We arrived early, about an hour and half before the advertised time for the beginning. Had a good time mingling in the Olympic Family Lounge withhold curling friends from Canada, Australia, Germany, Sweden, Scotland, France, and the USA.
("Mingling" with curling friends basically means drinking lots of free alcohol.)
We had a great time until the Canadians and Australians started inadvertently knocking into the poor Russian gals who were trying to navigate full trays of wine through the densely packed crowd.
This commotion created quite the scene amongst the "Olympic Family," so I quickly announced that we were with "international hockey," on hopes of creating some semblance of a cover story.
The word soon started to spread that the ceremonies wouldn't start until 8:14 pm as opposed to the 7pm advertised start time. I announcing to all that "you know why this is right? ...Putin was born on August 14! Didnt you know?"
I have never seen people buy something hook, line and sinker as this false claim. Wow. I think it actually started to spread virally through the stadium. :-)
Once seated in the 40,000 seat Fischt arena, you could really feel the excitement building. As usual, we were given several props for the show which primarily consisted of an Olympic themed blanket (very handy as temps were dropping) and a medallion that would light up as a part of the scripted choreography of the show.
Though I felt a little bit like Favor Flav, I was pumped, sitting next to my good friend Young Kim, the WCF VP from Seoul. I looked around and within twenty feet of me were at enfold of countries represented.....this is what this event is all about. Big smiles from me.
As the show was about to start the Russian army choir performed their take on Daft Punk's "Get Lucky" which was led by some Russian General scooting around on a Segway. To say it was surreal would be an understatement. I understand that this wasn't aired back in the US.....you folks really missed out. Wow.
Once the show started it was pretty awesome: An incredible display of theatrics and special effects and a recounting of the entirety of Russian history. (When I say entirety, I mean entirety....it was a tad long :-)) but very enjoyable.
I love seeing the teams come out. My favorites are always the Greeks (first), the Irish (there are winter sports in Ireland?), the Caribbeans (really?), our neighbors in Canada, and of course watching our guys come out behind Old Glory herself.
The Russians made a grand entrance but my favorite of the night was Germany. I don't know if it was all the "mingling" with te curlers, but I am pretty sure they were donning rainbow colored jackets, which I took to be a big, big FU to...shall we say Russian politics.
The event concluded with the always powerful lighting of the flame. I ran into many US athletes afterwards, including our curlers.
Wonderful way to start what will surely be a great couple of weeks.
The opening ceremonies were pretty awesome. Long but pretty awesome.
We arrived early, about an hour and half before the advertised time for the beginning. Had a good time mingling in the Olympic Family Lounge withhold curling friends from Canada, Australia, Germany, Sweden, Scotland, France, and the USA.
("Mingling" with curling friends basically means drinking lots of free alcohol.)
We had a great time until the Canadians and Australians started inadvertently knocking into the poor Russian gals who were trying to navigate full trays of wine through the densely packed crowd.
This commotion created quite the scene amongst the "Olympic Family," so I quickly announced that we were with "international hockey," on hopes of creating some semblance of a cover story.
The word soon started to spread that the ceremonies wouldn't start until 8:14 pm as opposed to the 7pm advertised start time. I announcing to all that "you know why this is right? ...Putin was born on August 14! Didnt you know?"
I have never seen people buy something hook, line and sinker as this false claim. Wow. I think it actually started to spread virally through the stadium. :-)
Once seated in the 40,000 seat Fischt arena, you could really feel the excitement building. As usual, we were given several props for the show which primarily consisted of an Olympic themed blanket (very handy as temps were dropping) and a medallion that would light up as a part of the scripted choreography of the show.
Though I felt a little bit like Favor Flav, I was pumped, sitting next to my good friend Young Kim, the WCF VP from Seoul. I looked around and within twenty feet of me were at enfold of countries represented.....this is what this event is all about. Big smiles from me.
As the show was about to start the Russian army choir performed their take on Daft Punk's "Get Lucky" which was led by some Russian General scooting around on a Segway. To say it was surreal would be an understatement. I understand that this wasn't aired back in the US.....you folks really missed out. Wow.
Once the show started it was pretty awesome: An incredible display of theatrics and special effects and a recounting of the entirety of Russian history. (When I say entirety, I mean entirety....it was a tad long :-)) but very enjoyable.
I love seeing the teams come out. My favorites are always the Greeks (first), the Irish (there are winter sports in Ireland?), the Caribbeans (really?), our neighbors in Canada, and of course watching our guys come out behind Old Glory herself.
The Russians made a grand entrance but my favorite of the night was Germany. I don't know if it was all the "mingling" with te curlers, but I am pretty sure they were donning rainbow colored jackets, which I took to be a big, big FU to...shall we say Russian politics.
The event concluded with the always powerful lighting of the flame. I ran into many US athletes afterwards, including our curlers.
Wonderful way to start what will surely be a great couple of weeks.
