Olympics Footnote
Yes, we really can't let the Olympics go... Its kind of surreal seeing them on TV after actually having been there. There is also the added bonus of Egypt getting their first gold medal since London 1948. Never mind that we were sitting watching the Greco-Roman Wrestling and ridiculing it with them the day before their man took home the gold. A gold medal is a gold medal.
We have also been able to follow all the furore of the "Lay Down Sally" incident. We just realised we had talked to couple at the Australia-Italy Baseball match who had a daughter who was in the Rowing Eights. Her name definitely wasn't Sally, but the name Lindsey is ringing a bell even though a fruitless search hasn't been able to confirm a Lindsey in the Eights for us.
Whilst packing our bikes into cardboard boxes at the airport, two members of the Swiss Women's cycling team came along to put their high-tech bike boxes through the oversized luggage section. We got chatting to one and asked her how her games had been, was she happy with her results and would she be at Beijing. We told her we had been at the Men's Road Race, the Time Trial and the Track Cycling. We didn't realise until we later saw a photo of the Women's Time Trial winners that we had been chatting to Karin Thuerig who had won Bronze.
Missed a great photo opportunity, but that's another reason to go to Beijing!
Footnote: Banz reckons he recognised her but didn't want to say anything, but I'm not so sure....
Thursday, August 12, 2004
Where to spot us at the Olympics, and
we need your suggestions for a banner. We figure that this will probably be our only personal visit to the Olympics (well, until Brisbane 2016, or Stockton 2020), so we're going the whole hog and want to do a tacky banner so you can pick us out of the crowd when you're watching Australia vs India in the Men's Hockey (you were going to watch that anyway weren't you?). So add any suggestions you have (preferably clever and witty - reflects better on us that way) to the tag-board.
Anyway, our events (so far) are -
(All times are Greek times, for England minus 2 hours, for Queensland, add 7 hours and everyone else go to timeanddate.com).
Saturday 14th August
12:45 - 19:10
Men's Cycling Road Race
Men's Cycling Road Race Medal Ceremony
Sunday 15th August
10:30 - 13:30
Men's Baseball Preliminaries - Cuba vs Australia
18:00 - 21:30
Men's Hockey Preliminaries - Korea vs Spain
Men's Hockey Preliminaries - Great Britain vs Egypt
Monday 16th August
17:00 - 23:00
Tennis
Men's Singles First Round
Women's Singles First Round
Men's Doubles First Round
Women's Doubles First Round
Wednesday 18th August
13:00 - 19:00
Women's Cycling Individual Time Trial
Women's Cycling Individual Time Trial Medal Ceremony
Men's Cycling Individual Time Trial
Men's Cycling Individual Time Trial Medal Ceremony
Thursday 19th August
18:30 - 22:00
Men's Hockey Preliminaries - Great Britain vs Spain
Men's Hockey Preliminaries - Australia vs India
Friday 20th August
20:00 - 0:00
Women's Basketball Preliminaries - Australia vs Greece
Women's Basketball Preliminaries - Nigeria vs Brazil
Saturday 21st August
19:30 - 21:00
Swimming
Women's 50m Freestyle Final
Men's 1500m Freestyle Final
Women's 50m Freestyle Medal Ceremony
Women's 4 x 100m Medley Relay Final
Men's 1500m Freestyle Medal Ceremony
Men's 4 x 100m Medley Relay Final
Women's 4 x 100m Medley Relay Medal Ceremony
Men's 4 x 100m Medley Relay Medal Ceremony
Sunday 22nd August
Cycling Track
Women's Sprint 1/8 Finals
Men's Sprint 1/16 Finals
Women's Sprint 1/8 Finals Repechages
Men's Sprint 1/16 Repechages
Women's Individual Pursuit Final 3-4
Women's Individual Pursuit Final 1-2
Women's Individual Pursuit Medal Ceremony
Men's Sprint 1/8 Finals
Men's Team Pursuit First Round
Men's Sprint 1/8 Finals Repechages
we need your suggestions for a banner. We figure that this will probably be our only personal visit to the Olympics (well, until Brisbane 2016, or Stockton 2020), so we're going the whole hog and want to do a tacky banner so you can pick us out of the crowd when you're watching Australia vs India in the Men's Hockey (you were going to watch that anyway weren't you?). So add any suggestions you have (preferably clever and witty - reflects better on us that way) to the tag-board.
