Athens Olympics
Trip Start
Apr 06, 2003
1
48
69
Trip End
Ongoing
Athens,
Greece
Thursday, August 19, 2004
Long time no t-pod - it's been almost 3 months since the last one! Since we are 4 trips behind, I tried very hard to be brief so that we could catch up. As you will see, I failed miserably. However, for those of you who don't have 3 hours to read to these (everyone not named Joey), I think the emails we've been writing from the road have been nice summaries and the pics are a good way to get an idea of how the trip went. So with this t-pod, we'll be sending you our pics too.
As a quick update as to what is doing, we were in Chicago and Westchester in October and Fort Lauderdale and Long Island in November. We spent some time in Chicago with our friends, got to go to Madison to see a Badger f-ball game while we still thought this team would be special (and Julie got to see Chloe), and our families in FL. I went into the office in Chicago and had a bunch of great meetings as well - I seem to still have some fooled, thinking that I am doing a good job over here! The trips to NY were for Julie's bro Jon and Melanie's wedding and for my buddy Josh and Erin's wedding. It was AWESOME getting to see so many familiar faces. We miss you guys! Hopefully some of you will be able to make the trip out here!
We also went to London for a few days to celebrate our anniversary. Having studied there during college, it was great to spend some time there. Last weekend we went to Berlin for T-giving. It was a very nice weekend - Berlin is huge! We are talking about going to Ghent, Belgium for 2 days and a night for a late Stephen's b-day trip, and to Koln, Germany for the same for Julie's b-day. We are also excited that Gabrielle and Ben will be sharing New Years with us in A'dam, my friend Scott will be visiting his g-friend Elena (who is spending 2 years at KPMG's headquarters in A'dam) later this month, and even Joey is about ready to book a flight for Feb! We have about 18 months left in A'dam so if you are thinking about making the trip, let us know...please just don't wait until the very end as we also will have some last-minute trips we're probably gonna want to make before heading back to the US!
Anyways, all is well here. Work is going well. Julie seems to be pretty comfortable with her life and has been very busy lunching, gyming, napping, knitting, mah-jongging, museuming, etc. The weather is OK temperature-wise but it is DARK!
Moving on to the t-pod, here is our last-minute trip to Athens for the Olympics. But before that, I included some info on the BBC's Olympic coverage and our Opening Ceremonies Party. Lastly, there is an article that Julie wrote for the American Woman's Club's newsletter 'Tulip Talk' about our trip to Athens. There is also a few updates on things going on in A'dam. Enjoy!
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Here are a few random things going on...
*** The Netherlands is going through a strange phase right now. Theo van Gogh, an extremely outspoken director who happens to be related to the painter, was murdered by a Muslim extremist for making anti-Muslim remarks (he often referred to Muslims as "goatfuckers"). In typical Dutch way, he was murdered riding his bike. The killer approached Theo, shot him a few times, then stuck a letter to him by impaling a knife in him. The letter threatening Job Cohen, the Jewish mayor of A'dam, and the Somali-born Member of Parliament, Ayann Hirsi Ali, who denounced her Muslim faith and often criticized the way woman are treated in Islam. The Dutch are struggling with their Muslim immigrants and how to assimilate them. The day that van Gogh was murdered, everybody wanted to talk about it and yet, it seemed like nobody wanted to talk about. There has since been a lot of random violence against the Muslim community
(ie. mosques burnt down by arsons). Trying to make light of the situation, I joked with some of my Dutch friends that I thought Bush was going to invade the Netherlands to 'curtail the radical Muslim uprising'. Seriously though, this seems to be a very tense situation and I am interested to see how it plays out. If you are interested in reading more about this, check out http://www.expatica.com/source/site_article.asp?subchannel_id=1&story_id=13500.
*** We were in Florida last month visiting my mom, g-parents, and some other family. We saw a sign that read "10 out of 10 terrorists support Kerry" and another that read "Arafat supports Kerry". I can't believe that that sort of shit is actually allowed. So wrong!
*** Julie recently got her bike stolen. Bike theft is very common here and about the extent of the crime we have here. So the fact our bikes haven't been stolen in 18 months so far is somewhat surprising. The disappointing thing is it wasn't really stolen. Julie expanded on the story by saying that she is pretty certain that she left the key in the lock. I was a bit upset. It's not like someone cut the lock or anything like that, she was forgetful and left the key there for anyone alert enough to notice. She had done this a few times and this time, we got burned. Uuurghhh!
*** I have noticed a couple interesting phrases. The Dutch say 'half eleven', which means 10:30, as in half hour to 11. But why doesn't that mean half hour past 11? Interesting. They also refer to 'next Sunday' as in the very next time Sunday comes. For example, if it's Saturday, the next day would be 'next Sunday'. Personally, I would consider that 'tomorrow' and consider 'next Sunday' as 8 days from now. Hmmm.
*** Interestingly, I was riding my bike to work the other day and I was in a pack of 7 or 8 other bikers. Out of nowhere, one of the ladies who was in the middle decided to turn left without any notice. Everyone slammed on their breaks and started ringing their bells. Nobody got hurt but I had a chuckle as I thought about the fact that I was almost involved in a '6 bike pile-up on the way to work!'
*** Man our country is messed up. I had a conversation a few weeks ago with a Dutch friend about why we don't have electronic voting in the US like they do in the Netherlands. I explained that people feel there needs to be a papertrail. She asked why, that the Dutch just trust the system. I told her the issue is US politics is so corrupt, with power-hungry (wo)men tied into lots of lobby money from the church, tobacco, and gun people. What is wrong with our system! Good thing we're all over the world spreading "democracy"!
*** I went to see the Polyphonic Spree concert at the Melkweg, a 2000-person venue, a few weeks ago. I saw them at that festival in Belgium and they are a lot of fun live. The stage was filled with 15 musicians and 8 choir members. It was really fun. If they are playing a club near you, go check 'em out!
