August 3, 2008 – Visiting the Village

TIME: 0927hrs

Yesterday, Sunday August 3rd, started out just like every other day except for the fact that I actually slept until 0730. Once I woke up, I checked my email as usual. After breakfast I finished checking my email before practice. Practice went well… women’s team coach Israel Hernandez worked with the girls on some drills separately. After practice, all of us Olympic Hopefuls decided to wait and catch the 1500 bus. Once we got to the village, Sayaka met us and took us to her place. It was a long walk!! I’m not sure how long of a walk, but it was a trip. (I don’t have a clock here, so I lose all sense of time while here).

In the Olympic Village, the first thing that we did was go check out Sayaka, Ronda and Val’s little apartment. By this time, it was only me, Marti and Michael. After briefly checking out everyones room, we all decided to go look around. Because there hasn’t been a lot of free time for the Olympians, they hadn’t explored the village as much as they’d like. Once we started walking around we ended up at the entertainment center. We began out fun by challenging each other at a little match of air hockey. I think Me, Ronda and Marti dominated our games. And let me say… Ronda and I are tied with 1 win a piece and I beat the champion Marti! haha =) After air hockey we migrated to shuffle board which Marti and I rocked at! We swept 2 teams… Sayaka-Val & Ronda-Val. Can you tell that we’re a competitive group? Once we finished that, we walked through the fitness center and saw the cyclists working out along with the Cuban volleyball players. Once we visited that, we went to the Olympic Village store. At first I didn’t want to buy anything because we still had to go to the silk market, but I caved in. I bought shot glasses for Mom, Jeff and Bachan & Jichan. AND! I got these cool looking cards for my collection. That’s about all that I bought. I didn’t want to buy anything else because I’m going to wait to see what merchandise they have at the tournament. After purchasing our goody’s, we hopped on the 1830 bus back to BNU (Beijing Normal University).

I’m not sure what we are going to do today. I think after practice we are going to try and go to the silk market. We keep hearing stories about it and how we have to bargain with the people… so we’re looking forward to that experience!