Anyway, our events (so far) are -
(All times are Greek times, for England minus 2 hours, for Queensland, add 7 hours and everyone else go to timeanddate.com).
Saturday 14th August
12:45 - 19:10
Men's Cycling Road Race
Men's Cycling Road Race Medal Ceremony
Sunday 15th August
10:30 - 13:30
Men's Baseball Preliminaries - Cuba vs Australia
18:00 - 21:30
Men's Hockey Preliminaries - Korea vs Spain
Men's Hockey Preliminaries - Great Britain vs Egypt
Monday 16th August
17:00 - 23:00
Tennis
Men's Singles First Round
Women's Singles First Round
Men's Doubles First Round
Women's Doubles First Round
Wednesday 18th August
13:00 - 19:00
Women's Cycling Individual Time Trial
Women's Cycling Individual Time Trial Medal Ceremony
Men's Cycling Individual Time Trial
Men's Cycling Individual Time Trial Medal Ceremony
Thursday 19th August
18:30 - 22:00
Men's Hockey Preliminaries - Great Britain vs Spain
Men's Hockey Preliminaries - Australia vs India
Friday 20th August
20:00 - 0:00
Women's Basketball Preliminaries - Australia vs Greece
Women's Basketball Preliminaries - Nigeria vs Brazil
Saturday 21st August
19:30 - 21:00
Swimming
Women's 50m Freestyle Final
Men's 1500m Freestyle Final
Women's 50m Freestyle Medal Ceremony
Women's 4 x 100m Medley Relay Final
Men's 1500m Freestyle Medal Ceremony
Men's 4 x 100m Medley Relay Final
Women's 4 x 100m Medley Relay Medal Ceremony
Men's 4 x 100m Medley Relay Medal Ceremony
Sunday 22nd August
Cycling Track
Women's Sprint 1/8 Finals
Men's Sprint 1/16 Finals
Women's Sprint 1/8 Finals Repechages
Men's Sprint 1/16 Repechages
Women's Individual Pursuit Final 3-4
Women's Individual Pursuit Final 1-2
Women's Individual Pursuit Medal Ceremony
Men's Sprint 1/8 Finals
Men's Team Pursuit First Round
Men's Sprint 1/8 Finals Repechages
No relation to Olympia Dukakis
Well as you can imagine there is talk of nothing else in Greece besides the Olympics. The Banseys have also been caught by this excitement and can only imagine that this will reach fever pitch by the time we reach Athens tomorrow night.
Today, we thought we would get in the mood with a day trip to Olympia. We're currently staying in Pyrgos, a pretty, small town on the coast about 100km south of Patras. From here we caught a bus to Olympia. The journey should only take half an hour, but our bus was packed with Greek pensioners who'd made the journey to market and were on their way home laden with goods. This stretched the trip close to the hour mark as they were dropped off at various tin sheds in the middle of nowhere.
We finally reached Olympia and had a quick look in the Museum which housed the antiquities found at the site as well as giving an overview of the history of the ancient games. We then wandered down to the site itself. As you can imagine it was besieged by American, German and French tourist packs all following their leaders like sheep. If there is one reason for independant travel, then surely this is it. Luckily for us the site is large enough for you to wander off in any direction and lose the hordes.
Whilst the ruins haven't been excavated to the extent of say, Pompei, there is plenty to see and the feeling from being in this place of history was definitely worth the journey and wandering around in the Greek midday sun (mad dogs and Englishmen.... and Aussies). You can understand why they have no trouble lighting the Olympic flame from here. In the aforementioned Greek midday sun we had the hilarious site of a German presenter having to film a piece where he had to run the length of the ancient running track before saying a few words to camera. The cameraman obviously had it in for him as he had to do it twice whist we were there. After the second attempt, the presenter did his run and speaking part and then headed straight for the shade of an olive tree (definitely the smartest way to escape the heat).
A good site with more info about Olympia can be found here.
Well as you can imagine there is talk of nothing else in Greece besides the Olympics. The Banseys have also been caught by this excitement and can only imagine that this will reach fever pitch by the time we reach Athens tomorrow night.
Today, we thought we would get in the mood with a day trip to Olympia. We're currently staying in Pyrgos, a pretty, small town on the coast about 100km south of Patras. From here we caught a bus to Olympia. The journey should only take half an hour, but our bus was packed with Greek pensioners who'd made the journey to market and were on their way home laden with goods. This stretched the trip close to the hour mark as they were dropped off at various tin sheds in the middle of nowhere.
