10:45am February 13, 2018 (GMT +9) - Winter Olympics Day 3
Everyone in the Seating section was standing on their feet. The wind gusted down from the mountain and barrelled its way through my insufficient layering, but I was momentarily immune to the cold. The little figure sliding down the mountain was Chloe Kim on her first run, and I didn't know much about snowboard tricks, but even I could tell Chloe was crushing it. It wasn't even close. She soared so much higher and twisting so much more that the most amateurish skier could pick the winner. As she approached her last jump, the American next to me yelled, "JUST LAND IT!" She did, and the crowd immediately erupted. I went crazy cheering for an American born in 2000 whom I had barely heard of one week ago. In fact, one week ago I was sitting in my apartment on the other side of the world wondering if I should go to the Winter Olympics.
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| Ladies' Halfpipe Finals |
As I outlined in a previous post, I am in a state offhandedly termed "funemployment." Fun wasn't the aptest word to describe this period, with job interviews dictating nearly every move I made. But my former Hong Kong coworker Eriko Tamura was getting married in Beppu, Japan, and my sudden lack of commitments made attendance a real possibility. I desperately tried to sort out my interviews before the wedding, and delayed finalizing the details of the trip, but eventually I couldn't let these companies determine my life. So I decided to go to Japan - then what? I had always wanted to go skiing in Japan, and as luck would have it, I learned that my friends in Tokyo were going skiing the following weekend. I immediately committed to that trip. That left me about 4 days to kill between the wedding and the skiing, which I figured I'd use to explore Japan. Upon discussing these plans with my friend Henry, he asked, "Why don't you go to the Olympics?"
I didn't even know when the Winter Olympics were starting - they weren't remotely on my radar. But my free days lined up almost serendipitously well with the core of the games, and I started seriously considering it.
Information about the Games was scarce. The official website isn't great, at least not in English. These Games are spread throughout the province and mountains and it wasn't immediately clear where one should stay. There weren't many tickets on sale and the ones that were on sale were expensive. Information about transit was particularly terrible - I had figured I could fly into some regional airport, and it took a lot of digging around before I realized that I would have to fly into Seoul and take a train towards Pyeongchang. I heard that this train was getting full fast, especially during the Lunar New Year which fell in the middle of the Games. This article by the WSJ proclaimed doom:
"The whole thing is a nightmare to me,” said Lee Meng Fei, a 39-year-old engineer from Johor Bahru, Malaysia, who said last week that he was still struggling to find out how he can get back to his hotel in Gangneung, 37 miles from Pyeongchang, after the opening ceremony on Feb. 9.
Mr. Meng Fei said he found it ridiculous how little information there was on Pyeongchang’s websites about how to get around the region, particularly compared to his last Olympics experience in Beijing in 2008."
https://www.wsj.com/articles/getting-to-the-winter-games-is-an-olympic-headache-1517659203
I read that and immediately thought: "Challenge accepted."
Having also been to the Beijing Olympics in 2008 proved hugely useful. As I will get into, the Olympics are an enormous production. It is hard to understand the experience on the ground until you're there. I knew that tickets became much more accessible as the Games went on, and fellow spectators can be a wealth of information. So as I sat there in Cambridge looking at a $90 flight ticket between two cities 7,000 miles away from me, I took a leap of faith that it would all work out. I decided I would stay in Gangneung, the only real city in these Games and the site of the event I most I wanted to see, short-track speed skating. It wasn't easy but eventually I found an Airbnb for a guesthouse that seemed near the train station for $47/night. From a contact in Korea, I found a website to book reservations on the Korail trains, and reserved a one-way ticket from Incheon to Gangneung. I had no event tickets, no return train ticket, no friends going with me, and kept my expectations minimal.
On Monday, February 12, I landed in Incheon, exhausted and hungover from an incredible wedding the day before, and got to work in one of the world's premier airports. I wolfed down a bulgogi sandwich, bought a 5 day data plan, found my way to my KTX reservation. The high speed train line directly from Incheon to Pyeongchang and Gangneung was apparently in the works regardless but finished just in time for these Olympics. It was an impressive engineering feat spanning over 150 miles through mountainous terrain clear across the Korean peninsula. You could take a bus, but the train is basically the only desirable option to reach the Olympics from Seoul (and thus the rest of the world), and so demand was super high.