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OLYMPIC PARTY
We had a bunch of friends over for a party to share the Opening Ceremonies of the Olympics. About 30 people, representing about 10 different countries, came over. It was a fun party, despite the fact that somebody accidentally spilled some red wine on our carpet. About a dozen bottles of red wine were brought as gifts but nobody drank them - almost like everyone regifted. As each county would enter, in the spirit of good sportsmanship, we clapped. It was pretty fun.
As the night got later, everyone left except for our Aussie friends Bruce and Ange and Tom and Meeghan, our Dutch friends Richard and Astrid, and our buddies from Chicago Chris and Melanie. We had all apparently drank too much. As the evening continued, the music was turned up and Julie eventually turned out the lights. She grabbed a flashlight and started to get the party going with a 'strobe-light'. Tom got a bit too excited and took off his shirt - a Greek God! Eventually, the music came to an end when we heard someone yelling from outside. It was the police. I peeked my head out of the window and he instructed me to come downstairs. Richard came down with me to convince the policeman that we were cool. We promised him that we would turn the radio off - since it was 3 AM - and he said if he came by again and the music was still blasting, he would need to take the radio away. Ooops. It was a fun party though!
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BBC'S OLYMPIC COVERAGE
Julie and I are huge fans of the Olympics. We get real caught up in the TV coverage, getting wrapped up in the personal interest stories that Bob Costas is damn good at telling. The BBC just doesn't cover the Olympics in the same way!
For one, the sport selection is very suspect! The BBC only seemed to be interested in broadcasting those sports the Brits were expected to do well in. This might explain why badminton was on TV all the time - we watched more badminton than any person should! We would get a break from badminton to watch table tennis and judo before switching back to badminton.
The coverage was very biased towards the UK and against the US. There was one situation when the BBC analyzed a disqualified US swimmer for a really long time because the disqualification of the gold medal winner would've granted a medal to the 4th place swimmer, a Brit. When the disqualification was overruled because it was obvious the swimmer was in the right, the BBC seemed to imply that there was a deal made or 'foul play', keeping the 4th place swimmer from medalling. This made it easy to root against the Brits.
Lastly, we just couldn't get over some of the words the commentators used. For example, they continued to call the uneven bars the 'asymmetrical bars' and even described one gymnastics routine as "efficient" - is that a good routine or a bad one? I was never able to tell
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ATHENS OLYMPICS
This trip was ridiculously crazy! The background of the trip is just as crazy! When Julie and I started talking about possibly moving to Europe, the first trip we talked about going on was to Athens for the Olympics. I had been to 2 other Olympics - the LA games with my dad and the Atlanta games with my college roomies. I was only 8 when I went to the see Joan Bonoit win the Gold in the woman's marathon but the '96 Games really got my interest. I had decided to stay in Madison for the summer after my sophomore year to flip burgers at the Union. But every evening, I would come home from work and we'd religiously watch the Games. Just like the rest of the US, we really fell in love with the woman's gymnastics team. So much so that after they won the gold, my roommates and I were overcome with Olympic fever and decided right there on the spot to drive to Atlanta. I went to work the next day and told my boss that I would need a few days off of work, knowing that if he wouldn't allow it I would quit and take my burger-flipping skills elsewhere. He agreed and I was able to postpone my retirement from the Union for 2 years. So after work, I came home and we drove to Atlanta - 14 hours straight. It was a crazy trip, one I never thought would be matched...until this Olympics.
But we're not there yet...there's still some more set up. So once we moved here, we mentioned to a few people that we wanted to go to Athens for the Olympics. Julie's freshman college roomie Robin was also in love with the Olympics so the plan was that Julie and I would meet Robin and her husband Mitch in Athens. When tix became available, we bought some. We had decided to get the best tix available for the finals of the woman's team gymnastics. This was guaranteed to be a hot ticket and a potential gold for the US. Plus, Julie is a former high school gymnast so we were psyched. Hotels and airfare were really expensive at the time so we didn't book anything and decided to wait until prices fell. We searched and searched but prices never fell. It started to get closer to the Games, the press was really bad about the readiness of the stadiums and public transport and of course, the ever-present threat of Osama coming to get us. But still, hotel and plane fares remained high. Eventually, the 4 of us decided it wasn't going to happen so we jumped ship and decided we'd go to Italy for a week instead.
I started looking into selling the tix, posted them on Ebay, and hoped to make back our money. Tix weren't selling anywhere so we decided that we would try to sell our $250 tix at a loss. Still, even then, we couldn't sell them. I called all the 5-star hotels in Athens, hoping that maybe their concierge would be able to sell them to a hotel guest. Nothing. I even thought about going to the airport with them and selling them to someone checking-in for their flight to Athens. I wasn't too excited about that so I never did it but we were beginning to get desperate. I really wanted to go but I definitely didn't want to waste $500 in tix costs.
The Games were less than a day away and it was beginning to drive me nuts that our money had been wasted on these tix and we were not going to be able to make it to Athens. Just then, when all hope was lost, I got a call from Lisa's hair-stylist. The lady called me and gave me tons of suggestions on how to sell them. As normal for the Dutch, she also made a few rude/candid remarks like 'this is the sort of thing you should've done before' and 'you need to be more creative' even though she had no clue what I had already tried. Some of her ideas were actually things I had already thought of so 'fuck off lady'. But she was trying to help and didn't have to so I was nice.
One suggestion she made was to look into flights from Brussels. Apparently, flights to/from A'dam are really expensive and Brussels (only 2 hours away) is a much cheaper alternative. This was it! I hit the www and found a flight from Brussels to Athens for under EUR 200 per person! Hallelujah! We were gonna go to Athens. I was thrilled! We really wanted to go all along and now it seemed possible...assuming hotels were no longer EUR 500 a night.
I spoke to my Australian friend Tom the next day in the office. His family is Greek and he still has tons of family in Athens. He has obviously been to Athens a ton and was familiar with the city. He gave me some pointers on areas of town that might be a little outside of the center and therefore cheaper, but still accessible to the Olympic venues. He even called a hotel for me thinking that if he spoke Greek, he might get a better response than I would (as a side-note, we got the same quote but it was very nice of him to offer).
