diving into the olympics

Yesterday Dom and I went to our first Olympic event, and we had a blast! The Olympic green is amazing, we walked all around the area and its huge, I couldn't help but be almost giddy at being there. It was very exciting and really spacious. Unlike other Olympics, the Olympic green is not open to the public, you have to have a valid ticket for that day to even walk around the area, which makes it feel a little empty. Basically, an audi was able to drive about 40 miles per hour through the area and not hit anyone (obviously carrying athletes).

We got tickets through a friend to see 10m mens synchronized diving. I may have neglected to mention that it was synchronized diving to Dom, as this made it lose some of its cool factor in his book. Fit men in speedos were obviously ok by me. I was so excited to be going to an event in the water cube. I worried that I had built it up too much, but actually, it was really impressive and we had great seats! China took the gold, Germany got silver, and Russia snagged bronze, but it was still a great event. Cuba, Colombia, the US and the UK were also competing, and the UK diver is one of the youngest Olympians this year - 14 years old!


Our event only lasted about 90 minutes, then we decided to stick around and find NBC's Today show set, which is broadcasting live from Beijing. We got to watch the prep, the taping and meet all the stars - Meredith Vieira, Matt Lauer, Al Roker and Ann Curry. They were so friendly, they took time between takes to come and meet people, sign autographs and pose for pictures. I have numerous bad pictures of myself with each of them! Ann and Meredith were especially nice. I was so excited to see my favorite show in action, I was literally beaming and all but jumping up and down. Dom has nicknamed me the 'fifth presenter' because when we saw the show air this morning (we have a 12 hour delay on it so we get it the next morning) and they were filming right in front of us, I'm just standing there cheesing it, laughing at their jokes and such - as if I'm part of the gang. We look like the biggest pair of dorks, but it was great.



Since the Olympic green is not open to the public, the 'crowd' around the Today set is very small compared to what it would be. This means we also got to meet the special guests who were being interviewed on the show, namely Olympic gold medalist, swimmer Cullen Jones - and also the oldest Olympic swimmer this year, Dana Torres. She's 41 years old and looks amazing. She's a Gator fan too - who knew!?! She was interviewed with Christine Magnuson and the two had just snagged silvers.

Magnuson and Torres show off their silvers