So I was surprised when I boarded an empty train car at Incheon, but the car reached full capacity at Seoul station, and rumbled into Gangneung station with several hundred Olympic goers in the
early afternoon. Immediately I felt this buzz in the station that dissolved my hangover. It is the sort of excitement made possible
by the joyful gathering of people from all around the globe, like an airport but exciting.
The global ambience did contradict with the small Korea town setting. The town was clearly not used to foreigners, and awful English directions turned an 8 minute walk to my Airbnb into a 40 minute scavenger hunt. I eventually arrived and got to work figuring
out tickets and transportation. Amazingly tickets for nearly every event were
available on the official website, and now that I was grounded in Gangneung,
the numerous options seemed less overwhelming. I bought a ticket for a curling
event 3 hours later, and for the snowboard halfpipe the next morning. I didn’t
give them much thought, I just knew I needed to see events.
Volunteers at the station and fellow English-speaking spectators were a wealth of useful information. I learned that tickets were constantly getting released, that I might get lucky with scalpers or cheaper resale tickets but the official avenues was really the best way to go. I learned that most countries had their houses which they setup at every Olympics and the Holland House was where the parties were at. A spectator who worked at the London Games informed me that a local organizing committee does the vast majority of the work which is why every Olympics feels quite different. This one had had its struggles - the bus schedule had proved disastrous in the Opening Ceremonies - but it was constantly monitoring and improving, sending extra buses going to underserved routes. The Olympic Games are an epic challenge in supply chain demand planning and a Winter Games spanning this many miles is particularly challenging. The people I talked to felt they were doing a decent job. These people were so helpful and informative in all the ways the website was not. “All you need to do is talk to someone who has been at the Olympics one day before you. Then the next day, you are that someone.” It was true – in one day I was an expert in navigating the venues and paid it forward to the newer arriving spectators.
The Olympic Park in Gangneung has 5 different
arenas: one for curling, one for figure skating/short track speed skating, one
for speed skating, one for hockey, plus an unused soccer stadium. The 15 minute walk from the shuttle to the furthest arena is chock full of distractions. The Samsung house
with VR displays, flashing light shows, ice sculptures of polar bears and
dancing mascots crowd out your senses. After walking through all the exhibits, all the ticketing procedures and security extravaganza, I
turned the corner and found the curling ice right in front of me. This is what
I love about watching sports – once you cut through all the corporate
infrastructure, it's just your eyes and humans doing something fun. Live sports are raw
and unscripted, entertaining without the effort of a theatrical
performance.
The mixed doubles curling match featured a Swiss team and two people who happened to speak Russian. I loved how the Olympic
Committee had agreed to let the cheating Russians participate, but to do so
under the mundane banner of “Olympic Athletes from Russsia.” The result allowed
the games not to be tainted by the exclusion of gifted athletes, but utterly
demeaned the country’s Olympic federation. This may or
may not have brought me glee in this geopolitical climate.
Female curler from Russia looked like evil Natalie Portman, while
male curler from Russia looked like emo Bradley Cooper. Some Americans sat next
to me, and through shared knowledge and Wikipedia, we mostly figured out the
rules. It was not always easy to understand the participants strategy, but when
you do, you can better appreciate great shots. Shots where the stone goes 50
yards curling through two rocks and knocking one rock into another rock far,
but not too far. I won’t pretend curling is the most amazing spectator sport,
but it was cool to watch and supplied drama, with an OAR gamble on the last
throw backfiring and handing the victory to the Swiss.
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| Emo Bradley Cooper complains to Evil Natalie Portman in Russian |
*****
8:30am the next morning I took the KTX back
towards Seoul, but for just one station in Jinbu. A 25 minute shuttle took us
way out into the mountains to Phoenix Snow Park. Along the way, I glimpsed
closed ski shops bearing banners, “OLYMPICS KILL US.” I hadn't thought about
it, but of course the controlled entertainment that is the Olympics will
disrupt parts of a local economy. It was hard to ruminate on this though as the
bus approached the slopes and that buzz returned.