So now we knew we could fly for cheap and stay for cheap. It was now time to sort out the details and pull the trigger. The cheapest flight was going to get us to Athens in the late afternoon, go straight to the Olympic event, and then head back to the airport for a pre-dawn flight - I even thought maybe we just skip the hotel altogether and just sleep at the airports. But for an extra EUR 50 per person, we would arrive in Athens early in the morning, have all day in Athens before the Olympic event, spend 1 night at a hotel, and then have all day the next day in Athens before a late afternoon flight - basically giving us 2 full days in Athens instead of just a few hours to sightsee. Although this would add an additional night at the hotel, we thought at that point it would be worth it. So with EUR 525 in airfare and a EUR 120 hotel, we jumped at it.
Just to give you an idea of the tight timing of all this, I spoke to Lisa's hairdresser on Thurs. night, spoke to Tom and booked the hotel and flight Fri. before lunch, and left for Athens on Mon. evening. CRAZY!
But here's how our trip went...
MONDAY
After work I headed home to pick up the luggage and the wife. We walked to the central train station, grabbed a couple pre-packaged sandwiches at the Albert Heijn grocery store, and got on the 8 PM train to Brussels (EUR 97 total) - in all the budgeting, we forgot to factor in the EUR 100 to get to Brussels but it was still cheaper than if we had flown out of A'dam.
The train arrived in Brussels at 10:30 PM. From there, we had to transfer to another train (EUR 5 total), which would get us to the airport about 11 PM. Our flight was scheduled to leave at 1:30 AM Tuesday morning and the place was empty! Even the tix counters were abandoned. So we found a bench and waited for life to reemerge. I might as well continue with Tuesday since technically, it was Tuesday...
TUESDAY
We got our boarding passes and cleared the security check. It was even more barren on this side of the airport than the other. Julie pulled up a piece of bench and tried unsuccessfully to get a few winks of sleep. As the time passed, the terminal got more and more lively. There were tons of people wearing the same t-shirt, celebrating their favorite Olympic team.
We finally got on the plane, and while it seemed like we had already traveled a ton, our journey was about to begin. I, of course, fell asleep. When I woke up, we were approaching a pitch-black Athens. It was 6:30 AM.
As soon as we got off the plane, Olympic fever was alive everywhere. There were signs and posters decorating every corner of the airport. There were happy spectators populating the terminal, wearing all sorts of country paraphernalia. My favorites were the drunk Scots who got on the bus with us, wearing huge leprechaun outfits. They had apparently found the gold(shlager) at the end of the rainbow.
By the time we got on that aforementioned bus with the leprechauns, it was as light as noon. This is amazing considering it had only been about an hour since we landed in the dark. We waited on the bus while the bus-driver enjoyed a smoke for half an hour. It was at this point, watching the driver 'enjoying life' at leisure, that I realized that the Olympic facilities and Athens were barely completed because of this relaxed, no-hurry nature.
Eventually, the bus left the airport. There was a barren desert-like landscape with warehouse-like boxes. It's kinda hard to describe but it reminded me of Phoenix. We maneuvered our way out of suburbia and into the endless urban sprawl known as Athens. We passed a handful of Olympic venues, all of which were so new it looked like the glue was still drying. It was clear that Athens had miraculously gotten everything done and was ready to host the world.
After about an hour, we were dropped off at the last stop, the port that connects Athens to the world-famous Greek Islands. While some had gone right from the bus to the ferries, we grabbed ourselves a cab and aimed for Lilia Hotel.
The cab driver was very nice but after driving in circles for 10 minutes, it was clear he had no clue where the hotel was. I had printed a map of the area. We were clearly in the right neighborhood but we just couldn't figure it out. The driver looked for help from anyone - from another cabbie, from a man walking on the street, he even called the hotel on his cell phone. Finally, we made it to the hotel. After 15 minutes driving around the area, I was bracing for the ridiculous fare this guy was going to lay on me...EUR 3. I couldn't believe it, EUR 3. Because the man was so helpful, I gave him a EUR 2 tip. I thought that was fair since he was so helpful. Based on his reaction, I am guessing he thought that was the most generous tip ever.
We checked into the hotel, a family-run place with about 25 rooms. Our room was very small but it had a bed and a clean bathroom - perfect! The hotel was a few block away from a huge harbor and looked like a neat area of town...but we were there for a specific reason so we headed to the tram, which would bring us to the main Olympic venues.
There was a lot of talk prior to the Olympics about whether the Greeks would get everything ready. Well, they did. You could tell that it was barely finished - we even joked that the paint was still wet - but it was indeed finished. The trams were new and comfortable. The tram station was filled with other Olympic spectators and a handful of local volunteers giving out directions and info. The ride to the Olympic center took about 45 minutes but it was done without needing to transfer to another line.
It was now about 9 AM and we were at the main Olympic complex - there were other buildings spread out all over town as well. There were more volunteers helping, directing us out of the station and to the Olympic complex. It was huge and new and clean. There were tons of people running around but it was not packed. Having been to Atlanta for the '96 Olympics, it was not as crowded as I had expected. I would end up comparing this Olympics to that one throughout the time and I have some observations - and theories - but we'll discuss that later. For now, it was time to see an event.
We didn't have tix but were immediately approached by a local scalper as we emerged from underneath the tram tracks. We told the man that we wanted to see swimming to which he pulled out a stack of tix. We bought a pair of EUR 45 tix for EUR 30 each. This showed us immediately the tix situation we would be facing later in the day when we would try to sell the extra gymnastics tix we had...and looking back, we overpaid for those swimming tix based on what we got for the gymnastics tix later that day but that's another story for later.
We were expecting the security to be super tight and a long ordeal. The info packs we got with the tix suggested we get to the venue about 2 hours in advance. So we did. There were tons of metal detectors ready to efficiently move the guests through the lines. In about 10 minutes, we were through. We never really saw much security around but apparently, they were there.
