I'm a little behind!

First of all, I can't believe I'm at the Olympics! I've waited "a few" years for this and the fact that it is finally here is pretty amazing. I also have to thank my dear friend and former duet partner Rebecca "Becky" Martin for setting this up for me. She was very adamant about it and of course felt that everyone would love to hear about the Olympic experience, Lauren stlye.
Here's a quick recap, since I am a little behind.
August 5
We left for the Olympics today with a fabulous brunch and party in our honor thrown by our head coach, Chris Carver. Michele, our assistant coach topped off the morning by ordering a very randy Austin Powers to wish us good luck, it was hilarious. I'm sure it's shocking but he managed to get me to come forward and perform a little dance with him and our fabulous Synchro Dad Ken Azebu who perhaps is not as outgoing as myself. I think he really showed me up though! Complete with a Hummer limo, we were on our way to the airport.
August 6
Whew, survived the plane ride, a few of us got to be in the preferred seating area on the plane which had so much legroom that my teammate, Becky Jasontek, decided to sleep on the floor,(I only stepped on her head twice, oops!)
We arrived at the village, after the bus made about 4 U-turns (safety precaution?) and went through a very thorough screening of our luggage. After being in our Olympic Village apartment for about um, 30 seconds, we grabbed our suits and headed to the pool.
We had the pool all to ourselves so we decided to mark our territory by pouring water from our home pool, into the competition pool. We are now masters of our domain.
August 7-9 ( I don't want to keep you here all day)
We have since pounded the water daily and had some good practices, and some ugly ones. We have dined next to the Chinese basketball team and the Venezuelan gymnastics team. (We fit in somewhere in the middle I suppose) We have mastered the bus sysytem in the village to save our legs and our extension. We attended the Flag Raising ceremony. I even did an interview with Der Spiegel (a german magazine) Unfortunately, the majority of the vocabulary that I remembered included words like good, bad, nice, happy. I don't think the reporter was terribly impressed with me so perhaps there will be no debut for me in Spiegel magazine. We also found the Iraqi swimmer that I met at the World Championships in Barcelona. He introduced us to his teammates from Judo, Tae Kwon Do, and wrestling. There were a few uncomfortable references to bombs and missles but I tried very hard to ignore them and just smile. I guess it worked because we all took pictures together and even ended up in the Olympic Village newspaper!
We also have our very own Secret Service Security Agent named Terry. However we have dubbed him "Superman" since he is going to be responsible for the 10 of us for the next three weeks. That's quite a job! He even comes complete with dark sunglasses and a very official earpiece. And he says, "Copy that" a lot which I think is way cool! I since then have decided to end every sentence with "Copy that" as well but I think if I keep that up I will be pummeled soon.
August 10
Today was Stephanie, our youngest member's 19th birthday! The night before we put up a big poster with lots of pictures of Puppys (that's her nickmame) and wiener dogs (because she really wants one) Shasta (Becky Jasontek) even found a poem called "Ode to the Wiener Dog" We also strung streamers from her door, but I guess she got up to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night and discovered them early. We had an incredibly intense practice (you get picked on more when it's your b-day too). Last year on her birthday we were leaving for Pan Ams the next day, and on our swim through, we dropped her on the cement during our deckwork. Oops! Fortunately there were no injuries this year, just party hats and cookies and a mention in the USA Daily (the USA delegation newspaper) All in all, a very good day.
August 11
Tonight was very special for me. As team captain I have a lot of responsibilities but one of the coolest ones yet was to be on the committee to nominate the flag bearer for the United States in the Opening Ceremonies. It was an hour and a half meeting where 14 nominees were introduced and spoken about. What an amazing group of people there are in these Games. The nominees were from rowing, diving, Modern Pentathalon, Beach Volleyball, Swimming, Athletics, Judo, Shooting, Wquestrain, Women's Basketball, Wrestling, Sailing,Fencing, and I got to nominate our very own Becky Jasontek. There were people that were a part of their 10th Olympic Games (an athlete and a coach), a man with testicular cancer poised to still win gold at this Olympics, military nominees, 2 and three time Olympic Gold Medalists and several others. I do know the winner, but I am not allowed to tell anyone because it will be announced exclusively on the Today Show tomorrow. But it was really neat to be a part of it.
Well, I really need to get to sleep, I just had to set this up before the Games were over! Lots of love to you all, what amazing friends and family I have. Think good thoughts!
Love,
Lauren