I hadn't really known what to expect,
having never seen a snowboarding event live before. Seats are all at the
bottom of the slopes - no side view or anything - so I was pretty far
from the action, but with a good high clear view. The snowboardcross course finished adjacent to the halfpipe, and occasionally someone would go down it,
presumably on a training run.
There were 12 women in the finals, all getting 3 runs, with only the best score counting. It's one of
those sports where you have balance a routine
difficult enough to get points but doable enough that you don't fall. Two Americans, Arielle Gold and Maddie Mastro open
up with some impressive jumps but fall halfway down, to a crowd-crushing
"ohhhhh." Both Japanese boarders dropped flawless runs and Chinese
snowboarder Liu Jiayu took the lead with an 85.50. And then the last boarder
was due and the crowd went wild with anticipation.
I had done next to no research for these
Olympics, but I had heard of Chloe Kim, the great American hope. And then she slid down the mountain and brought this euphoric
pandemonium to the air. It's that satisfying feeling when you expect a show but know that one
isn't guaranteed. She took the lead with a 93.75 and I was thrilled that the hype had been real. Even from the distance we could see she was riding with
joy and having the time of her life, exuding this youthful charisma that has
made her into one of the stars of this game.
This event had live commentators, an American
providing elaborate English commentary and a Korean providing more succinct
Korean reports. Somehow they never talked over each other, making me wonder
whether there was a Jeopardy style buzzer that turned on their
microphones. The American kept dropping snowboarding terms which he barely
explained - it took me another week to understand what "goofy-foot"
rider meant. As he yelled "Method grab!" and "Switch frontside
cab 720!" I tried to match what he said to the action I was seeing, but it
was too fast and too far away so I settled for blissful ignorance. I strained though when the American commentator butchered the Chinese names, calling Cai Xuetong (Tsigh Shway-Toong) something like Kai Sue Tong.
In the second round we cheered for everyone to
nail their landings. Every single fall hurts to watch, with the weight of
broken dreams and lost entertainment crashing into the snow. Chloe fell too,
although with her first round run it didn't really matter. Liu Jiayu (pronounced by the American as Lee-ew Jee-ah-yu) from China
improved her score to 89, but it was clearly not enough to take gold. When Liu
fell on her 3rd run, Chloe clinched the gold, making her last run was entirely
ceremonial. Nonetheless the crowd all stood again and she went down and crushed
it, landing back-to-back 1080s and earning a 98.25. This was what the Olympics
are about. When you pull back all the corporate branding, the heavy security
and general chaos, you find this pure athletic excellence. You have the world's
best athletes doing their best to push their sport and having fun along the
ride.
*****
The Olympics are not made for spectators. Their
priorities are 1a) the TV experience and 1b) the athlete experience with the
spectator experience coming in a distant third. Obviously the money from a global TV audience dwarfs the in-person ticket sales. Additionally the
IOC does realize that the athletes are their most valuable asset, and they
should be given all opportunities to perform at their peak and set world
records. It is after all the foremost performance stage for nearly every sport
involved (exception: hockey). Still TV will take precedence, hence the10am start time, so that east coasters could watch it at 8pm.
The men's qualification round began an
hour after the women's medal ceremony. This was a very awkward and frigid hour.
The venue did not allow reentry, so we were locked into an area consisting of
three food kiosks, a store and a "spectator room" which was a heated
space that could fit a bit over 150 people. With somewhere over 5,000 people
and winds barrelling down from the mountain, that spectator room became a fire
hazard. The food lines stretched over 2 hours (a full chicken leg was the
top selling item) and I simply wandered around the venue just
trying not to freeze. This was one of those points where I got very angry at
the Olympics and their lack of consideration for spectators.
Finally the men started and I returned to my
seat in the upper deck. Next to me sat an attractive blond lady from Finland,
who was here watching her boyfriend, Markus Malin. Markus was a 3 time Olympian who trained in Switzerland, Utah and Austria.