With our scalped tix in hand, we followed the crowd toward the swimming facility. It was a beautiful building, and one that was discussed a lot in the lead-up to the Games - it was supposed to be a covered facility but because of delays in the construction, it became an open-air pool. And to be honest, with the gorgeous Athens weather, it was better 'incomplete'.
Just after entering the swimming facility, we saw a big crowd of spectators pressed up against a fence and others holding onto poles, looking across the fence, onto the athletes warming-up. We joined the group and watched the world's greatest athletes. There seemed to be about 50 people swimming laps at a slow and leisurely pace. It was kinda cool to see. Some of them were lying on massage tables. The bodies were absolutely beautiful. Even the men looked real soft and smooth. In fact, as Julie and I jealously looked on as the masseuse rubbed the knots out and loosed the tight muscles, I saw an athlete completely covered up except for the feet. I said to Julie that the leg was so pretty, I couldn't even tell if it belonged to a man or a woman. Julie laughed hysterically as it was definitely a man. But it was a pretty foot.
From the warm-up pool, we walked into the main pool venue and took our seats. The pool looked tiny, smaller than you would expect, almost like when you see a TV show taping live. The place looked like it had just been finished. I don't even think they had time to sand the wooden rises we would be sitting on.
The place was pretty empty. But it was now 10 AM and the event was beginning nonetheless. Honestly, the event was pretty boring. It was only the preliminaries so the elite athletes only needed to qualify. Because of this, those elite swimmers barely seemed to be trying. And those other athletes were clearly out of their league, even with the top swimmers barely trying. It's hard to explain but some of the swimmers from smaller countries seemed to have trouble even finishing the races. It was almost like they were 'privileged' people of their country, like children of diplomats from warring nations. They were given the chance to represent their country and offered a free party vacation. They arrived in Athens, partied, swam a few laps, and then partied some more! They weren't expected to win. They were there for fun. So many of these swimmers seemed to be less athletic than even myself! The races were pretty boring as a result. Among the top swimmers we got to see coast into the semi-finals, which would be the following night, were Ian Thorpe and Katelin Sandeno. We also saw the men's 4 X 200 freestyle relay. Michael Phelps didn't swim in the prelims - but he did swim in the finals, which I think isn't really fair. He took a medal and the limelight away from someone else on the US team, all because he wanted to win some record. It's kinda fucked up.
Anyways, the event was interesting to see but this was not because of the athletics but because of the choreography surrounding the race. Each race began with a rhythmic bonging. With this, the racers would walk single-file into the arena. The spectators immediately found a swimmer to root for - we went either with the American, the Dutch, the Greek, or the African guy who stood no chance. The athletes would then do a few quick stretches and remove their warm-up clothes, never once being allowed to touch the water. The clothes would be balled up and thrown into a plastic basket, which was situated next to the starting blocks. The swimmers would 'take their marks, get set, and go'. While the swimmers were making their way through the water, a group of Olympic staff wearing Olympic uniforms would march out single-file, just like the swimmers did before them. They would stand in front of the starting block, and simultaneously, they would bend down and pick up the swimmer's warm-ups. Again, at the same time, they would turn and exit the pool together. This choreographed event was sometimes more interesting to watch than the race. The race would then, eventually, come to an end. The racers in lanes 1 to 4 would swim over to the left, and the racers in 5 to 8 would swim to the right, and exit. This whole routine worked like clockwork, was ridiculously efficient, took about 30 seconds, and repeated itself over and over until 11:30 AM.
Some times there was something out of the ordinary that happened in the race. If a swimmer faulted, the PA would announce that the swimmer and his/her country rep should 'report to the resolution room'. I thought that was funny, the 'resolution room'. It's like when a kid is sent to the principal's office - not that I would know.
All in all, it was fun to see but kinda boring. When the event finished, we walked around the Olympic complex for a bit. We were kinda hungry so we looked around for some food. Amazingly, it was Day 3 and the hundred or so white food tents were already out of pizza. The available food didn't look too good so we walked over to the corporate sponsor for some McFood. The info sent before the games said that there would be ample veggie food but that was not the case. Even the McD's wasn't serving anything for me - no fish filet and the salads had chicken on them. So I had French fries for lunch. Oh well.
After 'lunch', we continued walking around the Olympic complex and did a bit of souvenir shopping. I bought a t-shirt with the logos of each of the sports - a yellow square with a black stick-figure doing the sport - and a black hat with the Olympics rings and "Athens 2004" on it. Being a collector of clutter, I also bought one of those plastic ticket holders that you wear around your neck and use as a souvenir when you get home.
After this, we decided it was time to take a nap since we had been going non-stop since we woke up the day before. So we took the tram back to the hotel and relaxed for a bit. I picked up a really good pannini thing with cheese, tomato, and oregano. Yum! With a bit in my tummy, we made our way back to the hotel, although I got lost leading us back which Julie didn't appreciate too much in her exhausted state but finally we got back to the hotel and were happy that out place had A/C.
After a few hours, it was time to regroup from our nap and head to the main Olympic venue for the finals of the woman's team event in gymnastics. We bought a few more souvenirs, including some knock-off 'official' shirts and an American flag to wave at the gymnastics event.
We paid our 70 cents and got on the tram. On the tram, I overheard 2 American men that looked about our age, talking to 2 American woman about our age. I soon gathered that the men were on the volleyball team. I asked them how people were treating them. They said that individually, everyone has been awesome to them but as a team in competition, they are clearly not fan-favorites. These guys competed in Australia as well and they said there, people were cool to them but now (post-Iraq), they are not supported in the least. I personally think it is for 2 reasons: 1. you always root for David over Goliath and currently, with Europe unable to get the EU on the same track and the Soviets disbanded, we are the only Goliath out there and 2. fucking GWBush sucks!
