Olympics: An Australian Perspective

I went over to Marie's yesterday afternoon to watch the Opening Ceremonies. We were pretty pumped up for them! We had on our Canada shirts, I had tattoos, she bought Tim Tams...we were ready! Tim Tams aren't Canadian obviously, they are a famous Australian cookie/chocolate bar/wafer. And they really are delicious. I hadn't had them until yesterday, despite everyone who has been here encouraging me to.

Anyway, we watched and were very proud to be Canadian! I would periodically yell at passersby "Go Canada Go!", and would be met with confusion, as people here don't really care about the Olympics. Which is fine.

The Aussie and The Aussie 2 ceaselessly mock me about the lack of snow, whether Canada's hockey team will win gold, things like that. It's funny though. For instance, I'll walk into the room and The Aussie will say "The Aussie 2, I reckon the gold medal ice hockey match will be between Finland and Russia, thoughts?" "Ah yes The Aussie, but I heard Switzerland is strong, so they are gonna have to fight hard!" And I get angry. And they just love to torture. But it's fun. The actual term for this is "taking the piss". Interesting phrase.

The longest and most boring part was of course when the athletes come in. It was exciting when Australia entered since we were watching in Australia..somber when Georgia entered for obvious reasons, and then SOOO exciting when Canada entered! I made a little video of it, which I will hopefully post soon. It's very interesting NOT to be in Canada during a year that Canada hosts. It's quite a different perspective!

The problem with the coverage is that of course they mostly just follow their Australian athletes (20 men and 20 women), and so I don't know who to look for and watch for Canada..if they are in a heat of something, then it's exciting to catch a glimpse but it's definitely not the focus! It's very interesting!

Here are some photos.