At the Olympic Village!

It's the eve of the Opening Ceremony, and China's big show is tomorrow! They city is buzzing and I think you can almost smell the panic and anxiousness as tomorrow's 8/8/08 at 8pm ceremony is just around the corner.

I finally took a trip the other day to the Olympic Green to get a glimpse of where the magic will happen! It was so surreal to be there and see where the athletes are living, where they are practicing, and where the Games will be held.

At Tiananmen Square, the massive "Beijing 2008" sign and design:


The National Indoor Stadium aka The Birds Nest. This picture does not do it justice- its soooooo huge in person!!!!



The National Aquatics Center aka The Water Cube


Me giving the Peace sign with the cube and the Bird's Nest in the background:) This is the Olympics!! Its so real and it's TOMORROW!!! wow....


Hope you all will enjoy watching the games on TV! My sport is especially excited about Saturday (the official start to the Olympics- the first day of competition) because since shooting is a sport that is finished relatively quickly (we have qualifications in the morning, and the athletes who do the best there go to the final round where you get a gold, silver and bronze medalist) shooting will be the first sport to award an Olympic medal at the 2008 Olympics!!!! And, since the first event to medal is a woman's sport, and the woman favored to win is Du Li, a very famous Chinese shooter, China stands the shot of being awarded the very first medal, and gold medal at that, of this 29th Olympiad!!! So needless to say, Saturday will be a media frenzy around our parts.

Should be exciting!

I've been assigned to stick around AFP (Agence France Presse), which is the major French national media at the Olympics, and get whatever quotes I can get from their interviews since I'm the only reporter at ONS at our venue who speaks French! So you all know i'm thrilled about that one....

So, ready, set, OLYMPICS!!! Let the games begin......