Tickets, Please?

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Originally uploaded by jrherron

I was worried about tickets. reports of complete sellouts, and scalper arrests were enough to make W unable to sleep. She woke up around 5:00 a.m. Sunday to find an email saying that 9 tickets were available for a 10:00 tennis session. It would cost us $75 per ticket, but given what was out there on craigslist and ebay, that seemed like quite a bargain, and would even mean we didn't even have to decide amongst ourselves who would go and who wouldn't. The guy even came to the hotel to drop them off. We knew it would be far to walk, so we found one of the hundreds of information tents (all of which are staffed by eager, helpful, uniformed and even English speaking volunteers), and asked the best way to get there. Olympic bus number one is what we were told, but every Olympic bus with a 1 on it was crammed, finally we figured out bus number 2 would get us there too, and we even got comfy seats. It was raining, so we were worried we might get there and not see any tennis at all, but we had to go anyway. We arrived and worked our way nervously through security (an x-ray and a bag check) we had a little bit of food with us that we managed to get through, and I had some sunblock in my pocket that I needed to demonstrate that I was willing to put on. For a brief moment you then wonder if the tickets you've bought are real, so you kind of hold your breath as they scan it. Each ticket has an rfid chip, so you just wave it over the ticket reader and in you go, then you go to another station where someone tears off the stub. Each segment starting with security, ticket scan and tear all had more English speakers. In to the tennis venue we walked where someone pointed us to centre court where we finally see that we're watching James Blake. Needless to say we're pretty excited about that, but the game won't actually start for an hour and a half. I spent most of that time in line at the concession stand, but came away rewarded with some delicious ice cream, and some most refreshing and cheap 8 yuan Tsingtao. Just as the tennis match gets started, my camera battery dies, and I realize the backup battery is in the hotel. I'm still not done being angry about that. James Blake wins pretty handily, and then we realize a second match is coming our way, starring Serena Williams. (We could also see Venus and the rest of the team sitting in the stands) Fortunately W has some pictures on her camera of that match. It was eventually rained out during the second set anyway.

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Originally uploaded by jrherron

We weren't able to get any more tickets for Sunday, and we decided to walk back to the hotel to tour the grounds along the way. It was a long walk, but worth seeing many of the Olympic Green venues. Then we ran off to our favorite Malaysian place despite waiting around almost half an hour for a cab to come to the hotel for us. We were not disappointed by our dinner, but had a sobering moment when a pedestrian got hit by a car near the restaurant. Time to crash for the night, still with no tickets for Monday, and still possibly getting on a plane.