It only took me until Day 9 of the Olympics to recognize one glaringly obvious fact - namely that, while the Olympics have been amazing and it is incredibly cool to be part of them, they are also a LOT of Sports; SPORTS, all day, every day... Brilliant hey? Yes, well this occured to me at the same moment that I admitted I dont watch Sports all day every day in my regular life! Haha, so while it has still been AMAZING, there are also times my attention wanders.
Despite this, I have learned about a lot of cool sports from the whole thing. The most interesting new one (new to me at least) was Handball. For those of us in the States who have never heard of it, its like a combination of basketball and soccer (football for my non-American friends ;-)). It's played with a small 6 inch basketball that is occasionaly dribbled, and shot toward a soccer/football net. The first match I saw was Men's Russia vs. Iceland, and I swear to you all the Iceland guys needed were Viking hats and they would've totally fit! The second match was Women's Brazil vs. Korea, also very cool. The Brazilian goalie was c-r-a-z-y (and a bit useless), but Brazil still won because they had great shooters. The score was close all through the game, but Brazil won it at the end by a kick ass shot literally with one second on the clock! Plus it was fun cheering for Brazil because the stadium was full of Chinese and they dont care much for Koreans, LOL.
The most FUN game I went to by far was the beach volleyball game! And I'm talking Men's, haha, although guys, there were dancing girls at every time out in bikinis, SO CALIFORNIA hahahaha. It was just great because the whole atmosphere felt like an awesome beach party, with great music too! Definitly the first stadium where I got to hear "We Will Rock You!" :-D and not only that but "Dont Bring Me Down" and "Born to Be Wild", it was awesome! Plus I discovered it really is fun cheering for your home country, as the first game was US vs Germany. We rocked it in two sets, didnt hurt that the blocker on our team was 6'7", good lord. I certainly wouldn't want to meet him across a net. The second game was great too, if only for the ending; the match was Georgia vs. Netherlands, and Georgia battled hard and won. When they won, one of the two guys jumped off the court and started running up the stadium stairs; I thought he was going to his family, but he kept running all the way to the top of the stadium where all the country flags were, straight to the Georgian flag, and raised a huge cheer! It was awesome :-D It was only the quarter final match, but just incase they didnt go to the medal round he had his moment and honored his country. So cool! Oh you won't believe this though, he took the game winning volleyball and served it into the crowd, in my direction.... the ball literally came straight at me, I put my hand up, it rolled across my palm, and the guy behind me captured it! NO WAY! I considered putting up a fight for a second but then I remember I'm a tour leader and cant carry stuff like that around! hahahahaha But it still would've been cool.
Other highlights... in Weightlifting I got watch a man lift 175 kilos over his head - that's 385 pounds.... :-o In Judo I watched an awesome Mongolian guy take down the Japanese champion with the highest scoring Judo move there is - to actually throw the guy over your shoulder flat onto his back, worth 1000 points. I also found out later that day the Mongolian guy went on to win gold. I did see a ping-pong session - not exactly a highlight, but I did shake my head and think 'oh my god, I'm watching ping-pong in China, wow'. I saw one very preliminary round of Men's Gymnastics, and one Swimming heat... but very very sadly no Michael Phelps :-( I was happy when he won the 8th gold medal, but at the same time my thought was 'There goes my last chance to see him" hahahaha
Speaking of gold medals, you may have heard a rumor about the Chinese CLEANING UP in gold medals in like every single sport! Good gracious! I love China, I do, but even I think it is a bit ridiculous how many golds they've gotten! I went to the Women's Diving final and (since the US wasnt in medal contention) I was routing for the Canadian girl :-) She came soooooo close to taking the gold, oh, but in the final dive a Chinese girl passed her point count, nooooo. And if I hear one more "Zhong Guo Jia You!"..... JK (kind of).
Overall its been a very random, amazing, TIRING two and a half weeks. I've seen 18 Games plus the Opening Ceremony :-D and you have my full permission to hate me for being such a lucky little bi-atch. I've posted photos on Facebook and Snapfish, even I get tired of the sports ones after a while, but I made myself take at least one at each event so I could remember what I saw and when.
So I've got two days left of the Games, tonight I take my group to the Athletics Final, tomorrow night is the gold medal round of Basketball (yay!!), and then the Closing Ceremonies. I'm posting this now because as soon as the Games end my boyfriend Nick is arriving and I will probably be pretty incommunicado for the next two weeks! :-D I hope you all have enjoyed the Olympics, and I appreciated all your comments on my facebook photos; I love knowing that you really care where I am and what I'm up to. Love you all!
Currently Reading: The Kommandant's Girl, and Shadow of the Wind
