Crowds ...claustrophobia and sports...

Today I had some free time so I thought I would stop by the Olympic store, seen here ...what a mistake. I have only one thing to say, "if you are not getting something 'Olympic' when I return home, this is why"...


too many people!!! I'll never complain about crowds in the States again!!

China totally missed the boat on merchandising here! They had only 2 large stores and they were always packed with people. The venues all had small 'shops' but those only had a very small selection and the sizing also was small. Our guests were constantly frustrated and disappointed at how difficult it was. Not only that, if you did squeeze into a store and found something to buy you could not take it to the cash register. You had to find someone to write on a piece of paper what you wanted. They would keep your items (and you would hope they would still have them when you returned) and off you would go to stand in the incredibly long line to pay for the items, get a receipt and find your way (pushing and shoving) back to the person who held your items and then they would give you your purchases IF they could find where they put them! Crazy!


Then I went out on the street...more craziness!!! Traffic was at a standstill. I found my way to the subway, which was also a mass of bodies, and decided to head to the Olympic Green and settle in for some events.



On my way I ran into a gal that I met on my first day. We stayed at the same hotel. She was going to the Modern Pentathalon so I decided to join her (it was also in the Green).



I don't know much about this event except it consists of 5 events, swimming, shooting, running, fencing and equestrian. Tonight was the horse jumping & running portion. It was fun to watch. We ran into another gal who, like me, had an infinity pass so we decided to go up to the media/Olympic family area. It was very nice and we couldn't resist the nice food display in the lounge area...so we had dinner in the Olympic Family lounge! We were all out of uniform so I think it was okay, but probably not what we should have done. While there the President of the Olympic Committe Jacques Rogge came in. We sautered off to the corner as the media hounded him.

I left the Pentathalon a little while later and headed to the Birds Nest to see more finals in Athletics. It was really exciting..

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5000 meter and long jump...there's a women in this long jump picture but she is so fast my camera couldn't focus.



these little cars return the javalins to the athletes. I kept thinking that the volunteer who had the job of driving these must have thought it was the coolest job at the Games!



Men's decathalon final race (USA got gold, yea!), women's long jump, women's 5000 meter, men's and women's 100 meter relays and more. But the most exciting was watching the men's pole vault. Throughout the evening you glance over and keep watch (it takes forever!) but as the night wore on, this Australian guy just kept hanging in there. It was he and the Russian at the end. It was so amazing. These guys must have vaulted 100 times...but the Australian hung in there and we did too. Many people left because all the other events were over but we stayed to watch him break the Olympic record. It was just plain fun. I think the crowds roar was helping to lift him up and over. He gets his gold metal tonight.


Austrailian Hooker (forgot his first name) up and over....here is is celebrating.


With more celebrations all night long!!