The night we arrived we had some trouble finding our apartment. People here speak mostly no English. It is RARE when you find someone who knows some. Turns out we were in the wrong building. Would have been an easy fix had we and the doorman known what the heck the other was saying LOL. We went to sleep that night and woke up excited to head to Parque de Olimpico!
We watched Australia play Italy and then next up was the USA vs. China. They played amazing. The pool complex was amazing despite the water not being clear. I'm sure a lot of you have seen on TV that the water polo pool is quite murky and the diving pool is completely green! After the game we explored the Olympic Park. We found some tickets to a basketball game and SWIMMING! Even tho I have seen the Olympics three times, I have never seen the swimming. Our basketball game was scheduled to be at 7, however, "something was wrong with the gym" so they wouldn't let us in. We waited in a huge, gigantic line and waited to hear the news. We figured it had to do with a threat of some sort. Turns out it was a bomb threat that had been investigated. We finally went in and got to see Nigeria vs Spain, including NBA player Pau Gasol. It turned out to be a very competitive game that was a lot of fun to watch. Next was swimming which started at 10:30PM! It definitely accommodates the American TV watching schedule. We got to see Michael Phelps win the 200IM, Ryan Murphy win the 200 Back, and Simone Manuel win the 100 freestyle, being the first ever African American female winning a Gold in an individual event. The medal ceremonies are very emotional as you get to watch your flag rise up while you are on the podium. Swimming wasn't over until about 12:45 and we hadn't figured out how to get home yet since it was our first day. We couldnt catch a taxi or uber from where we were at the park, so we tried to figure out a bus... Unsuccessful! The language barrier is so difficult and we ended up walking to where we could get a taxi. Its never good around here to be out late at night, so we just wanted to get home as quickly as possible.
A complete water polo session, basketball and swimming, not bad for the first day! We definitely packed it in and had incredible experiences. We all talked about how we could possibly top a day like this. After checking our phones we realized we all walked between 8 or 9 miles and it was about 2 in the morning... Hence not writing a blog :) We were very happy to be home safe and ready to rest!
Pictures from the day below:
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