A Paralympic Letter Home
The Paralympics in full swing, and in honour of that, this week’s blog submission gives us an inside view of the experience of a Paralympian with this first letter to home during the 2004 Paralympic Games in Athens.
So far things are going well. I arrived on Friday after a pretty long flight. We were two hours late taking off. We sat in the plane for two hours before we finally left. That is what happens when you have many people in wheelchairs who need to be loaded onto the plane. The flight was fine. I slept for about four hours which helped pass the time. I became incredibly excited as the plane was getting ready to land. All of a sudden I realized that I was actually going to the Paralympics. It's the first time it really hit me. I was like a little kid, bouncing up and down in my chair and very anxious to get off the plane.
Going through security and accreditation was not too bad either and we soon arrived at Canada House which will be our home for the next three weeks. I'm sharing a room with Lisa and aside from the shortage of closet space it's nice. We have a balcony as do most of the athletes. The shower and toilet situation is interesting. You are not allowed to flush toilet paper down the toilet here so there is a garbage can beside the toilet for your TP. I was quite concerned when I heard about this, but the garbage has a foot pedal so it's not so bad. The shower is a hand held with no where to hook it up over your head so you have to sit on the floor underneath it or stand up and use your hand to hold it. The latter is my preference. Anyway, it's all just part of being in Greece and I'm getting used to it.
The food is pretty good. We have a massive food court with food from all nations. There is also a McDonalds if you just need something familiar. I'm quite surprised by the number of athletes who choose to eat at McDonalds. I have to admit I've eaten there a couple of times too but only for salad and the yogurt fruit cup. I don't know if we have the yogurt fruit cup at home but I'm going to have to check that out because it's very yummy. The food area is open 24 hours a day and you can eat as much as you want. It's like a fantasy come true for me but I have to be careful.
We have been training at the Velodrome every day since we arrived and it is incredible. It is the smoothest track I've ever ridden. We are flying and I can't wait for the racing to start to see just how fast we can go when the pressure is on. I'm very confident that we will get some personal bests. There are a few women’s teams here that we haven't seen before which is also exciting. I'm hoping that if they are new they will not be as fast as us but that is still to be determined.
The weather has been much different than I expected. I was prepared for intense heat, but it was only 23 degrees when we arrived. It has actually been kind of cool every day until today. Today I was able to wear shorts and a tank top and was warm.
Today was our first sight seeing day. We went to the Acropolis. It was very cool. We climbed up to the top and saw the incredible view *smile*. There was a museum at the top with all these old statues that were recovered from 500 BC. Very impressive although I didn't actually see any of it. I did feel some cool rocks that had carvings in them and had fun stumbling over the slippery rocky ground to get there. I'm definitely glad I went and the best part was that it was free because we are athletes. We just had to show our accreditation and we can ride the subways and get into the tourist places for free.
The people here are very friendly but there is a lot of security. Every time we leave the village we have to go through the medal detectors when we come back in. We are not allowed to bring bags into the food area but that might be so we don't fill our bags up with all that great food. Here I go again back to the food.
OK, I think that is everything. I can't read this over to remind myself what I have written so if you have any questions feel free to write back. Just be aware that Lisa or Claire will be reading your Emails to me. I will try to write again soon. Miss you all.
-S