Day Off

“Everything here will kill you,” says Paul Manning-Hunter as he studies a small spider on the side-walk. I can’t help but think that this may be true. Yesterday morning I was in the bathroom, still a bit groggy after waking up and I see these tiny, wriggling antennae in my peripheral. I turn my head slowly to the right and realize that, eewwww, it’s a cockroach. I grab the dustpan and smack it against the wall, watch the cockroach drop to the ground and miraculously disappear, I’m not sure if I killed it or not. Normally I am against killing bugs or animals, but this creepy-crawly was in my personal space and it was early in the morning. I stand by my case.

We were able to watch the opening ceremonies today. To be honest they were a little bit disappointing, but I was excited to see some of my classmates in the athletes’ march. We are sending good karma to the Canadian athletes and will try to catch any and all events that we can.

Today was our first full day off and we were able to sleep in to 8 o’clock and then travel into Sydney for some sightseeing. We saw Darling Harbour and the Opera House and walked around a little bit downtown, nothing especially exciting. I found myself to be sprawled out on the ground quite often today. The bricks were a little slick and my sandals were not in the best shape. One too many face-plants later I broke down and bought a new pair of thongs as the Aussie’s call them. No more scraped knees for me.

The freestyle women’s moguls were today and although we were not able to find a TV that was showing the event, we commandeered a computer in an electronics store. No live video stream, but we did get to see live results. The employees even came over and watched the results with us. Good times… Congratulations on you silver medal, Jenn.

Marissa, Jess, Thea, and Zoe with the Opera House

Street in front of the Opera House that Simon Whitfield ran down to win the Olympic Gold in triathlon at the Sydney Games in 2000