where in the world is steph.... Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life? -- Mary Oliver

Hello again everyone!
I have enjoyed hearing from all of you, stories from home and abroad. Sorry if I don't respond to you individually but please keep me update I love reading your e-mails!
So lets see what has been happening. In my last e-mail I talked about dress rehersal for Opening Ceremonies. Well on the big night, everyone i work with got together outside Olympic stadium. There was a big screen there, and we watched it with a bunck of other people who work for the Olympics but couldn't get into the stadium (you need your accrediation just to get into olympic park, or tickets). So we cheered for eachothers countries, jumped up to watch the fireworks in real life instead of on the screen. And ran towards the stadium during the lighting of the torch. We have pictures of the torch being raised behind us with fireworks everywhere. Too cool.
Since the games have started we really have gotten into full swing so not too much time for playing around. We do get breaks sometimes in the after noons, and try to catch some event. The other day was water polo, and we watched a syncronized swimming team practice this week. As much fun as everyone makes of it, it was actually reall cool to watch. Someone who works for AOB, gives us tickets everyday for swimming. We spread them around, so everyone will get an opportunity to go. The other day was my turn. Nynke and I went in the evening, watch the dutchie win, Ian thorpe get bronze, and the girls US 400 relay team win, it was awesome. I find i cheer for which ever country I feel. At the games you will see groups of people for different countries except for the US, they seem to be spread out and very inconspicous, good in some ways, but i feel bad for our athletes who don't seem to have the support of oh say the dutch! speaking of dutch, we went to the Holland Heiniken house the other night. We had so much fun. At one point the made the announcement that there were over a 1000 people waiting to get in, but couldn't. We met tons of dutch people, and lots of Aussies. We had everyone out from our venue out with us, as well as some other people who live/work with us.
We have hit the half way mark for the games. Am  going to try to get into the stadium sometime this week. After we are all done, the companies I work for have rented a boat, and all of us are going to get together and go for an island cruise one day with lots of food and drinks, should be a blast. Hope everyone is doing well! And keep your eyes open for me on tv, my venue feeds the camera guys so you never know.............
Cheers, ~steph