Free Clothes!

Today was a fun day. Long, but fun.

I managed to sleep the night through with only a couple of little interruptions. I have the tendency to wake up on the first night in a new place, sit up in bed and wonder where the hell I am. I did that a few times, but they were just minor glitches in an otherwise pretty content sleep.

One thing that I noticed yesterday and forgot to point out is that Beijing is bloody HOT. Hotter than I remember. I was sweating all day. In fact, right now it is almost 9pm and when you walk outside it is uncomfortably hot. You feel sticky all the time. The great thing is that we have AC in all of the buildings (almost- described below) and buses so we don't roast to death for too long, but as soon as you exit a building and the hot air hits your face it makes you feel a little heat blasted.

Speaking of AC, the air conditioning in Nate and I's room is not working. Our room is 26 C. That's a little warm. We are hoping to have that fixed asap. Also, the showers in our rooms are not so good. The drains don't work properly so the entire bathroom fills up with 3 inches of water when you have a shower. I think that is one of my biggest pet peeves...I hate walking into the bathroom and getting wet feet. It's so unexpected and nasty.

Training this morning went well. I was a little tired so I just conditioned and swung on rings and highbar. It was so funny when we walked into the gym because we were very obviously the first ones who were training there. All of the apparatus was chalkless. We're talking bare ass rings, highbar, pommels and even pbars. That is kind of a piss off as a gymnast because you want to know that someone else has at least touched the equipment before you to make sure it's OK. When you are the first one to touch brand spankin' new equipment it feels a little greasy and a little too fresh. It needs to be broken in a little and having to be the one to do it is a waste of time and energy. We dealt with the circumstance well though and we are just hoping that we don't have the same situation in another new gym tomorrow.

After we got home (haha, I can officially call the Olympic Village "home" for the next month...that's pretty cool) we had a quick bite to eat in the ginormous dining centre and then headed off to experience one of the best parts of being on Team Canada. We went to get our free clothing package!

Everything is awesome. HBC is the supplier this year and they did an amazing job. The fabrics are very compatible with the inferno weather and they have some Asian flavour that seems very fitting for this games. We got pants, shorts, polo shirts, tshirts, socks, a tank top, a couple of jackets, a couple of hats, shoes, flip flops, a sweet hoody, a suitcase, back pack, messenger bag...there was a lot of wicked stuff. To be honest, I saw some of the stuff in the Bay store and I was a little worried. Being on the rack definitely doesn't do the pieces justice. When you put them on they look and feel great. Of course the entire group of gymnasts had to get alterations on the pants because we are all shrimps and we will get them back in a couple of days. I can't even imagine wearing pants in this blazing climate though so they probably won't be that missed.

The outfitting took a while, it was well worth the time of course, and when we arrived back to the village we only had a half hour or so before we had to leave for our second training.

Second training went well. I did some basic routines on floor and then tried some of my bounding lines. I also did a few simple vaults which felt pretty good. The floor has a bit of a weird bounce, but I was able to get a good rhythm going by the end. It just took a little bit of time and patience.

I am trying to be very safe and protective here. I want to take my time and feel comfortable with everything before I start pushing myself to do the big skills. I can't afford an injury and I think that making smart decisions is going to be my best bet. I am ready. I have done the work. Now I just need to take care of myself, get used to the environment and settle in.

I'm fading fast as you can probably tell...jet lag sucks. 32 more minutes until I can go to bed!
K.