oooh the drama...

The Chinese stomach flu won, but not before MUCH drama ensued over the weekend trip to Shanghai. It all started shortly after my Wednesday night post. Lauren found cheaper plane tickets and needed all our information. Simple right? Plug and chug on the Internet and we're off on Friday morning. Wrong-O! 7:30 Thursday morning Lauren receives Chinese text messages, followed by a phone call. "Hello, Thomas and Jahrling do not have a ticket home. The plane was full." Ok easy enough, book a return flight all is good. Wrong, again. Phone call two of the day, "We need Traci to fax a copy of her passport and credit card and fill out this form (in Chinese) she has been red flagged." WHAAAAT? How is Traci flagged? Plan B - - Kelsey pays for Traci's ticket and Traci will pay her back. Around 1:00 a series of phone calls came asking for all our passports and credit card info because we were using international credit cards. A little shady, but they assured us all was good. Phone call 6,388 comes at about 3:30, "Hi sorry. When I talked to you this morning I cancelled Thomas and Jahrling's entire flight. They have no way there now." ARE YOU FREAKING SERIOUS?!?!?!? This is when I decided I needed out. Not only was this the biggest pain in the butt, EVER, but the evil flu was really starting to take over. Once again Patrick saved the day. He called to cancel the two tickets and they told him they were going to charge us a fee. After a long convo and a returned phone call (and him making them apologize to HIM ha) we were out with no fee. That was not the end of the drama. Kesley called at about 11PM to make sure everything was ok, Traci had no ticket booked for her. Sooo long and short, no Shanghai and I am not overly disappointed. While it would have been cool, it would have cost a lot for one weekend. Plus, Chinese stomach flu was going to make me extra crabby.

The drama of yesterday and the flu left me exhausted today (Friday). At 6:10 my alarm went off. I reluctantly rolled out of bed, still debating if it was even worth it to head out to the Main Press Center to try for tickets. (fyi: the last batch of tickets went on sale today to the general public) Three of us brave souls decided to subway it up, with a sub par performance at Running of the Dragon, it really wasn't my day. About 40 min later we arrive at the MPC area and realize we GROSSLY under estimated the local interest in the Games. Over 200,000 people showed up for limited tickets and everyone was allowed two tickets. Sadly, we were in such a rush to leave this morning that all three of us forgot our cameras to document this event. After about 30 minutes and a stroll around the area, we realized how naive and stupid we were to think that we could show up two hours before the tickets were on sale and expect to get some. We left empty handed and a little distraught.

These two events lead me to my latest observations: 1. Americans are coddled like little children and 2. Americans are naive, especially when traveling abroad. The entire Shanghai drama is a perfect example of both points. Booking a trip here is not like booking a trip at home. You cannot just jump on the Internet the day before and have it done five minutes later. It was just ridiculous of us to think that we could just jump on a plane 24 hours after discovering we had free time. When it comes to getting Olympic tickets, HOW STUPID were we?! Seriously. As my roommate said, "You can't go to the Purdue box office 2 hours before and expect to get tickets. How can you expect to do that in a city with 16 million people?" Uhh duh! We were told that the Chinese interest in the Olympics is minimal. Whether or not that is true is a moo point; even if interest is low that means, in a city with 16 million people, about 200,000 people will show up. I guess all this ranting is just me annoyed at myself for being a typical American abroad. I thought I knew better. (Large sigh)

Because of my early rise and the evil sickness that I caught, I spent most of the day in my bed. I organized my photos for all of you; they are now categorized by events and locations. I then separated the photo link out on the side bar to make it easier to find. After a three hour nap and a refreshing shower, I was feeling 10x's better. All ready for the exciting evening...Tim's BBQ. Now before I talk about Tim's let me just explain why we are eating so much western food. It is not because we are ignorant Americans who are unwilling to explore the local food offerings. It is because if we eat that much Chinese food we get very ill. We did it for a week. It wasn't good news. So, typically we eat Chinese food for lunch and western food for dinner. I know it is not the best way to do things, but it is the only way that will bring me home alive. Tangent over. Tim's BBQ, SO FREAKING GOOD! The nachos were AMAZING. The beef burrito was not ground beef, but a pulled pork type beef with BBQ sauce. DELICIOUS. To top it off...THEY HAD RANCH. It was my first taste of ranch in almost a month. Just all around a great idea.

Everyone decided it was a movie night so my computer and iTunes hosted "Remember the Titans."

I am nearing the end of week three, and unlike the first two weeks, this week has gone by much faster. It worries me that we might have taken our first two weeks for granted. From here on out it is going to fly by, especially once the Olympics come. I can't wait for them to start. OOOh and you all should try to watch, at least on NBC.com because you will most DEFINITELY get to see me on tv if I am waiting for a flash quote. EEEK!