We finally reached Olympia and had a quick look in the Museum which housed the antiquities found at the site as well as giving an overview of the history of the ancient games. We then wandered down to the site itself. As you can imagine it was besieged by American, German and French tourist packs all following their leaders like sheep. If there is one reason for independant travel, then surely this is it. Luckily for us the site is large enough for you to wander off in any direction and lose the hordes.
Whilst the ruins haven't been excavated to the extent of say, Pompei, there is plenty to see and the feeling from being in this place of history was definitely worth the journey and wandering around in the Greek midday sun (mad dogs and Englishmen.... and Aussies). You can understand why they have no trouble lighting the Olympic flame from here. In the aforementioned Greek midday sun we had the hilarious site of a German presenter having to film a piece where he had to run the length of the ancient running track before saying a few words to camera. The cameraman obviously had it in for him as he had to do it twice whist we were there. After the second attempt, the presenter did his run and speaking part and then headed straight for the shade of an olive tree (definitely the smartest way to escape the heat).
A good site with more info about Olympia can be found here.
Monday, August 02, 2004
Fallen Hurdles
Well our plan to cycle to the Mani Peninsula fell at the first hurdle.
At the top of the big hill on our way out of Kalamata, we came across Diana Rooms. The views are amazing as from our room we look out over the mountains and sea. The room has untold luxuries (for us anyway) of a fridge, tv and air-conditioning all for a very reasonable price. So, within about two minutes of arriving we quickly decided that we'll stay here for a week, chill, read and watch telly (the Greeks have the right idea of subtitling english shows instead of dubbing them that the French and Italians do) and use this as a base to explore Mani.
So far, we haven't moved far from the room in case we miss an episode of Lizzy Maguire or The World's Funniest Commercials, but we plan to.
After our week in the sun, we're heading back north to pay our respects at Olympia (maybe an offering or two to the gods for the Aussie Olympic Team), before making our way on to Athens for the Games themselves. We've managed to book into a Youth Hostel Dorm for our stay, as the prices some of the hoteliers are charging would scare a Saudi prince. We looked up one hotel we stayed at two years ago on a visit to Athens and the islands. We paid 40 Euros then. We looked it up a week ago and its charging 380 Euros a night now. It was barely worth 40.
Book Crossing
Whilst reading an imported copy of The Sunday Times (Banz had to read about an English cricketing victory in as much detail as possible), we read about this site, BookCrossing.com. A simple, but great idea (as all good websites are), where when you've finished reading a book, you "release it" into the world after writing a review on BookCrossing's site. We've been doing a similar thing with putting the Big Trip's URL into books that we've left behind, but on the site you're able to actually leave a note where you've left it and people can "go hunting". For our reading list, go here.
Well our plan to cycle to the Mani Peninsula fell at the first hurdle.
At the top of the big hill on our way out of Kalamata, we came across Diana Rooms. The views are amazing as from our room we look out over the mountains and sea. The room has untold luxuries (for us anyway) of a fridge, tv and air-conditioning all for a very reasonable price. So, within about two minutes of arriving we quickly decided that we'll stay here for a week, chill, read and watch telly (the Greeks have the right idea of subtitling english shows instead of dubbing them that the French and Italians do) and use this as a base to explore Mani.
So far, we haven't moved far from the room in case we miss an episode of Lizzy Maguire or The World's Funniest Commercials, but we plan to.
After our week in the sun, we're heading back north to pay our respects at Olympia (maybe an offering or two to the gods for the Aussie Olympic Team), before making our way on to Athens for the Games themselves. We've managed to book into a Youth Hostel Dorm for our stay, as the prices some of the hoteliers are charging would scare a Saudi prince. We looked up one hotel we stayed at two years ago on a visit to Athens and the islands. We paid 40 Euros then. We looked it up a week ago and its charging 380 Euros a night now. It was barely worth 40.
Book Crossing
Whilst reading an imported copy of The Sunday Times (Banz had to read about an English cricketing victory in as much detail as possible), we read about this site, BookCrossing.com. A simple, but great idea (as all good websites are), where when you've finished reading a book, you "release it" into the world after writing a review on BookCrossing's site. We've been doing a similar thing with putting the Big Trip's URL into books that we've left behind, but on the site you're able to actually leave a note where you've left it and people can "go hunting". For our reading list, go here.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
