Friday, October 3, 2008
9:00 am
Oktoberfest is here. Walking to the subway to begin the gauntlet. Amie, jesse, gay todd, swollen knee jim and I are heading to the tents now. Liter count and updates to follow.
Davr
Davr
Thursday, October 2, 2008
Munich
Testing remote blog update. On train from Varrona to munich. Meeting Jesse tonight to chill out before going for gold tomorrow afternoon. Laura and tried the 4x100 medley beer relay. Tomorrow I'm going for my everest. 4 liters of the dunkel at the fest.
Dave
Dave
Thursday, August 21, 2008
Olympics......Finally
Sunday we finally headed to the Olympic villiage in search of Gold. After the driver decided to take us on a circle of Beijing before we got him headed to the right place. Dropped off in front of the birds nest we anxiosly made our way inside.
Security was tight and it was early so we walked around taking it all in. Much to our pleasure guess what we found at the snack booths? Beer! Deciding now that Laura and I going for gold our selves in the 4X10 Beer Meadly Relay we had to get started. We had a good showing in the forbidden city where shortly after noon we had a beer in the sacred garden. The next day we followed up a strong performance on the great wall with beers on the wall, 9:00 am. This was a hair of the dog effort so extra points. Today we broke the seal with a 8:45 AM performance in the middle of the village. For some reason there is no shame in this since it is late evening in the states and the Chinese don't judge. We will ramp up our efforts since in the Olympic village beers are 5 yuan (eighty five cents). Walked the village and went into "The Cube" early to watch swimming warm ups. We hope to complete our beerlympics with a strong final showing in the events tomorrow.
Saw Phelps and the others in the practice pool. Dara was actually getting stretched out in the main hall so I snuck in behind her for a picture. If you don't know who she is she is the 4 time Olympian who took Silver in a single event and helped the women take gold in the relay all at age 41!
Then came the history breaking moment. 4x100 mens medley relay. You saw it on tv so I won't elaborate but Team USA with Phelps took the gold handing Phelps his 8th and final Gold in Beijing!
After the race I caught a swim cap from Jensen (5th in the 1500 free) and met Bella Karoli.
A few hours to kill before the gymnastics so we walked the village. Unlike the plethora of cheap beer we were facing having little to eat. The snack booths had only snack like items including a box of rice and meat that self heated (like those Marine meals). Normally we'd be all over the local food but not this time. Not wanting to leave the village we took the only other option that I am ashamed of. For the second time in my traveling history I was forced to go to McDonald's over seas. Somehow having a beer with your BigMac makes it a little better but I'm not proud of myself.
Into the Arena for Gymnastics. We walked the joint looking for Steve Butcher who is the FIG US president and Olympic judge. Steve and I met in college and havn't really stayed in touch but I was hoping he'd remember me. We later found out that he had already left Beijing to return home due to the poor health of his mother.
The meet was good and after explaining the scoring to Laura we still couldn't help some of the people were gypped on scoring. It made me want to get a pommel horse and start doing that again to stay in shape but alas.....I have no where to put it and I'm extremely lazy now.
We are off to an early start tomorrow to go out to the Women's Triathlon event in the morning. More tomorrow.
Security was tight and it was early so we walked around taking it all in. Much to our pleasure guess what we found at the snack booths? Beer! Deciding now that Laura and I going for gold our selves in the 4X10 Beer Meadly Relay we had to get started. We had a good showing in the forbidden city where shortly after noon we had a beer in the sacred garden. The next day we followed up a strong performance on the great wall with beers on the wall, 9:00 am. This was a hair of the dog effort so extra points. Today we broke the seal with a 8:45 AM performance in the middle of the village. For some reason there is no shame in this since it is late evening in the states and the Chinese don't judge. We will ramp up our efforts since in the Olympic village beers are 5 yuan (eighty five cents). Walked the village and went into "The Cube" early to watch swimming warm ups. We hope to complete our beerlympics with a strong final showing in the events tomorrow.
