volleyball-ing it

Me standing in the rain waiting for my first olympic event...Men's Volleyball

finally inside the stadium and only slightly damp

here we see exceedingly tall chinese men

ahh...the life of a grunt (volunteer, intern, etc). at least my duties don't entail mopping. well, maybe once

being welcomed to the olympic village and feeling special about it

Me posing with a random volunteer who wanted his picture taken with him. Evidently he is a music teacher, who wanted my picture to show to his students. Odd don't you think?

Yesterday evening, i was lucky enough to attend the welcoming ceremony for the US delegation. All in all, it was pretty darn awesome. Some Chinese schoolchildren sang, gifts were exchanged, and a speech was given. Unbeknownst to me, or at least until very recently, my picture was even published on the BOCOG website. If you look closely in the 3rd picture below, i'm poking my head out from the second row. Gosh, i'm short.

living the olympic life

Since my last update, much has happened in the United States Olympic operations center. On Sunday we finally got a working TV. As you can see, we've already started watching sports. Unfortunately we have no sound; the sound that does come out is pretty fuzzy. I only hope that we will be able to actually watch the olympics on the TV.


I've also successfully washed my clothes in a chinese laundry machine. Comparatively speaking, Chinese laundy machines are significantly smaller. Sad to say, we do not have a dryer here at the operations center, so air drying is the one and only option. But as Beijing, China is a fairly humid location, air drying takes a considerably longer time here than it does is Colorado Springs.
Consequently, my clothes are wrinkly and crisp.

counting the tickets, over and over and over again...

Since i started my internship in Colorado Springs, I've been working with the tickets. The US Olympic Committee order tickets for theNational Organizing Bodies for each sport, as well as provides 2 tickets to athletes for every event they compete in. That comes out to be a lot of tickets.

What you see below has been my life for the past 2 months, 4 days, and counting. I cannot tell you all at home how many times i've counted these tickets. What you see below is not everything, rather, it is a fraction of our full order.

currently the bane of my existence, tickets.

As you've probably seen in the news, tickets for the Beijing Olympic Games are selling out. From my understanding, Chinese people have had to raffle for a place in the ticket line. Least to say, these tickets are pretty priceless.

sweating on the Great Wall...

Two days ago (Friday to be exact), I was fortunate enough to have the afternoon off. With an afternoon to spare, we were off to the Great Wall (with the US Men’s water polo team). And what better way is there to spend the afternoon?

If I were to use a single word to encapsulate the Great Wall experience, it might have to be “sweaty.” And I even went on a day that more mild than what we’ve seen in the past 2 weeks. For everyone who would like to know, especially my Colorado friends, Beijing and its surrounding area is a pretty sweaty place. To be out and about IS to be sweaty, that’s just a fact of life.

To consider the magnitude of the Great Wall (in terms of length, height, construction time, etc) is one thing, to actually walk on an architectural icon of Chinese culture is wholly different experience. What struck me most about walking on the Wall was the international quality of all its visitors. Here I was traveling with the US water polo team, with Germans in front and Canadians behind us. I wholeheartedly believe that this is just a taste of what is to come, when people from around the world come into Beijing for the Olympic Games. One can only ponder the implications of having the Olympic Games in China….