Beijing Day #3

It has only been three days!?! It feels like it has been a week or more, maybe because I am actually figuring out how to use the Beijing subway and navigate campus, so I feel like a Beijinger already :)
Today we had an hour and a half lecture on China, Beijing and their histories, it was very interesting. Beijing has a population of over 12 million, second biggest in China after Shanghai.
After the lecture we had a break and then we had a meeting with the BOCOG (Beijing Organizing Committee of the Olympic Games), which we really cool. We met our Venue Managers and our Olympic News Services Managers, tried on our volunteer uniforms (which are awesome!), got SIM cards for work, and our offical volunteer exceptance forms (something cool for a scrapbook or even frame).
My Venue Manager is very nice, her name is Krystyna and she is from Australia but now lives in London. She worked at the Athens Games back in 2004. Purdue has been assigned Laoshan Bycicle Cluster, so we will be covering track cycling, mountain biking and BMX cycling (which is making it's Olympic debut). Some of us Purdue students will be moving to court Volleyball, one full time and four for a week or so. Cycling doesn't start to Day 7 so we have a week of light work, we will just go to the velodrome and watch the athletes train and talk to them and get to know them (not bad, right?). During the games cycling doesn't even start until 4:30 p.m., so we got a really good shirt slot. Some of the students we are living with have to leave our Uni at 4 am to get to there venue at 6 for an 8 a.m. start. We will have the morning and early afternoon to ourselves, and guess what, we can buy tickets! They are not that expensive and if there are still some left! Maybe not for the super populat events, but we can see some! I hope I can fit swimming in but we will see. We do not get to go to the Opening Ceremony, but we may get to sit in on the dress rehersal the night before, which would be cool.
We are going to have a three day tour starting Friday! I am so excited! They are really treating us (aka ALL FREE, meals and everything for this tour)! Friday we will meet with the Beijing Drainage Group and see how sewage is turned into clean water, that is interesting. then we will see the Beijing Suburbs, so basically rural Beijing and see rural China. Then in the evening, we have the offical welcome dinner! It will be at Quan Ju De, a Peacking Duck restaurant with over 200 years of service. On thursday we will see the Great Wall and the Ming Tombs! Then on Sunday we are going to the Summer Palace, the Garden of Perfection and Brightness and in the evening we are going to the Peacking Opera to see "Romance of Liubei and Sun Shangxiang! Then on Monday we are going to a famous TV talk show for a recording! I am SO excited for all of this! I am off to the Forbidden City tomorrow on our day off, then after the three day tour we have another day off, so we are having a good time before all our training begins.
Tonight, some of us went in search of an English Pub, but had not luck finding it, we asked probably nine taxi drivers but none of them knew where it was, even with a map and address in Chinese, Beijing is just that big. We took the subway both ways (ended up getting KFC) and on the way back we were on a train like sardines, the door wouldn't shut at first, that was fun times.
Over all I am really liking it here and I am excited for all my touring the next five days! This has been a great experience so far! I think it will be this way the entire way through!