G'Day!
\n actually, W'Day! It threatened rain all day
\nyesterday. While waiting for Opening Ceremonies (O.C.)
\nwe were rained on. Fortunately they let us wear our
\nrain outfit. We still had to wear the sweater and vest
\nof the parade outfit, but we were spared the
\nembarrassment of wearing tennis shoes with dress
\nslacks. Also, the weather is quite cold and they
\nweren't going to let us bring jackets with the parade
\nuniform. So despite the weather, we were happy with
\nthe resulting uniform.
\n The rain waited until we were nearing the Village
\nafter the close of O.C. All in all, SPOC (Sydney
\nParalympic Organizing Committee) did a great job in
\ngettting us to and from O.C. We were bussed over about
\n2 hours before marching in. They got us lined up and
\nthen we WAITED. Finally at 9 or so we marched in.
\n(Before I talk about the O.C., I'll mention getting
\nhome.) When the O.C. was over, we filed out through
\nthe stadium tunnels. The US swimmers opted to walk
\nhome rather than struggle for a bus. Not too far a
\nwalk, but we have to go through metal detectors and
\nthe bags through X-Ray machines before gettting back
\ninto the village. EVen after workout this bogs down
\nand can be a five minute wait. Now imagine 6000 people
\ntrying to get in. We were stopped at several check
\npoints by the police. They filtered the crowds so that
\nonly a few hundred approached each check point at a
\ntime. Worked very well. I was back in the Village only
\na 45 minutes after leaving the stadium. I was showered
\nand in bed by 1 am!!! (only to get up at 7:30 for
\nworkout this morning – well , laundry, computer, and
\nworkout)
\n What a stadium! VEry impressive. REally quite a
\nbeautiful structure. I hope my pictures come out. The
\nseats were not sold out, but there were at least 80000
\nin attendance. Great welcome. Barcelona will always
\nstand out for me (being the first Games) but this was
\nimpressive.
\n They put on a great show of Aussie musicians, giant
\nballoons, kids dancing, etc. The kids were also
\npainting a giant mosaic in the center field. Every so
\noften they would show an overhead shot. The mosaic
\nwould be a map of Oz, an Aboriginal design, etc.
\nPretty cool.
\n Great fireworks capped the whole thing. Oh, and of
\ncourse the lightning of the cauldron.
\n WEll, folks are waiting and I've gone over my 20
\nminutes. I'll catch up with you later.
\n Swim competition starts tomorrow!!! I've heard that
\nI'll be on the two relays. <\/p>\n
Til later!!!<\/p>\n
-Karen<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
G'Day! actually, W'Day! It threatened rain all day yesterday. While waiting for Opening Ceremonies (O.C.) we were rained on. Fortunately they let us wear our rain outfit. We still had<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":61568,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4],"tags":[51,7884,4334,7883,7885,62,7807],"class_list":["post-1870","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-zzzzzzzzz","tag-barcelona","tag-metal-detectors","tag-paralympic","tag-sydney-paralympic-organizing-committee","tag-the-o-c","tag-united-states","tag-x-ray"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\r\n