Curling Baby!

We went to our very first Olympic event ever last night......Women's Curling. This was the final qualifying game to make it into the semi-finals. It didnt matter whether the USA won or not since they were in last place, but it would have been nice to see them win anyways. Too bad they suck. Bad. They had to forfeit during the 7th End (End is like a round or inning) when the score was 10-3. There was no way for the US to come back and beat the Swiss. Below are 3 members of the US team.

So after they dropped out we became Canadian fans (we were wearing red and white anyway). The Skip (Captain) for the Canadian women's team was Cheryl Bernard. She is a beast! She had a 100% accuracy rate, the best in curling. There was a man at the event who painted himself all in red and was yelling proposals to her with his sign below. Tried to get a picture with him, but the line was too long....he was quite popular.

We took the subway to get to the venue, which was quite fun. Very clean and very quick. We got there just as it started, but it took us over 30 minutes to go through security. Note to self.....arrive at least 30-45 minutes before event starts. They have like full-blown airport security at these things. It makes you feel very safe, but also annoyed because just like at airports, there are always those people who forget their belts, change in their pockets, cell phones, etc. and then the wait becomes super long just because of one idiot. Here is a shot of the subway ride.

Here is the venue below where the curling took place. A very nice facility with some of the cleanest port-a-johns ever (as clean as a port-a-john can be). It is very loud when a team does well, but then there is very little noise when the teams start sliding the stones (its amazing how it goes from pure loud craziness to almost silence in a matter of seconds). All the teams playing have their flags hanging from the rafters.

Here is a closer shot of the venue. 4 teams play at once which is quite exciting because even if you team sucks, like ours, you can watch other games. Oh and you always know who you are sitting by. The Canadians have cowbells and cheer after every play, The Swedes have horns, the Russians have special hats and coats they wear (and ginormous flags), the Germans yell the loudest (and have the grumpiest looking athletes), and the Japanese are the easiest to spot, even though they are the quietest, because they wear oversized white t-shirts with huge red dots on the front....kinda funny actually).

You are not allowed to use flash on your photos at any event, so I apologize that the picture below looks a little dark. We tried to fix it in iPhoto, but its the best it could do.