As soon as we exited the tram and headed down the stairs, we were attacked by people trying to sell their tix. It seemed like everyone had extra tix they were trying to sell. Nobody seemed to be interested in buying any - talk about a buyer's market! The few people who were interested in buying tix at a somewhat reasonable price were more interested in buying tix for the swimming finals. Nobody wanted gymnastics tix. As we nearly begged people to buy the extra tix we were trying to sell for Mitch and Robin, it became clear we were not going to get face value. One American man approached us looking for swimming tix. When I told him we had gymnastics, he offered us half price. At the time, I thought we should look for a more serious buyer. I soon realized that that was the best offer we would get. When I found the man a bit later, he had already bought swimming tix. Oh well. I eventually found a Greek guy to buy the tix for EUR 100 - one fourth of the original price! The interesting thing is as I was making the deal, another scalper overheard us and offered the man his tix for that price. I told the other guy to get lost...can you believe it, we're fighting over a EUR 150 haircut per tix!
Somewhere in this time, I was amazingly able to sell our 4 tix to see preliminary b-ball for Thurs. morning at face value. Of course face was EUR 25 so EUR 100 is EUR 100. Looking back, I wish we hadn't bought tix in advance since it was so cheap to buy them prior to the event...but then again, if we haven't had the threat of loosing the tix we had already bought, we never would've made the last-minute trip from A'dam. So I'm glad we had then, I'll just say if we ever go to an Olympics again, we'll go without any tix and just scalp before the event.
So after making our best attempt to recoup some cash for Mitch and Robin, we headed inside to get some tasty Olympic food. Of course, there was still no food to be eaten. Julie got a bad hot dog and I had some sort of overcooked cheese pie. It was disgusting but at least it wasn't too expensive (the best buy of the day was a bottle of water for only EUR 1).
We walked around a bit. There were some really cool fountains, these huge white sculptures that moved creating a ripple effect, and of course, the gorgeous site of the Olympic Stadium with the Olympic flame dancing overhead. The sun was beginning to set and I took a few moments to sit and appreciate the truly unique opportunity that Julie and I had to cheer on our country at the Olympics, set in the magical setting of Athens, the original home of the Games. It was pretty amazing that we were able to put together this trip so last-minute!
We made our way into the venue to see gymnastics. The place was empty, but we still had tons of time before the event was to begin. We watched a bit of the warm-ups. Then the warm-ups came to an end and it seemed as if the arena hadn't gotten any more full. The event eventually began but still, the place was empty. I suppose all the tix were still outside at the tram trying to get sold. Eventually the man who bought our tix arrived and took his seat next to us. Strangely though, nobody ever sat in the other seat he bought. It seemed very odd but he bought 2 tix and only used 1. Why didn't he just buy 1 tix? I started to think that maybe he got flustered because of the language barrier and that things happened so quickly when the other scalper came over to try to steal my 'sale' - thinking back, I basically ripped the money out of his hand and shoved the tix in his hand for fear that he would buy from the other scalper. Oh well, as they say, sucks for him!
Anyways, here's a bit about the event...
** The Aussie team had tons of bling on their outfits. They sparkled more than the athletes. For our friends Bruce and Ange and Tom and Meeghan back home in A'dam, we cheered on the Aussies, but they were pretty pitiful.
** Someone in the stands had a sign that read "Buddha bless China". I thought that was funny.
** Buddha apparently wasn't listening as one of the Chinese gymnasts was on the uneven bars and did some sort of flip release from one bar and missed her catch of the other bar because she fell face first. It was awesome. I felt back that she fucked up and was glad to see didn't hurt herself but it was a perfect face-plant. I kinda reminded me of one of Julie's high school gymnastics videos when she is doing some cartwheels on the balance beam and missed her footing and smacked her head on the beam. She didn't hurt herself so it is damn funny! I'm thinking of sending it into America's Funniest Home Videos (aka 'lets see someone fall on their ass and almost kill themselves').
** Watching the Russian team, it's hard to look at them and not think they are a bunch of Commies! Ironically, following the Olympics the skinny leader of the team who must be about 40 years old because she seems to be in every Olympics I can remember (the one who looks like Ivan Drago's wife) bitched about her not winning the gold in the individuals and that the American did. What a beotch!
*** The Russian team moved their own equipment and chalked up the bars themselves. Before each event, they would go out and move shit around or get things set up. It kinda reminded me of my days as Frolics first fan, hanging with Eric and watching him set up his guitar stuff at the Roxie himself. Like Eric, the Russians were their own roadies.
Anyways, we had gotten these tix because of Julie's history with gymnastics, my infatuation with Dominique Morceanu and the '96 team, and we knew the US always had a good team and hoped we might hear our national anthem. I remember how awesome it felt to hear The Star-Spangled Banner when I was in Atlanta so I hoped we would get the same with the traditionally good woman's gymnastics team. Unfortunately, that didn't happen. Some of the scores for the Americans were unreasonably low but no matter what, I can say with certainty that the Romanians were much better than the Americans. So the US team won silver, which was good, but we left without hearing our anthem. Bummer!
I suppose I sorta wished we had bought tix to see the finals of swimming that night instead as there were 6 or 7 finals being raced which would've given us a greater chance of hearing The Star-Spangled Banner simply because there were more medal ceremonies. With gymnastics, we had 1 chance and with swimming, we had 6 or 7. Oh well, another lesson for the future Olympics (I doubt we'll be going to Beijing but could possibly go to London, Paris, Madrid, New York, or Moscow in 2012).
We left the arena, still only about half-full, and entered an absolutely beautiful Athens night. It was gorgeous, and the weather was perfect! We stumbled upon the NBC broadcasting center. This confirmed to me that the Americans get more involved in the Olympics than any other country as it was right in the center of the main Olympic venue area. There was nothing else there other than official merchandise shops, the giant McD's (a sponsor of the Games), and a few arenas and other venues for the competitions. And then of course, NBC. The BBC had been broadcasting from a building across the street with a view of the Olympic Stadium in the distance but this was not as prime as what NBC had. This importance also made it clear why these Games was 'failing' - the Americans had not come to Athens in the way that they had traveled to past Olympics. There were more American than I had expected but it was still obvious that the place was empty and I happen to believe that the American fans account for close to 100% of that void. It's too bad because the Greeks put on a wonderful Olympics and we now know that Uncle Osama didn't do anything ugly.