Looking over the other 28 competitors, I was shocked to see Shaun White's name pop up. I remember first seeing him in the Olympics while doing English homework.
And here he was being incredible. He could land 1440s
and took the lead after his first run with a 93.25. I couldn't believe he was
still this good - I figured after he'd finished 4th in Sochi, these Games were
not going to be competitive for him. Even more surprising, he was only 31 -
he'd literally been an Olympian for half his life. Meanwhile, Markus had a strong start
but couldn't land his 4th trick. The qualification round was only 2 runs and for 17
out of the 29 participants, this would be their whole Olympics. As spectators the runs begin to blend together, but for the athletes these 30 seconds
of snowboarding acrobatics were the culmination of 4 years of training. When
Markus came up for round 2, I was nervous for him. His girlfriend, in typical
Silent Finnish fashion, did not show any sort of anxiety. He went through his
run cleanly but wasn't exceptional, and his 63.50 was not enough
to advance. I looked to his girlfriend to see if she'd be devastated, but she
was smiling. She was proud of him, and she said now they could just relax and
enjoy the Olympics.
Japanese snowboarder Ayumu Hirano improved on a
first round 87 with a 95.25, knocking the Flying Tomato out of first place. By
this point I was freezing and really wanted to head back to town, but these are
the Olympics. I resolved to see one more Shaun White round. Since the scores get
erased for the finals, Shaun didn't really need to best this score. But these
are the Olympics and he went out there going for broke, did his signature
"Tomahawk" roll (don't ask me what that is) and ended up winning the
qualification with a 98.50, to a thunderous applause that rivaled Chloe's. I
then immediately bolted for the shuttle bus and away from the freezing
winds.
I got back to Gangneung station exhausted and
hungry, having only eaten a chicken leg all day. I had 5 hours to kill before
the skating, so I figured I'd head downtown where I heard there
was a cool market. I had barely gone two blocks before I saw a little place
called "Coffee Hotdog" with a table of foreigners watching TV. It caught my eye enough for me to walk in. Faced with all Hangul, I asked, "Is there an English menu?" While the barista tried to
explain the coffee options, a female voice from the foreign table floated
out, "Cal?" I faced someone I didn't recognize and had never been more confused in my life. "It's Jasmine," she explained. I tried to place the name face and voice, all while in the process of ordering coffee in Korean, and my incredulity only increased when I realized this was Jasmine Tillu, whom I had met literally once in 2013 in Beijing. Somehow she had recognized my voice in this small coffee hotdog shop in Gangneung. She was traveling with her boyfriend and his remarkably global family, with the three kids based in Beijing, Seoul and Paris. We hung out in the coffeeshop for a while catching up and remarking on the bizarreness of everything.
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| Jasmine, Cal, Coffee, Hotdog |
They then asked if I'd like to go to a Jimjilbang, a word I'd never heard. I abandoned all plans for food and found myself in a Korean spa for the first time, sweating in salt box of a furnace. The spa consisted of many different rooms, some hot, some very hot, some very very hot, and some cold. The sensations were strange but afterwards, I did feel excellently refreshed. The Jasmine + Jimjilbang encounter reminded me why I loved expat life - unpredictability and wonderful new experiences.
*****
The Olympics unite a complete hodgepodge of fans. Usually, the vast majority of fans are local, especially when the Games are in a place that scares westerners. In fact, most of the Koreans I spoke to were either from Gangneung or Seoul. Regional attendance, from China
or Japan, was surprisingly small. It seemed that the second largest cluster
consisted of the Olympic die-hards, fans who would go to the Olympics no matter
where they were. A last group would be friends and family of
athletes.
Many of the die-hards first discovered the Olympics accidentally, often professionally. Most people don't know how awesome
but once they go, they get addicted. In some ways I fall into this
category, despite having missed a few Olympics. Lots of people were on their 5th or 6th Olympics and I felt comparatively like a novice.
