Day Off

Today I had the day off, which I needed, cause I was out late for the Opening Ceremony.

I didn't do much, went to Starbucks and wrote some postcards, went to the mall and had lunch with a friend. After that we went ice skating and then out for coffee.

It's so nice to just sit with someone and talk. Forget about everything else and just listen to what they have to say, especially when they are from another country. It's so refreshing to get a world view on diffrent subjects and just hear what others think. I live for little moments like that. Long conversation, little times spent alone with friends. Not huge parties, graduations, weddings... but little moments that bring people together, that's what I love. I have had a couple of those while here. I have had many conversations here that just make me think. I love learning about how other's lives have been diffrent than mine and in what ways we are united. I love getting to learn about other cultures, it's one of my passions.

On the subway ride home I met a few high school seniors who just graduated from a high school in California. Their friend's dad owns a HUGE business in China and paid for all six of them to come over FOR FREE for a month! They have been lots of places all over China! It was really cool. They are lucky guys.

Work in the morning, should be exciting.

The Day the Games Opened!

Yesterday was 8.8.08 which means it was the Olympic Opening Ceremony for the Beijing 2008 Summer Games. It was awesome!

I met some of my Chinese volunteer friends at Tian' Anmen at 8:30 a.m. to kick off our day. The square was closed (as much of Beijing was) so we walked around and they took me to Qian' Men Avenue. It's an old avenue that looks like how it did back in the days of the Emperor but full of shops and stores. It was actually really cool. We then had lunch at a little restaurant and ate Beijing Noodels, which were pretty good.

After our morning hanging out around Tian' Anmen we went to the Temple of Heaven. It was diffrent than I thought it would be, I didn't think the actually land area around it would be so big. The Temple of Heaven was beautiful, along with the park area around it and all the other buildings. We walked around and took lots of pictures for a few hours, then we headed to KFC where we got lunch and rested for a while.

After lunch we headed to watch the opening ceremony at their university in an auditorium. It was really cool to watch with a huge group of Chinese students. They were all so excited and it was such an exciting time. We choose to watch it there becuase we would actually have seats and if we went somewhere in the city to watch it on a big screen it would have been SO crowded. There were so many people you have NO idea. Thousands and thousands plus some! So I was happy with my little community of Chinese students and my seat, haha. I am so excited for Beijing and China to host these games and to showcase their awesome culture and long history.

Also, the ceremony was AMAZING! It was so cool! I have no idea how they did all that stuff! When it was over we could hear all the fireworks when we were walking outside. It took us forever to find a taxi to the subway station! We walked forever but finally found one after 45 minutes. Once we got to the train station though it was smooth sailing, not busy or anything which was a suprise. 8.8.08. WAS A GREAT DAY!!!!!

Torch Holder!

This morning on the subway I noticed that a good amount of people were on the train holding little Chinese flags and some had armbands with Chinese writing on them. I didn't think too much of it, I just figured since it's close to game time people must be getting pumped up. When we got off at our station I noticed people selling Chinese flags, stickers, arm bands and things and I figured it was for the same reason. Upon walking to our venue, I noticed a lot of people were lined up along the side of the road on the road perpendicular to us. I just said, "look at all those people lined up" and kept walking. Later, I found out that it was because the Torch Relay went really close to us!!! I heard it was in the Forbidden City earlier but I had NO idea until after, and then to find out that we missed it so close to us I was a little upset! It was just across the street and we didn't know.

Later, as I was standing in the middle of the velodrome, I noticed a torch relay runner had come out on the floor and was talking pictures. I saw others take pictures with the torch so I went over and asked my Chinese friends to ask if I could get one, and the runner said YES! So I got to hold an Olympic Torch, one that actually carried the Olympic Flame!! It was SO COOL!

Also, I lot of teams came in today, although, we only got two interviews. Team USA was there, NED, BEL, GER, Czech, COL, CHN, GBR, Ireland and maybe a few others. A lot of the famous riders that we have been reading and researching were there training and it was SO COOL! Many of them don't want to talk with us yet, they are just 'in the zone' or too far out from Game time to have much to say, so we only got two interviews. Team USA would only give us one, and one tomorrow maybe!

If you didn't hear, the American Cycling team showed up in Beijing wearing black masks to protect themselves from the smog. They later apologized but I think the damaged was done; they got a lot of press because of it.

I also had a great day just hanging out with some Chinese volunteers. I kind of stray away from the Purdue group because I like meeting the Chinese student volunteers and getting to know them. I have made friends with some of the "language specialist" one who speaks German and one who speaks Malay (but they both speak English too). They are really cool and really fun. I had a great day and I hope there are more to come, just TWO DAYS 'til the start!

