Monday, July 29

 We have found everyone to be in very good spirits, cooperative, patient and respectful.  We have been in conversation with people from Australia, Great Britain, US, Germany, China. People take photos for each other, let others pass through lines, take turns, etc.  At the swimming, we saw next to a young American, Leo, who swims for Oberlin College.  Leo was an absolute encyclopedia of knowledge about swimming.  This turned out to be very handy for us, since we know pretty much nothing, and Leo seemed to enjoy having the opportunity to educate us.  

Now for a word about food.  France, as you know, has one of the greatest cuisines on earth.  Somehow that did not translate over to the Olympic venues.  We had assumed that we would be able to pick up a decent bite to eat at an event.  But when we went to get dinner at the swimming event the other night, there were exactly two choices:  falafel and nachos.  We selected falafel only to arrive at the front of the line to find them sold out, so nachos all around.  The next day, I got up and went to the local patisserie, picked up a few sandwiches, and we happily had a picnic inside the venue yesterday evening.  This was a particularly good idea given that the only choice there was waffles.  

On to yesterday’s agenda …

We enjoyed having lunch with Guy’s daughter Clara, whom we have known since she was small … but now she is all grown-up, married and expecting a child of her own.  Then we went to badminton.  I must say that this was a surprisingly thrilling sport to watch.  We had great seats, along the center of one of the courts.  There were three courts playing simultaneously, which made it a bit strange as you would hear people cheering for a different game than you were watching, and you wanted to watch all three.   It felt a bit schizophrenic.   We played badminton a lot as kids, and it is basically the same game, only that little shuttle seems to go a heck of a lot faster than I remember!  It is surprising how it starts fast, and then falls, so you can see it is hard to judge whether it will be out of bounds are not.  It’s much more athletic that I had imagined as well – these men and women were very powerful, fast and agile.  I particularly enjoyed the last match we saw of men's doubles – The Danes were ferocious – I predict they ultimately get gold.

Then we transitioned over to the Grand Palais, an enormous exhibition space in Paris that was remade into an athletic venue for fencing.  It is just amazing the amount of construction and adaptation that these games take.  Either the organization of the queues is better or we’re getting more tolerant, because the entry process seems to go quite smoothly now.  

I will have to confess that fencing is my least favorite sport by far.  I found it totally incomprehensible – no sense of who won a point and why.  Had no appreciation for the skill involved.  Len and I left early on this one.

the Danes playing aggressive Badminton

games on three courts at the same time

lunch with Clara

the helpful pink fingers are everywhere

fencing in the Grand Palais