Saw Phelps and the others in the practice pool. Dara was actually getting stretched out in the main hall so I snuck in behind her for a picture. If you don't know who she is she is the 4 time Olympian who took Silver in a single event and helped the women take gold in the relay all at age 41!
Then came the history breaking moment. 4x100 mens medley relay. You saw it on tv so I won't elaborate but Team USA with Phelps took the gold handing Phelps his 8th and final Gold in Beijing!
After the race I caught a swim cap from Jensen (5th in the 1500 free) and met Bella Karoli.
A few hours to kill before the gymnastics so we walked the village. Unlike the plethora of cheap beer we were facing having little to eat. The snack booths had only snack like items including a box of rice and meat that self heated (like those Marine meals). Normally we'd be all over the local food but not this time. Not wanting to leave the village we took the only other option that I am ashamed of. For the second time in my traveling history I was forced to go to McDonald's over seas. Somehow having a beer with your BigMac makes it a little better but I'm not proud of myself.
Into the Arena for Gymnastics. We walked the joint looking for Steve Butcher who is the FIG US president and Olympic judge. Steve and I met in college and havn't really stayed in touch but I was hoping he'd remember me. We later found out that he had already left Beijing to return home due to the poor health of his mother.
The meet was good and after explaining the scoring to Laura we still couldn't help some of the people were gypped on scoring. It made me want to get a pommel horse and start doing that again to stay in shape but alas.....I have no where to put it and I'm extremely lazy now.
We are off to an early start tomorrow to go out to the Women's Triathlon event in the morning. More tomorrow.
Sunday, August 17, 2008
Laura who, the wall and drinking again and foot massages
I forgot to tell you yesterday. Apparently Laura doesn't exist. I know this is modern China but if you don't have a twig and two berry you don't really exist here. The wait staff in almost every establishment doesn't really respond to you unless you are the "man of the house". Laura can't get served to save her life. She would signal to them to no end but when I simply raise my eye browse I get 3 people to help me. They would even fill my beer up with hers while leaving her glass half empty. If only I could get this tradition to follow me back to the states we could curb ugly fat pathetic male impotence immediately in the US. Granted Prozac sales would plummet but I'm willing to take that risk as long as I can short Pfizer first.
6:30 came like your mother waking you up for Sunday School. This was actually a pinnacle of the trip. We entered our private car that Laura set up for us (Thanks Laura and ViaSystems!) and headed to the Great Wall of China! Peter our over zealous tourguide who decided to share with along the way that he was basically what is wrong with Americanized sensibility in China. He is an overweight Chinaman (they do exist) who likes to just play video games all day, lives with his girlfriend and can't be bothered to actually do anything. She is a surgeon's assistant, makes more money than he does, is not attractive and has little ambition in life. In a country where the women outnumber the men in a pretty bad ratio I weep for the future of this country.
Back to the Wall. We get there and I have only really one word........un-believable! The advice we got from the people in the hotel the day before paid off. Getting there early resulted in the wall to our selves. Sun was up, sky was clear, weather was cool and no huddled masses of camera hoarding ass monkey's to get in your way. Peter took us up the stairs (he was winded getting to the tram) the left us for a 45 min to explore the way. Can't say enough. This was fantastic, I will post pictures soon. I overheard one tour guide say that he had NEVER in his life been able to see Beijing from the wall. So clear, so beautiful, so green so........thirsty. So you have to commemorate a moment like the only way we know how, beer. So we bought a can of beer to cheers our concerning of the Mongols as if we had laid the bricks our selves. This was actually a two prong accomplishment. One was to celebrate our awesomeness and the other was to get a hair of the dog to put our hangover at bay. We ditched Peter to walk down the wall and take the toboggan down instead of the tram. Returned to the hotel and took a nap. Sorry the chink (pun intended) in the armor is showing.
