2 months down....1 to go

It seems like it was just the other day I was getting off the plane getting ready to start my adventure in Beijing. Now, 2 months later, things are starting to wind down.

Since the start of the games everyone has been putting in long hours and the time has finally come to start preparing to break down Media Village. The past two weeks have flown. I can't believe there are only a few days left of the Olympics.

I have not posted in a pretty long time so everyone is probably curious as to what I have been doing. I have been working and sleeping! I had a few days off and was able to experience the Olympics as a fan.

Last week a friend and I decided we wanted to go and scalp tickets for the USA basketball game. We were willing to pay pretty much whatever because who knows when the next time I will get to see Olympic Basketball. We headed over to the arena and naturally we got lost. I think everything in China has to be a process...we had the name of the arena written down in English and Chinese. The guy had no clue where it was. We kept saying "Kobe Bryant" and he just smiled. Finally, frustrated as hell as I watched the meter keep going up I shouted "Yao Ming" and the crazy cab drive goes, "oooh yao ming." Long story short we were there in 2 minutes.

We had heard a few stories about fake tickets and to be careful scalping from the locals. In the states if you want tickets you usually walk around shouting "who has extra tickets" but in China they don't really understand English so we had to use hand gestures for extra tickets. Time was running out and we couldn't find anything until a Canadian guy came up to us. We bought 2 tickets behind the basket about 30 rows up. USA played Angola and killed them. It was awesome to watch. Sitting and watching the game and being around people from all over the world was really cool...it is an experience I will never forget. The second game was Australia vs. Argentina. We moved down and sat right behind the basket for the first half....Australia is horrible at basketball.

Yesterday I got out early and a friend and I headed to Olympic Village. Olympic Village is where all the athletes stay. They created what felt like a college campus for the athletes. It was incredible. The main dining room is the size of 3 football fields and is open 24 hours. They do about 40,000 meals a day. One of the managers showed us around and the whole time my head was on a swivel trying to spot out athletes. While there we grabbed lunch. We found a table that had the US womens basketball team to our left...the Jamaican track team to our right....US gymnastics behind us. It was incredible! The whole time I kept pinching myself because I could not believe I was sitting in a dining room with the worlds best athletes.

After we ate we walked around the village. Every apartment had flags hanging outside to show which country was living in which building. We tried to find USA but had no luck...I don't think the accommodations are up to their standards so they stay in hotels.

My next week looks like this:

Tomorrow I have tickets to Diving in the morning and then in the afternoon I have tickets to Track and Field. I have been looking forward to tomorrow since I got my tickets 2 weeks ago. I will finally get to see the inside of the Birds Nest and Water Cube.

The media is scheduled to leaver the 25th and 26th and then we will start to break down Media Village. Once it is broken down I am hoping to get a few days off and possibly go to Shanghai or Hong Kong. After the few days off I will move over to Athletes Village for the month of September.

It will be pretty strange when people start heading out of here. All the people I have been hanging out with leave September 3rd and the group of 700 international managers will get cut down by more then half. Hopefully at that point I will get a real bedroom with a real bed. YES...I am still in the stupid little bedroom on the worst bed in the world.

A quick little note. I met the chiropractor of the US decathlon team on the train the other day. We got to talking and I told him how bad my back hurts because of the beds and he told me that there are only 6 chiropractors in the city of Beijing. I should have got an adjustment on the train but it was crowded.

I am heading out to wander around the city and check out some areas I have not been to yet. I posted pictures from the basketball game and the olympic village. Check them out when you get a chance.