Watta Spectacle!

This is the day after the night before when I attended the dress rehearsal of the Opening Ceremony. The title refers mainly to the use of H2O during the show. I'll try not to give away too much as it is supposed to be a surprise. I'll just say that the special effects were quite amazing and that there's a large focus on Greece's rich history.

Oh yeah, and I think it is a really cool idea to have DJ Tiesto provide the background music for the entrance of the athletes. It makes the whole parade much more energetic. The crowd cheered quite loudly when Tiesto was shown on the large screens. (By the way, most of my Greek colleagues actually thought he was an Italian DJ)

Getting to the stadium was quite difficult as the metro trains were jam packed. It is the oldest and therefore not airconditioned train, so the train ride itself already became somewhat of a water spectacle...

At the Irini station you more or less jump straight off the train into the huge lines at the entrance. The stadium is actually just one of the venues on the OAKA terrain. The Complex also includes the Olympic Indoor Hall, the Olympic Aquatic Centre, the Olympic Tennis Centre and the Olympic Velodrome. It is quite a huge place.

Getting in was the hardest part as the number of gates didn't seem to be able to handle the capacity crowd (70.000+). Hopefully it was like this since it was only a dress rehearsal and not yet a real event.

Hilarious were the scenes at the gate. As the show had to remain secret, no mobile phones were allowed in. Imagine a Greek without a mobile phone...impossible! For those of you not familiar with Greeks, just imagine an Italian without mobile.... get the picture?

Result was that every other person that wanted to get in started a huge discussion with the staff regarding the phones. Security staff wouldn't allow it and the locals spent minutes and minutes trying to convince him. And the next person who just witnessed the previous discussion, just started it all over again. Again, feel free to replace Greeks with Italians when trying to picture this. Same effect...



The stadium? The words Fantastic, Beautiful, Amazing and Impressive don't even begin to describe this masterpiece from the Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava (That's the architect they copied in Rotterdam with that wobbly bridge). And not only the stadium is beautiful. The entire area has been designed by him including my personal favourite: the wave wall... This is a 200 meter long 20 meter high wall of hundreds of single movable metal pipes which sway back and forth with the wind, creating the effect of a wave.

Have fun watching the opening!

Roberto