Another Day at the Office

Today was a really good day, but it was rather long. We had to be at the velodrome at 10:30 to start training for the day. We had a pretty average day of training, ran through a couple mixed zone and press conference scenarios. Also, we had our first team training out on the track today, the Chinese national team! It was cool to see some bikes out on the track but they weren't doing much, just kind of pacing around. But I think that led to our first story for the Games! Tuesday marks the day when training starts! So we get to watch the teams and hopefully get to talk to them after and get quotes (and maybe write some stories)!!

After work around 4:30 we went to a teashop and saw a ceremony, which was pretty cool. The man who owns the shop is also an Olympic Volunteer and he treated us to his tea, it was very nice (and very good)! This was to the very west of the city, the last stop on the subway, so it was almost rural and people were very surprised to see us out there. We had a group of kids run out and say, "Hello!" to us.

For dinner we went to a five star restaurant and it was SO GOOD! I really, really liked it and it's only a 20 minute walk from our venue (20 minutes here is a very short period of time), It was all the ONS staff at dinner and it was just so nice to get to know everyone outside the office and relax after a good day of training!

We were supposed to have the next three days off, but it turned into just tomorrow. Saturday and Sunday will be half days though. I think I am going to go to the Temple of Heaven tomorrow and then just kind of relax.

One thing that is really nice is that we are getting to know our Chinese coworkers better. Li and Eric are two flash quote reports that we are starting to hang out a lot. Even outside of work I have hung out with Li a lot, so we are getting to see their personalities more and they are getting our humor more and it's great to see them open up! It's nice to make some friends from China! Today was a long day but a great day. This isn't even half of why they day was so great. I just had a good time hanging out and getting to be social with everyone.