I also noticed that the American spectators were unfortunately the only ones who seemed to be uncomfortable showing off any patriotism. Everywhere you looked, you would see hordes of people with the British flag wrapped around them, the Brazilian flag painted on their face, the Korean flag temporarily tattooed on their arm, etc. But nowhere did you see Americans outwardly showing off their pride. This was pretty sad. Again, fucking Bush.
Anyways, we left the Olympics and made it back to the hotel where we got caught up on how the other events went. Michael Phelps did well, winning the gold - which sucks since we would've seen The Star-Spangled Banner had we seen swimming - and the Greek/US b-ball game was an excited one that the US won. That also would've been fun to see. Oh well, gymnastics was still fun and it was most important that we saw something that we enjoyed. With this, we ended one of the longest days ever!
WEDNESDAY
We decided to sleep in a bit and woke up at 10:00. We both slept great due to total exhaustion after a very full day+, coupled with a very strong A/C. We decided we would continue our Olympic adventure with tix to see beach volleyball. Beach volleyball offered a few games outdoors in the sun, and we would get to see the Americans play. So we took the tram to the venue. This time, we would be on one of the new trams. This tram was perfectly clean and had A/C but unfortunately, it didn't run as often as the other line so we were stuck waiting for about 30 minutes before the tram left. We also noticed at the tram stop just how close the Greeks were to not being ready for the Games. The tram stop had a block of cement right at the stop but just steps away from the stop, there was nothing but dirt. It didn't seem to end naturally, just ended abruptly. While this seemed to look strange, I began to think that this was not unfinished and that it was the way it was designed. In a way, all of Greece seemed to look 'unfinished' to me.
When we finally made it to the site of beach volleyball, 1 hour after leaving the hotel, we went straight to the tix booth. Since we had slept in, we missed out on buying tix from the scalpers, if there had even been any. There was only 1 match left (the US), having already missed about 3 hours of volleyball, so we decided EUR 20 per tix was too much and the tix office wasn't giving any discounts despite there being unsold tix. That was too bad since this was a chance to make a little more money, but oh well. We decided to take a pass on beach volleyball and called an end to our Olympic adventure.
We decided we would go see the Acropolis instead. I asked someone how to get there by tram but since it took forever to get to beach volleyball and it sounded like it would take a while to get there - plus, Julie was getting tired of public transportation and our cab ride to the hotel was cheap - we hailed a cab and made our way toward this amazing site.
The cab driver was a really nice young man. We talked to him a bit about how he thinks the Olympics are going and during this time, I started to think about why this Olympics would either succeed or fail. I will save this list for the end of the t-pod though.
The cabbie dropped us off at the Acropolis. Amazingly, the fare was again just EUR 3 despite it being a 20-minute drive. He told me that he would have to charge us a EUR 3 surcharge since he picked us up at an Olympic venue but even at EUR 6, it was a bargain. Being an honest guy, he only charged us EUR 5 though since that is what he quoted me when I initially asked him what the ride would cost. I ended up giving him EUR 10 because he seemed like a nice guy and that is what I was expecting to pay. It's a win-win. But I realized then that we should've taken a cab everywhere!
As we started to walk up the stairs approaching the Acropolis, the first thing we saw was a sign that read "no camping". We thought that was really funny. The Greeks must've had run-ins with Dutch campers pitching their tents on the site of the Acropolis!
We bought our tix to enter the Acropolis and I was amazed to see that there was scaffolding up everywhere. It was weird, they must've known that every single tourist coming to the Olympics would be going to see this. They had about 8 years from the time they found out they'd be hosting the event to the time the Olympics arrived. And yet, they weren't able to get their one tourist attraction ready. Amazing!
The Acropolis is a site full of many temples, gates, columns, and other ruins. They were built by Percles during the 5th century BC. Even with the scaffolding, it was an amazing site. Just as amazingly, it was not as crowded as I thought it would be. As we walked around the site, I was appalled to see so many visitors blatantly disregarding all the signs that told the visitors not to touch certain ruins. I watched as 2 European visitors climbed over a fence to pose with a temple ruin...Americans are many things but I am proud to say that for the most part, we are very respectful of other people's cultural sites - maybe because as a 200-year-old country, we don't have many of our own.
From the Acropolis, we had a chance to really see how huge Athens is for the first time. It went on forever. I reminded me of coming through 'the pass' on the 405, when you see the overcrowded and pollution-ridden San Fernando Valley, with a Mediterranean feel. Athens is endless. The strangest thing, scattered randomly in between are ancient ruins. In the distance below, you can see the 15 remaining 17-meter tall columns of the 104-column Temple of Olympian Zeus from 131 AD. And nobody seemed to even care to see this. That's amazing! We could see in the distance, sandwiched in between 2 small hills, a roman stadium, which was built in the 4th century BC and was used in the first Olympics of the modern times in 1896. Again, nobody seemed too interested in seeing such a 'boring' site.
As we continued to walk around the Acropolis in awe, we saw two groups of visitors, which I thought were interesting. The first was a group of around 30 college-age kids from all over the world representing UNICEF. It was cool to see them enjoying their time at the Acropolis but I really started to laugh when they organized themselves for a huge group pic and everyone of them asked the pic taker to take one with their camera. Instead of getting one of two with a few cameras and then sharing the pics with everyone, they all wanted one taken with their camera. As I write this t-pod, they are probably still at the Acropolis taking this pic! The other interesting visitors were 2 sprinters from the Jamaican track team. A pretty young lady with a camera crew asked if she could interview them about athletes who were visiting the cultural sites. They got real excited when they saw the microphone had the NBC logo on it! Just before the interview began, she explained that she was technically from Telemundo and would be asking them questions in Spanish as well as English. I don't think they were as excited for Telemundo but they still gave a nice interview - I listened to most of it.