This is now Laura entering...After Dave finally woke up from a 3 hour nap, yes 3 hours, LOSER, we met up again and went shopping. His favorite past-time, we went to the Silk/Pearl market, fake knock off shit of Beijing. I could not go to Beijing without doing some of my famous China shopping, looking for knock off jeans, clothing, and of course purses! Well, Dave, being a man, put a little damper in my shopping. He thought all the items were crap and we just kept walking. I trying to get him in the shopping mood talked him into his first ever foot massage. There were all these little booths that did foot massages and we finally stopped, I wanted the 55 minute, he asked if I really expected him to sit there for that long, I told him he would regret it and we agreed on a 30 minute foot massage. Let's put it this way--Amie, get ready Dave wants one every day now and paid for my massage for making him stop. He is still talking about how good his feet feel--that little shit I should have made him buy a purse and he would have still been talking about the bargain, but at least we stopped for foot massage. Then to a great Western Random pub we found after our feet felt so good and smooth, we stopped for a number of beers, salad, and pizza (at least it had duck on it--but could not do Beijing duck one more night). Then to bed early, the alarm went off at 6:30am again today to finally watch some sporting events!!
Games are tomorrow....
6:30 came like your mother waking you up for Sunday School. This was actually a pinnacle of the trip. We entered our private car that Laura set up for us (Thanks Laura and ViaSystems!) and headed to the Great Wall of China! Peter our over zealous tourguide who decided to share with along the way that he was basically what is wrong with Americanized sensibility in China. He is an overweight Chinaman (they do exist) who likes to just play video games all day, lives with his girlfriend and can't be bothered to actually do anything. She is a surgeon's assistant, makes more money than he does, is not attractive and has little ambition in life. In a country where the women outnumber the men in a pretty bad ratio I weep for the future of this country.
Back to the Wall. We get there and I have only really one word........un-believable! The advice we got from the people in the hotel the day before paid off. Getting there early resulted in the wall to our selves. Sun was up, sky was clear, weather was cool and no huddled masses of camera hoarding ass monkey's to get in your way. Peter took us up the stairs (he was winded getting to the tram) the left us for a 45 min to explore the way. Can't say enough. This was fantastic, I will post pictures soon. I overheard one tour guide say that he had NEVER in his life been able to see Beijing from the wall. So clear, so beautiful, so green so........thirsty. So you have to commemorate a moment like the only way we know how, beer. So we bought a can of beer to cheers our concerning of the Mongols as if we had laid the bricks our selves. This was actually a two prong accomplishment. One was to celebrate our awesomeness and the other was to get a hair of the dog to put our hangover at bay. We ditched Peter to walk down the wall and take the toboggan down instead of the tram. Returned to the hotel and took a nap. Sorry the chink (pun intended) in the armor is showing.
This is now Laura entering...After Dave finally woke up from a 3 hour nap, yes 3 hours, LOSER, we met up again and went shopping. His favorite past-time, we went to the Silk/Pearl market, fake knock off shit of Beijing. I could not go to Beijing without doing some of my famous China shopping, looking for knock off jeans, clothing, and of course purses! Well, Dave, being a man, put a little damper in my shopping. He thought all the items were crap and we just kept walking. I trying to get him in the shopping mood talked him into his first ever foot massage. There were all these little booths that did foot massages and we finally stopped, I wanted the 55 minute, he asked if I really expected him to sit there for that long, I told him he would regret it and we agreed on a 30 minute foot massage. Let's put it this way--Amie, get ready Dave wants one every day now and paid for my massage for making him stop. He is still talking about how good his feet feel--that little shit I should have made him buy a purse and he would have still been talking about the bargain, but at least we stopped for foot massage. Then to a great Western Random pub we found after our feet felt so good and smooth, we stopped for a number of beers, salad, and pizza (at least it had duck on it--but could not do Beijing duck one more night). Then to bed early, the alarm went off at 6:30am again today to finally watch some sporting events!!
Games are tomorrow....
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