*****
The short track speed skating was the absolute furthest rink from
the Olympic Park entrance, and I was tired and late when I arrived to a
deafening roar. Unlike American sporting events, where ubiquitous TVs get you
feeling the game before you reach your seat, here it was nothing, nothing, then
everything. I had happened to walk into a race nearing its last laps and a
Korean skater was winning. That night would feature many races featuring
Koreans, each one ending with the compact rink roaring like it was the bottom
of the 9th at Fenway.
Short track speed skating is the nitroglycerin of sports, with
the slightest slip or touch of another skater potentially detonating one's
medal chances. Skaters who fell on their own are essentially out, and
post-race video review was conducted to check whether there had been any
illegal contact, with the offender being automatically eliminated. It's an extremely volatile sport, with the most skilled skater no
certainty to win. However, the gracefulness of a good pass is a marvel to
watch, and the short nature of the sport means drama is just around the turn. Every 500m and 1000m race closed with 30 seconds of pure adrenaline.
Because there were so many competitive Koreans in short track,
this was one of the hottest tickets in town. The Committee seemed to have pulled out the stops for this event, with the volunteers noticeably more bilingual and the commentators noticeably better at pronounciation, effortlessly introducing Kazakhstan's Nurbergen Zhumagaziyev. Even so, the arena hadn't sold
out.
Attending the event live allows you to watch the action surrounding the action. What amazed me most was the number of skaters sharing the tiny ice. In addition to the athletes and a referee, four volunteers hid out in
corners in pairs, tasked with replacing the track markers. The short track was
defined by several rubber markers that often went flying as skaters zoomed by. One volunteer would immediately skate for the wayward
marker while the other glided over and dropped down a new one, before vanishing
back to their corner. I'd never want to be a volunteer, as I would certainly
trip and interfere with a racer and cause an international incident. The
5000m relay race was sheer madness. Four
teams of four skaters swirled around the track, usually two at a time, for a total of 21 skaters. With the
speed and closeness of all the skating, I was amazed that pileups were not
routine. In the most competitive race, the Korean team finished first, followed
closely by a Hungarian squad led by two skaters of half-Chinese half-Hungarian
descent. The US and Japanese teams finished just a bit behind and did not
qualify for the final medal race. Helped by the volatility of the sport, the
Hungarian team would later pull off a huge upset and win the country's first
ever Winter gold.
*****
I headed out from the short track, intent on getting some sleep. I
had actually scheduled two important interviews, one at 1:30am and another at
8:00am, because I am ridiculous. Walking around the Olympic Park can be pretty
overwhelming, with all the lights and exhibits, so I'm walking around
with my head on a swivel when I almost walk into one of the exhibits. I was at
a crowded barrier with lots of white people and I turned towards the lights and
I saw someone I had seen earlier that day. The short frame with long blond hair
was unmistakably Chloe Kim, and the older woman chatting next to her looked
like Hoda Kotb. I had nearly walked into the set of the Today Show, and
immediately I was transformed into one of those screaming jumping lunatics you
see in the background of those shows' broadcasts.
Chloe finished her interview and ran towards our fence, and did a lap of high fives. I froze, unsure whether to try to sneak a closeup picture or get some dab, and in my hesitation, I got neither. Major regret. I'd never been one for celebrities but now I was peering over trying to get a peak at anyone else recognizable. I saw Al Roker, US hockey players, a skier, and did manage to snap a backside shot of Chloe as she was leaving.
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| I did not high five Chloe Kim |
I unabashedly stargazed for a good 20 minutes, and when I did turn to leave, I saw other people I recognized - former Georgetown ultimate players Jake Anderson and Sarah McNabb. We were equally flabbergasted for 15 seconds, both asking dumbly "What are you doing here?" That second small world moment in one day was perhaps the most miraculous connection in my Georgetown ultimate career.
*****
I made my 1:30am interview. The interviewer thought I was ridiculous that I was at the Olympics. I made my 8:00am interview. The interviewer thought I was amazing that I was at the Olypmpics. I woke up 10 times in the middle of the night terrified I'd oversleep, but I didn't.
