beijing, to my recollection) to get to work at the velodrome this morning. We were uncertain enterting the day, considering we didn't know a) how many athletes would be in the same position we were in, completely tired from the night before, perhaps getting a much-needed reprieve from training and b) how many of them would/could talk to us. And then there was c) Not having Krystyna, our boss, there to grease the wheels, as she was at the road race today. So, we embarked on what turned out to be a pretty solid day, for not having any professional help: two flash quote reports and a news article.
One of the best things about this job right now is the television we get in the ONS office. There are all of the normal channels that we've had for a couple of weeks now, including CCTV, CNN International, BBC World, EuroSport, MTV...all the essentials. But, today, they added channels DX 1 thru 40. Those channels are, I swear to you, all Olympics, all the time. If it's being played on a court or field, it's on TV for us. It's AMAZING! Today, in our down time, I watched handball, judo, boxing, basketball, weightlifting, equestrian, the cycling road race, and gymnastics. It was nuts. At points, we were hesitant to leave the office to go do, you know...OUR JOB...because we were watching the Australians play Belarus in basketball. Truly awesome day. :)
Now, a welcome two days off.
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