Row Row Row That Boat & Walk Like An Egyptian

You probably read the trashing story of Roberto already, no need to explain I was in the same "mood" the next day. As Roberto had to work a morning shift the day after and decided to go to the Olympic stadium, I decided to do a Rene's holiday shift the next day and to start at around 13.30. Well with this shift in mind I decided I might visit the HHH for one beer.

It was the celebration of the rowing team. Funny team, the team consists of eight people who look like Hercules in his best days and then there is the midget who has to scream in front of the boat. If you see them on stage it looks really funny.

With the women teams it looks the same. The entire rowing world had decided to show up in the HHH. As far as I can judge now, the Americans and Germans had decided to hold a meeting to check whether maybe next year also mixed boats will be introduced for competition. By the way they we're already practicing. I guess this new discipline will be announced soon.

The next day working was fun, the Greeks can't seem to make any difference between important and not so important issues. When an issue is not important they start to scream and call everybody to arrange things, when an athlete almost misses his game because of transport, I am the only one trying to arrange things as all the Greeks just look away and tell them it's not their fault the bus was not arranged.

For the hockey game I decided to use my privilege and go by players bus to the stadium. When I got in the bus it was packed with athletes and I decided to stand rather then sit (showing some respect for the athletes is also part of a volunteer).

A team was jelling in the back that I should take a seat with them and so I did. It was the Egyptian Hockey team, they have never won a game this Olympics and even lost with 14-0 from Korea. They started to tell jokes and had good fun, the only thing was that it was all in the Egyptian language. This was fun, me sitting in the middle of the team and everybody laughing and telling another joke, I had to laugh the entire ride.



The Hockey men won with 2-1 from the Aussies. My seat was behind some screaming Aussies with flags. They didn't understand the game at all, they just did it to attract the camera to get themselves on TV. And so I also got my five seconds of fame on world television (well atleast in all those six countries were hockey is broadcasted).

Now I'm going to prepare for the women hockey match of today, the semi finals. They must win. THEY MUST WIN as I already bought tickets for the finals and I hate it to look at a game were my team is the losing one. New yell in the stadium is a bunch of bobo's with they far too pretty looking wives pointing to the team and screaming "Waar moet 'ie in?" ("were should the ball go?"), then pointing on the goal of the opponent and scream "DAAR moet 'ie in!" ("the ball should go in THERE!"). This must be the result of a very late evening for those guys... :-)

Rene