After the 8:00am concluded, I went down to the basement for breakfast. I walked along the heated floor in shorts, without a care in the world because the most difficult part of my day was done. Several other westerners were there, eating the hostel's offering of toast and dumplings. Sam from Ottawa told us about how he had bought $20 figure skating pairs
practice tickets, not realizing they were
practice. Still, that turned out to be an awesome deal. He described how groups of 3 or 4 pairs had to practice on the ice simultaneously, and how the Chinese, the skaters from Russia, and the North Koreans were all grouped together. Talk about a triple axel. Talk about a nuclear-powered icebreaker.
Noel from LA was going to the figure skating. As I listened to their stories, I browsed through the Olympic app. Figure skating began at 10:00am, and B-priced tickets were still available. Despite that lack of sleep, I felt wide awake. "Yo, should I go to this?" Jeff replied, "Yes!" And so there at 9am, dressed in shorts and eating breakfast dumplings, I decided to go to an Olympic event starting in an hour. The spontaneity felt like a microcosm of the whole trip. I scurried upstairs, put on clothes, and left with Noel to catch the shuttle bus. Our hostel was fortuitously located, less than 5 minutes from the Olympic Park buses. Before I had time to think about what I had done, I was in the arena watching two Germans skate.
There's a lot to discuss with pairs figure skating, where a man and a woman take joint credit for something that is objectively way harder for the woman. I couldn't get out of my head something Bill Simmons had said that week on his podcast:
I like the pairs figure skating. I like trying to figure out 1) if they've ever had sex, and then 2) how many times before they decided to just be friends or 3) if it was never on the table.
Yeah, that was on my mind. I'll summarize that session with 1) the Germans rocked it to U2's With or Without You, 2) the Italians played the most upbeat Italian song ever and 3) the North Koreans. Oh my goodness the North Koreans.
The next section over from me was dominated by 40 odd women dressed identically in red garb and white beanies. It didn't take a super sleuth to guess what country they were supporting. They sat in quiet until the North Korean pair was introduced (along with the Chinese and Russians), at which point they all started chanting the two North Koreans names - "Ryom Tae Ok! Kim Ju Sik!" - and waving their flags in perfect unison as if they had rehearsed it, which they probably did. They all went to the bathroom as a group, as if it was a rest stop on their bus tour, and several older male handlers watched on, presumably on guard for defections.
Ryom and Kim skated to the surprisingly western song "Day in the Life" by Beatles and stole the show. They skated with classical grace and skill and ended in an authoritative pose, pointing directly at their cheerleading club. Their routine set a season best and temporarily put them in second place. Previous skates had been celebrated with fans throwing a bouquet or stuffed animal onto the ice, but after this one there was a veritable bombardment of gifts. As volunteers picked up all the flowers, I watched the North Korean pair smiling and waving to the crowd and felt an emotional moment. Here was this amazing skating pair who will have to return to their authoritarian regime, to a life without rights. I interpreted the gifts as a combination of respect, sympathy and wish for peace. Later I asked the Korean spectator sitting next to me, "What do you think of the North Koreans?" "Choson? Oh...." he paused for a full minute, collecting his thoughts. "... I don't like," he finally concluded. Fair enough, I can see why North Korea might be a divided issue in South Korea. A few pairs later, the cheerleading coalition left en masse.
*****
Having seen four Olympic events, I had one remaining goal - party. In Beijing 2008, I had hung out in Sanlitun hoping to see a celebratory Usain Bolt, to no avail. I learned that the partying typically takes place in Houses setup by individual countries. There is an elitist US House that charges $300 and requires invitation. There is a Canada House charging $25 CAD that features a poutine happy hour from 3-4pm. And then there's a Holland House, sponsored by Heineken, and that's where the party was.
I had my ticket ahead of time for Valentine's Day. A kid from Kansas named Tom then walked into my hostel room as I was emerging from my nap. I immediately dumped on Tom all the logistics knowledge I'd gained, and asked if he wanted to come to the Holland House that night, and that he could find me at the bar next door writing this blog post. All within 5 minutes of meeting him.
