From Beijing: Day 1

First off, my power cord decided to stop working, so I'm going to be living on my battery for the next few days. In fact, I won't be able to charge it until I get back the United States. So the posts will have to be short and sweet, I think...

Elaine came in 7th in the 200m butterfly. Two Chinese swimmers claimed the gold and the silver, and smashed the world record in the process. They were relative unknowns coming into the Olympics, though I'll have to check how unknown they are when I get back. My impression is that this is one of their first sanctioned events, which is at best suspicious.

She has one more race tomorrow: the prelims of the 4x100m medley relay, which the Americans should do very well in. The event starts at 6:30pm Beijing time on Friday (that's 6:30am stateside), and the finals will be held the following morning. I may be able to go to that event. Tomorrow (other than perhaps that Olympic event), our schedule includes the Ming Gardens and the Great Wall of China.

It's been a rainy afternoon so far, though hopefully that will take down the pollution a little bit (which is indeed pretty bad). The National Stadium and the National Aquatic Center are pretty incredible looking in person...far better than what you see on TV.

Anyway, pictures are taking too long to upload to blogger, so I'll try to devote a later post to just pictures, if and when I get the chance. Since I'm living on battery for the next week, I've used up my daily allotment. I'll have another post up tomorrow!