Training Day?

Today marked the beginning of the official training for the athletes. Each country had a two hour time block where they could come in and train, it was supposed to be super exciting, we were supposed to interview some and maybe start to write some stories... but hardly anyone came! We are still 10 days away or so from the start of cycling so some of the cyclists won't be coming in until just a few days before. Also, some of the assigned times where kind of early so they may not have wanted to come. I think the American team just came today and the German team won't even be here until tomorrow.

There were some riders there though! The Chinese team was there, a Cuban rider, the lone rider from Chile, a man from Uruguay and the team from Columbia. The Columbian team actually did some cool training. They went around really fast and were really close to each other's wheels (which is my definition of "cool training", haha). It was neat to see some more riders out there. I hope the next few days bring some more.

We were hanging out in the middle of the Velodrome track in the broadcasting mixed zone and the agencies and companies' names are marked on the ground in tape. The tape says, "Channel Seven" (Australia) "CCTV" (China) "BBC" (Great Britain) and a couple of other news organizations. It's neat to be in the middle of where all the action is going to be in just a week or so!

After work we went to Pizza Hut and then to get coffee (we wanted American food tonight) and we actually ran into some Team USA athletes at Starbucks! They are rowers, one girl and two guys. They were really nice and they talked to us for a while. One is from Ohio, which was pretty cool. It's nice to meet athletes that don't have an ego because they aren't super famous, but they are still VERY talented. This was the third set of athletes he have met, others were rowers from Ireland and swimmers from Croatia. I love seeing all the international people (coaches, athletes, techies, journalists, London Organizing Committee people), it's really awesome.

Tomorrow is training for the cyclists again, hope it's more exciting than today! Although, today was cool.

Run Through

Today we had another run through of an event, this time it was BMX. It's an outside event so it was humid and we were all sweating! They had to "delay the event do to rain" (it wasn't really raining though) so they could practice what would happen if it really did rain. They delayed it for an HOUR so they could practice covering up the track and everything with tarp. So we kind of just hung around in the heat until it stopped "raining" and then went on with the test event, which was getting quotes in the mixed zones.

Basically what happens is that Chinese volunteers pretend to be athletes and then we interview them with a translator. BMX is so far from the ONS office that we have to call the quotes in, so we practiced doing that as well. We also had two press conference practices. They translate everything from Chinese to English and in one there was a German translation as well. I actually asked a question in German which was pretty cool.

Some Chinese students study German as well as English, or just focus on one more than the other. I met a Chinese volunteer today who spoke German, it's so interesting that he is from China and I am from the States but the only way we can speak is in German! I think that's so funny.

Tomorrow marks the start of official training! So it is going to be VERY exciting and I can't wait to see all the athletes! I am a little nervous about talking to them though. I will keep you posted on how it goes!

My Asian Hair Cut, Oops.

Many hair cuts here in Beijing are really cool, stylish and very diffrent from the US. On the subway a lot of the younger guys have really cool haircuts that are awesome and edgy. There are a good amount of bangs, sticking up hair, and long hair; I would say "edgy" is the world that best discribes it. I have joined this Asian trend, but not really on purpose.

I went to get my haircut but what I wanted kind of got lost in translation between my friend and the hair stylist. I wanted it shorter on the sides, a little taken off the top but still with some bangs. Well, it's basically turned into a really wide mohawk! He didn't take as much off the top as I wanted and the sides are a little short, but here's the thing, the back is still kind of long. When I told my friend to tell him I wanted it "shorter on the sides" I kinda assumed he would know the back too.

Where I went though is famous for really stylish creative hair cuts, and I guess to get a simple one you have to keep telling them "simple" but in Chinese... this I learned after I was done.

So my haircut is very new, very diffrent and otherwise I would have never tried it so for now I am okay with it, it might change sometime though, I'm not sure when. It seems it would work in any country but the US. Haha. Some people seem to like it and others say that I am not Asian so I can't pull it off. Overall though, there has been good feed back.

Practice Run

Today we had to do a practice run of an 'average' day of competition at our venue. We went to work at 9:30 and did a run through of a mixed zone complete with music palying, people annoucing, and we had people pretend to be athletes. We then typed up our quotes and had a press confrence run through. We were done by 10:15. So we traveled an hour to do 45 minutes of work, oh well. It was cool though because more teams were training! the Czech Republic team and the and a Cuban rider. Some of those riders have legs the size of tree trucks! They are so big!

After that I went to a mall with a classmate and then to a book store. I came back and took a nap and went to dinner with my friend LI at a Taiwanese place here on campus. Andrea's birthday is on Tuesday so tonight many of us are going out. Today was a pretty chill day, not a whole lot happened. More later!