The bar next door was opened by a Korean from Seoul who called himself Skull just a week before the Olympics started. There was never more than 5 people there, because how would anyone hear about it, but Skull had created a great place. I was on my second Hite when Tom from Kansas walked in with Alex from Vancouver, and somehow I gained two friends to party with. Tom and Alex taught English in Busan, and were very helpful sharing their knowledge of Korea. As we walked through downtown Gangneung, I learned that despite the tall buildings, this was considered a small town for Korea. We ended up at a local hole-in-the-wall that Alex described "deep Korea." The bulgogi there was the best meal of my trip.
It could not have been more jarring going from sticking out as westerners in deep Korean to sticking out as short people at the Holland Heineken House. Suddenly everyone around us was 6'3" and blond. The House was temporarily occupying a wing of a resort hotel, staffed by volunteers who'd been given free travel and housing in exchange for being at the Olympics. The volunteer checking my ticket smiled. "We had two winners today. There will be medal ceremonies around midnight. It's going to be a great party night."
The Heineken bar served red wine and Heineken - not exactly a mixology lab. That mattered not, for it really was a great party night. The reader may or may not be aware, but I've been to some epic parties in my life. I believe the main ingredients are not music or alcohol but the attendants' willingness to go all in on the night. No one here was thinking about their 7am Zumba class; everyone was there to soak in the Olympics. The Dutch outfits ranged from orange sweaters to Team NL jackets to tulip hats to bespoke orange suits. A live band was playing in at least three languages.
The music stopped and the spotlight shone on two people in regular clothes on the stage. They did something dramatic in Dutch and I'm still not sure if they were Olympians. However, I did discern that the man bent down and proposed and that the woman said yes. Lots of action was happening without subtitles. The spotlight then flew to a corner and there was a tall woman there with a bronze medal waving her arms. The crowd went crazy as she walked to the main stage and gave a speech along with her coach. She tearfully accepted a giant bronze medal plaque, which then proceeded to surf the crowd. Streamers came down from the ceiling as hands reached out toward the plaque. Then the spotlight returned to the original corner and the band began a victorious melody and another female skater emerged, this time with a gold medal. The scene couldn't be more surreal. How had I somehow entered this Dutch Olympic show? The event felt like an exclusive party, not a club with a 12 Euro cover.
I made my way back to a bar where I found a gorgeous blond woman sporting a red Canada sweater and a silver medal around her neck. It's not often that one's accessory choices allows for Google triangulation, but I was able to deduce that this woman was Justine Dufour-Lapointe, a freestyle skier. I went up to her and asked, "Excuse me, are you Justine?" She responded, "Yes! 'ow did you know?" with both genuine shock and an accent that gave away which part of Canada she hailed. I cheekily responded, "I'm a huge fan." We proceeded to have a real conversation where she expressed respect that I had decided to come only a week ago. At that point her boyfriend swooped over and aggressively took her away.
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| Spot the silver medal |
The band was gone, replaced by a Dutch DJ who expertly controlled the dance floor, creating a scene so much more Ibiza than Gangneung. At 1am he closed in English, announcing there'd be "one last song, for the Canadians out there. You all know the words." And with that Bryan Adams' "Summer of 69" played, and all the Canadians rushed onto the stage. Justine was initially off to the side, but she ended up dragged into center stage. It was the first time in my life that I really, really wanted to be Canadian. I also knew all the words to the song, and for not the first time in my life, I briefly considered pretending to be Canadian.
*****
My 2018 Winter Olympics experienced lasted only three days, but I could write about it for fifty. The Olympics encapsulate the best parts of living abroad and inject them with steroids (pardon the inappropriate analogy). They foster an environment where talking to strangers is expected and asking where someone is from is basically required. Ordinary boundaries get dissolved by the universal language of sport. I will always remember the good that this event can bring. I will always associate the Olympics with saying yes and trusting in the universe.
Antonio and I had been paired together on the Corporate Audit Staff at GE. We had only spent all of 3 weeks in physical proximity, in Cincinnati, but they were an intense 3 weeks and we had gotten close. They were cutoff when I was suddenly laid off. I had planned to visit him in Brazil in the intervening period of unemployment, but timing did not work out (I went to Colombia instead). When a wedding invitation came in the mail, it was a no-brainer for me to make the trip.
