Let The Games Begin!

The moment I've been waiting for has come...the Olympics are here!  I love the Olympics so much, and while I prefer the Summer Olympics overall, I'm excited that I'll get to enjoy my favorite sport, skating, this year.  It was nice to get a small early taste of the competition on Thurs. this year too.  The new team skating event is interesting, and I hope that the US team will be able to pull it out in the end.  It was disappointing to see the men's short program fail so badly.  I feel bad for that guy.  I'd hate to be the one that held the whole team back.  Hopefully, they'll still come back from the problem, though.

For the opening ceremony, I went to an Olympic party at Gerrit and Elisabeth's.  I wasn't sure that I was going to be able to go for awhile, since I've been quite ill all week.  The worst was Wednesday, where I had liquid dripping from pretty much every possible place on my head combined with extreme sinus pressure, a foggy brain, and general lethargy.  On Thursday, I felt perhaps a little more energetic, but not all that much better otherwise, which worried me.  Fortunately, on Friday, much of the pressure had decreased and I felt pretty up to getting out of the house.  I wasn't too worried about spreading my germs as I tend to get these sinus problems at some point most years, but don't think I've ever passed it to anyone despite being much more around people most of the time.  Also, since I'd first felt the illness coming on on Sunday, I figured I was pretty well out of the contagious stage.  All this combined with the fact that I knew that Molly and Miles were already ill lead me to conclude I could risk the outing, with some precautions.

We did Russian food for refreshments.  I made borscht, which is a traditional beet soup.  I made it once before in middle school, I believe, for a class project of some kind.  Since I have "experience", this was the dish I was nominated for.  There was a lot of shredding involved, from beets and carrots to cabbage, but overall the recipe wasn't too complicated.  Joel made some tasty buns with ricotta cheese topping called Vatrushka and Elisabeth made Salad Olivier, an interesting potato salad, as well as 2 kinds of Priozhki, stuffed buns, a fruity Russian drink, and 2 tasty cookies.  All this made for pretty delicious eating while we enjoyed the ceremony.

The presentation was impressive.  I really liked the floor projections and the floating elements, though it was a shame that one of the rings didn't open right.  At first, I was confused with how short it was, since it seems like they normally do all the presentation beforehand.  I'm not sure I loved how it was broken up by the parade of champions, but it is nice that the Olympians got to see the bulk of the performance.  Plus, it probably meant fewer people tuned out early!

I actually enjoy the Parade of Champions.  It's interesting to see the different countries' teams and how they choose to represent their homeland.  This year, the Americans unfortunately looked like fools.  It pretty much looked like Ralph Lauren hired a bunch of grannies to knit whatever crap they could think of into an ugly 80's sweater.  The whole thing was made worse by the fact that they also had hideous, non-matching hats.  Whoever chose that design, considering they had other options, must either be blind or potentially a secret plant from a foreign country who infiltrated the USOC with the evil plot to make us look ridiculous.  It's even lamer that there was basically a huge POLO ad plaster on every Olympian, pretty much as prominently as the US references.  Basically, I hated those sweaters completely.  I can't imagine why anyone would pay $600 for such a thing; you'd have to pay me $600 to wear it!

After the parade of champions, I saw a bit of the presentation, but then went to put Molly to bed.  She was acting a little fussy, so it took a little longer to read her a few stories and then sing her a song, though she didn't fuss at all when I left, which doesn't always happen.  This meant that I ended up watching most of the second part today.  I really quite enjoyed it.  I especially loved the ballet for the imperial section and the dove of peace.  The music was great all the way through and the execution was lovely.  The section with lighting up the athlete silhouettes in the sky dragged too long for me, but otherwise everything was quite interesting.

Fortunately, I got done with Molly in time for the torch lighting and I thought it was amazing!  The Firebird suite was a perfect choice and the set up was very cool.  I like how it seems to be very visible from far away and the pool at the base it really pretty.  Definitely a nice end to an interesting and well done ceremony.

After it ended, Joel took John home and I was planning on leaving myself pretty quickly so that I could still get to Walmart at a decent time, but I ended up talking with Elisabeth and Emily for quite a while.  That was nice, as I don't have friends around here so much yet, though I did start feeling pretty tired.  I wasn't too surprised that I was pretty tired in the end after Gerrit said it was a quarter to 2 AM, which is much later than I've gone to bed in quite awhile!  By the time I packed all up and got home and ready for bed, it was more like 2:30.  Still, I'd say it was worth it.  I had a good time with the family and enjoyed all the festivities immensely.