You Know a Day is Blogworthy...

...when you have to make a list of what happened, making sure you don't forget anything.

The day started out early, thankfully with a shuttle to the Cluster for the first day EVER of BMX racing in the Olympics. We got to the office and Ernst was playing Ernsty Claus. He all of a sudden had all of these presents for us, which was pretty incredible. One of them was this lanyard that was rainbow colored, which prompted Krystyna to say, "I had no idea Ernst was hiding his gay pride keyholders from us this entire time." If I had been drinking milk, it might have poured out through my nose. But, you have to take into consideration that this was at around 8 in the morning, so we were all a bit loopy.

So, we headed on over to the BMX track. I posted pics of it earlier, but it's pretty incredible. We were all looking forward to the inaugural BMX Olympics. But, it started off pretty boring.

It was hot, which didn't help. But, the way the BMX is set up is that every rider goes through two seeding runs which then splits them up into quarterfinals for the guys and semis for the girls. There was literally two hours of just one person on the track at a time, riding by themselves. All the excitement we could muster was due to the overzealous announcer exaggerating and editorializing about each run. AWFUL! THE MAN IS AWFUL!

Anyway, it was pretty boring until the actual racing started. Then things got really exciting.

So, it seems that the first turn of the track is slippery. Apparently, according to many of the riders I talked to today, they were not only well aware of this fact heading into the Olympics, but they brought it up to the powers that be a year ago and no changes were made. I'm starting to think this was intentional, because there were a few big crashes today, all on the same spot on the same turn. Maybe it's like the reason most people watch the Indy 500: to see who wins and watch any crashes that may occur. Maybe the Olympics and UCI know this? Ahh, who am I to say?

Well, needless to say, all of the crashes and the suspicious lack of enthusiasm in the crowd gave the journalists (as well as us) a lot to talk about today. It was an early day that wasn't very long at all, but seemed pretty long. All I can say is that tonight, you guys will probably see the BMX finals, something that you won't want to miss. Just try not to listen to the announcer in the background and you'll be fine.

After work, I fell upon something quite amazing...an opportunity to go to the Softball Gold Medal game tomorrow night. So, I jumped on it. I had the money and the time, so why not? How many times am I going to get this opportunity again? Well, considering I never thought I would get to see any events in the first place, I'll go with slim chances.

So, Kelsey and I headed on over to this guy who had the tickets. And it was some of the most interesting time I've ever spent.

From the subway from the venue to our first transfer, we met a guy who sells beer at the Cluster. And, the most fascinating part, other than the part where he offered us free beer whenever we wanted, was the fact that he had an accreditation that looked exactly like mine, except for ONS Flash Quote Reporter was replaced with the more awesome title of "Tsingtao Beer Vendor". How awesome is that?

So, then, we went on another little jaunt on another line where nothing interesting happened.

Then, we got on another line (yes, it was as complicated as it sounds). We call the guy, we get in his car, and get the tickets. Really all I can say about that.

Now, to get how all of this next part of the story started, I have to explain something about the name of the station we had to stop at in order to get to our new destination, the USA House (ie the Holland House) and, more importantly, the USA Store.

It was called Dog-something and Shithi-something. So, we called it by it's obvious abbreviation.

When we did so, this guy in official Canada Team gear laughs and says hi to us. So, since he was all decked out, I asked if he was with a team. It turns out he wasn't, but he was officially there with his wife, who used to be...wait for it...an international gymnastics judge.

Yes, those people who you yell at on TV when you see them. It turns out their quite nice and will explain the new gymnastics judging system to you. If anyone wants an explanation, I'm dying to give one at some point. It actually makes a lot of sense to me now.

Then, we were on the escalator up, and Kelsey said, "You know what would be awesome? If we walked out here and there was a Starbucks, just waiting for us."

So, after we went to the Starbucks that was right outside the station, as if it were waiting for us, we went to the store. It took a long time to find, but an amazing thing happened on our journey. People were really willing to help us.

We didn't have a map. We didn't have anything written in Chinese characters to point at. We didn't have anything translated. All we knew was that the USA House was near the Jasmine restaurant and Gate 9 of the Worker's Stadium.

But, people knew where all of those things were and, while being accompanied with two British people who were working for the US Sailing team, we eventually found the house. It's an amazing store. First of all, I haven't seen American prices in more than a month, so that was refreshing, if not at the same time depressing, a penultimate reminder of how much more expensive everything is going to be once I get back to the states.

So I stocked up on Americana at the US Store, hit up Annie's Italian Experience for food, and headed on back to blog with you fine people.

Make sure you come back tomorrow for a blog after the Softball game.

See, in the business, that's we call a tease, people!