Wow! What a couple of days!

The Opening Ceremony was amazing. I couldn't have imagined anything more elaborate! The night started off well, until we discovered the HUGE TV that was supposed to show the opening wasn't going to show the opening! We found a local hotel that was showing the Opening. The hotel was packed, but we were able to go into the basement restaurant and see it on a large TV. It was really interesting to sit with Chinese and hear their cheers and roars of applause for Hong Kong, Chinese Taipai (Taiwan), Iraq, North Korea and the Russian Federation. When Team Canada came out, Allie and I had the crowd cheering....but not so much when Team USA appeared. It took a few awkward seconds to get the Chinese to clap. When team USA appeared, I was able to see someone I went to high school with in the parade of nations. Ricky Berens is competing tonight in the 4x200 men's freestyle relay! I can't wait to watch it LIVE! GO TEAM USA!!!

I left the hotel early so I could see the torch lighting with my own eyes. After a 15 minute wait, I could hear the crowd roaring, then a minute or two later, Li Ning (Gymnast from 1984 Olympics) lit the torch! It was amazing! The fireworks started, and by the video I posted the other day, you can tell they were amazing! I hope you were able to get the same feeling from watching them on TV. While I was waiting for the fireworks to start, I saw President Bush and a lot of other world leaders leaving at the gate 30 feet away from me! It was really cool!

The next morning, Matt and I raided several newsstands in the area and bought a few copies of the local papers with pictures of the Opening Ceremony. Most of the papers are Chinese, only 1-2 are English.

One of the neatest parts of the Olympics has nothing to do with sports at all! When we arrived in Beijing, the University of Missouri provided each of us with 150 "University of Missouri Journalism centennial" pins. The pins are really nice, big too! I've traded 30-40 pins so far, and got a TON of cool ones. I'm focusing on collected NOC pins (National Olympic Committees) and International media pins. I don't have any NBC or CBC pins yet, but I'd LOVE to get my hands on them! I have a cool CCTV (China), RCI (Radio China) and SABC (South Africa) and a Columbia NOC pin. I have a ton of other Olympic pins....Matt and I are competing to get the coolest pins, but I think he's winning. He got a Samsung flip phone pin! It's actually slides up and down! If you're reading this in Beijing and have cool pins to trade! Lemme know!

On Sunday night, I was given a free ticket to men's volleyball. Allie's friend Max got 8 tickets to the game. His brother is competing in Wrestling, so he has the ticket hookup! I wasn't expecting to have too much fun, because I wasn't "in" to Bulgaria, Poland, China or Germany. Well...I was so wrong!!! The first match was between Bulgaria and China-- my bet was on Bulgaria. During the match, we befriended the Polish people behind us and really hit it off. Next thing we knew, there was beer coming at us in every direction. Each of the Polish fans bought us a round of beer! It was SO much fun! I had a Polish flag painted on my face and took over as their main cheer leader. I started a couple of chants for Polska! and they taught us a lot of Polish chants! I had so much fun! The game strung on past midnight and we all had to get up early..so we thought we could sneak out! The Polish fans got so nervous that they would lose if we left, although they were ahead by a ton of points! We decided to stay until the end of the game and it was worth it...the Polish fans made us "Honorary Polish" for the day.

On Monday morning, BOCOG gave us free tickets for Beach Volleyball. Although it was raining a bit, it was so worth it. We watched three matches (Latvia v Argentina), (Angola v Australia) and (Belgium v China). I have an odd way of determining who I root for, but it payed of until Belgium lost to China in the last minute!

I always root for Team Canada, followed behind by any Commonwealth country, the US, then any country that has fun fans!

Sorry for the long post, I'll try to update again in the next few days!

Mark