After spending about an hour at the Acropolis, we climbed a rock across the way, which had a nice view of the Acropolis and Athens below. The rock was really slippery and if this were in the US, they would've through a chair-lift on it or some handrails. Those crazy Greek had the nerve to leave it as is. Just wait 'til they get sued, then they'll learn their lesson!
From here we walked around a bit trying to see the sites of Athens. The interesting thing is in the Lonely Planet travel guide, there are recommended itineraries for travel in Greece. For 3 days in Greece, it suggests you spend 3 days in Athens. For 1 week in Greece, it suggests you still spend only 3 days in Athens. This continues to the point where if you have 2 months in Greece, it still suggests you only spend 3 days in Athens. You would think it would increase the number of days you spend in Athens if your time in the country increases but apparently, no matter how long you plan on visiting Greece, Athens is only worth 3 days. And to be honest, I would say it really only warrants 1 days because after spending 1 day walking around Athens, I felt like I saw it. Of course with a few more days, you could relax a bit more and spend a bit more time seeing certain areas (for example, I would've liked spending more time hanging in the area of our hotel), but if you are pressed for time, I would think 1 day in Athens is good and then head to the islands!
But that wasn't on our agenda...this time. We continued walking around town, spotting ruins and archeological digs in the most random places. After we were finished sightseeing, we bought the last of our Olympic souvenirs, including a lame fanny-pack which Julie really wanted! We found one of the volunteers and asked her for a suggestion of a nice restaurant in the area. To our disgust, she gave us directions to McD's...she must think that all Americans eat is McD's - we were in Greece, we wanted some Greek food, McD's is what we eat in Germany!
We found a really nice restaurant called In Town Café in the middle of some pedestrian shopping street. It was a bit expensive for lunch (EUR 37) but since this was going to be our only Greek meal, it was OK. I had some roasted veggies w/ feta and Julie had mousaka. It was really good. We walked a bit more, spotted a really nice church with a beautiful mosaic above the door randomly in the middle of this shopping street, and headed back to the hotel to gather our bags for the bus ride back to the airport.
We took our 1-hour bus ride to the airport and got there really early. Again, we weren't able to check-in right away. So we grabbed a seat and relaxed. And then out of nowhere, this huge line of Dutch and Belgians formed. They all pushed their way in front of us. I was really annoyed. The Dutch, in general, are really annoying when it comes to lines and personal space! We were not in the mood for this so we just cut in front of most of them and took our space in line where we felt it should've been. This didn't stop the others from taking a step forward when the person in front of us took a step forward, not even caring if we took a step or not. I always feel like they are breathing down my neck. Friggin' Dutch!
Anyways, we finally went to the gate and when the boarding was delayed for some unknown reason, all the Dutch started freaking out. They can't handle things when they don't go the way it's supposed to.
While waiting to board our plane, there was a guy in a wheelchair with casts on basically every part of his body. Others obviously noticed as well and began asking him what had happened. He was Columbian, probably in his early 20s, and had been on vacation on the island of Paros. He was riding a motor scooter without a helmet and was hit by a car. He broke his arm, leg, ribs, etc. etc. etc. He looked like his was in bad shape and was really lucky to be alive and to have not cracked his head! Stan, WEAR YOUR HELMET!
We finally boarded the plane and it smelled of the worst BO. Don't these people shower?!?! There was no leg-room at all. But I somehow fell asleep nonetheless.
We made it back to Brussels and grabbed a EUR 15 cab to the Campanile Hotel (EUR 90) near the airport. We needed to stay at a hotel in Brussels because by the time we arrived in Brussels at 11 PM, the trains were no longer running to A'dam. We went to sleep that night, ready to wake up at 5 AM so that we could get the 6:55 train back to A'dam. I went straight to work from there, satisfied with our trip to Athens for the Olympics!
A few final thoughts...
** Looking back at my time in Atlanta, I noticed that we walked everywhere. But in Athens, that wasn't possible. In Atlanta, we were able to walk from the Olympic Stadium outside to all the tourist attractions of Atlanta. Connecting the Olympic sites to the city sites were tons of food options. There were fast food options as well as restaurants. Athens wasn't connected as one city the way Atlanta was. I suppose it was difficult for Athens to have the same sort of flow since there was no existing 'center' where a stadium and other venues could be built. It is also not as easy as creating a central location when you have thousands of people already living in that particular area of town. Add to this that as soon as you start construction somewhere in Athens, there is a good chance you will find ruins to some ancient civilization and thus, ending the chance of finishing the construction. Nevertheless, I think if Athens was somehow able to buildup one area of town as the Olympic center and have food options there, it would've made the experience a nicer one.
** Food and cabs were cheap. Of course, food at the Olympics wasn't too good but it was cheap. The one restaurant we did eat at was really good and in general, we really like Greek food.
** The people were really nice and were proud to be welcoming the world to Athens.
** The place was finished in time and was extremely well organized!
The Olympics 'failed' (just over 50% of the seats were filled) because...
** The Greeks were on vacation during the Olympics. Apparently, the Greek culture is one where the people go to the islands for vacation, period. They were not going to change their plans and stay in Athens in August to support the Olympics. So the success of the Olympics depended solely on the support of foreigners. By and large, the Greeks are not huge sports fans and certainly don't dominate in any particular sport like some of the other hosts of the Games (ie. the Australians and swimming). The Greeks aren't going to go to the Games the way other sports-crazy countries will.
** The Europeans weren't going to go to the Olympics because 1, the Olympics are just 1 more international sporting event and not THE international sporting event like the Americans think of it - in fact, just a few months earlier, a more significant international sporting event was held in Portugal in the form of the Euro Cup soccer event; and 2. the Europeans tend to drive to their vacations and Greece is practically impossible to get to within a normal amount a time from practically anywhere in Western Europe.
** Asia is pretty far and if you are an Asian and interested in the Olympics, you are probably better off waiting until 2008 and going to Beijing instead.
** This basically leaves the Americans who were afraid to travel. Of course the bad press about the Greek's readiness didn't help matters either.
** The Greeks didn't see the writing on the wall, that the attendance would be poor, and agree to lower hotel prices. This scared off those last people who were thinking about making the trip. Even in our case, 2 days before the Games began, the 2-star hotels were staying with their prices and charging EUR 300 a night. That is ridiculous! Instead of lowing the prices to EUR 120 a night, they'd rather have empty rooms all night.
On a side note, the European press reported that the Greek tourist agencies did a very poor job of promoting the islands as a vacation destination which could be added to any Olympic trip. Because of this, even the islands had very low occupancy. All in all, it was very poorly promoted.
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JULIE'S TULIP TALK ARTICLE
I love the Olympics. It started for me when Mary Lou Retton won the women's gymnastics all around gold medal in 1984. My friend Becky had her own American flag leotard just like the one Mary Lou wore and we took turns wearing it imagining we had attained Olympic glory. I still have the picture I drew in 3rd grade for social studies of me on top of the Olympic podium with the title "I have a dream...that I will win a gold medal in gymnastics". OK, I was a little too young to understand what Martin Luther Kings Jr's speech was about. In college I took History of the Modern Olympics. Yes, it was a real course. My own gymnastics career turned out to be quite lackluster. I received one 15th place ribbon which I still proudly hang, but I quickly realized the closest I would ever get to the Olympics would be in the stands.
Two years ago when we decided to move from Chicago to Amsterdam my husband Stephen and I excitedly talked about all the amazing places we would visit. High on our list was attending the Athens 2004 Olympic games.
Late in 2003 we were able to buy tickets for women's team gymnastics finals via the internet. We bought four tickets with plans on meeting friends from Chicago in Athens. We soon heard that the event was sold out. Our Olympic fever was in full swing. We rushed to travel agents in the Amsterdam area specializing in travel to Greece. When we told the travel agents we wanted information on hotels in Athens during the Olympics, they simply told us, "sold out". We were shocked and we didn't believe them. How could the hotels be sold out? Aren't the news programs telling us nobody wants to go to Athens? We decided to wait a few more months and see what happens as the Olympics gets closer.
As the summer approached we were still looking for affordable hotel and airfare prices. We were told every room in Athens was 500 euros a night! Even for a budget hotels that usually go for 60 euro a night. Our friends from Chicago backed out of coming to Greece due to the cost. We were getting really discouraged. With all the traveling we have done since we arrived and all the traveling we want to do there was no way we could spend that much money on one trip. So we decided there will be other Olympics and we would try and sell our tickets.
First we tried to sell out tickets by word of mouth, but no one knew anyone who was going to the Olympics. A few weeks before the games we put the tickets on ebay hoping to make our money back as each ticket was 200 Euro. No one was interested in our tickets.
We couldn't bear on seeing the tickets go unused so Stephen started searching the internet for last minute airfares and hotel deals. Amazingly, he found a flight from Brussels to Athens that allowed us two full days. He even found a hotel room that was affordable. He booked this on Friday, August 13. That night we celebrated while watching the opening ceremonies knowing we would be there on Tuesday morning.
Monday, August 16, after Stephen returned from work we headed to central station to catch the train to Brussels so we could take our 1:40 AM flight to Athens. We arrived in Athens on a plane full of Belgian Equestrian fans at 5:45 AM. We hopped on a city bus that an hour later dropped us off in the Pareius area near our hotel. We dropped off our luggage and excitedly headed to the tram to take us to the Olympic stadium.
The tram from where we were staying to the Olympic stadium was a 45 minute ride. We were shocked at the size of Athens. After living in Amsterdam we forgot that you can be on a train for 45 minutes and still be in the same city.
We arrived at the Olympics stadium just in time to see swimming preliminaries begin. We bought tickets and went through security that was similar to what you experience at the airport but with out the waiting.
Upon entering the Aquatic center the first thing you see is the warm up/cool down swimming pool. This is where the swimmers train. It was packed with amazingly fit bodies swimming laps. All around the pool athletes were getting massages and physical check-up by their trainers. It was very cool to see.
We then headed to the pool where the event was taking place. It was very surreal to have seen the pool on TV just the day before and now being there. We watched two hours of qualifying heats and saw Ian Thorpe, Pieter v.d. Hoogenband, and Amanda Beard swim. After swimming we decided to walk around the Olympic complex, soak up the atmosphere and grab lunch.
We noticed that everyone seemed to be wearing their national colors and country's name proudly boasted on t-shirts except for the Americans. The Americans, including us, were dressed in regular everyday clothes.
After stocking up on Olympic t-shirts, hats and pins we decided to grab lunch. We were looking forward to trying some Greek food. However, the only food that the food stands had left were hotdogs. We decided to try our luck at the enormous McDonalds in the Olympic complex. My vegetarian husband had to enjoy French fries for lunch.
The all-nighter we pulled was starting to catch up with us so we rode the train back to our hotel to take a nap before the gymnastics event that night. We returned to the Olympic complex about two hours before the competition was to begin in order to sell our friends tickets. The moment we got off the train several people were coming up to us saying, "Gymnastics tickets?". Uh-oh, it looked like a lot of people had tickets to sell. It took us an hour and a half to sell two tickets worth 400 Euros for 100 Euros.
As night fell we excitedly walked into the Gymnastics arena. We found our seats behind the parallel bars and were able to get a glimpse of the gymnasts warming up. Before we knew it the competition had begun. I was amazed at how quickly the event moved along. I am so used to watching gymnastics on TV with constant commercial interruptions. The Gold Medal Romanians were the clearly the crowd favorite but it was really great to watch the US win the silver medal.
Unfortunately I wasn't able to fulfill my dream of competing in the Olympics but it was amazing getting to see it live...I should've tried harder!
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