Hello everyone! I am at the Paralympic Village and all is well, except that
the computers here aren't letting me navigate to Livejournal. So for the
duration of the trip, I'll probably be updating via email like this. That's
okay, though. It basically means I won't be able to choose new icons or
reply directly to each comment, though I WILL get comments through email, so
please keep posting! I love to hear from all of you--and if I want to
specifically reply to a question or etc, I'll do so at the bottom of the
next day's post.

Ok. So first of all, they got my passport to me--hallelujah! I don't know if
they conscripted a race car driver to pony-express it all the way from
Colorado Springs to Denver in record time, or what, but somehow they found
it in Colorado Springs, and it made it to me right as the plane was about to
pull away from the gate. Talk about cutting it CLOSE! Trust me, though, this
passport is staying glued to my side for the rest of the trip, or maybe
under lock-and key. In reality, though, I am so lucky. It could have been
very bad indeed, but all is well. As I've been telling my teammates, I
accidentally tried to mail my passport back to Texas on purpose so
that I could get all the drama out of the way at the very beginning of the
trip. See? I did them all a favor. Now it'll be smooth sailing from here on
out. ;)

The Village is WONDERFUL. There are rows of tidy modern apartment buildings,
and winding around each of them are gardens with brick pathways, each with
ponds and fountains and all sorts of water features. Unlike Athens, which
was barely landscaped at all and looked a bit desert-like, this place is
lush with well-established greenery. There are graceful tall trees and
willows with their sinuous branches, lilly pads, amaryllises, lantana,
daisies, and lotus blossoms. There are modernized pagodas and each entrance
to the buildings is marked by an open circle-window in Chinese designs. The
apartments themselves are open and airy, with tile floors, balconies and air
purifiers. I have a double room to myself, and if the bed is a little firmer
than I'm used to, everything else is so wonderful that I barely notice.
By the time I go to sleep (FINALLY, OMG) last night, I figure I'd been up
for 50-65 hours, running on about 5 random one-hour naps. I was practically
hallucinatory during the evening meeting and it was all I could do to unpack
essentials, shower, and make it into bed before collapsing. I wasn't able to
sleep much on the plane, since I was parked right across the aisle from
demon monkey child, who came up with just about every evil thing possible to
do on a 747. Let's just say the ear buds never made a difference. I was fine
for most of the flight with about 30 mins of sleep, but right around Russia
I hit a wall of exhaustion and begged some of the Rugby players in the back
of the plane for one of their open 3-seat rows. The star of that movie
Murderball was off playing poker in another row, so he loaned me his
space, where I curled up for about another 30 or 40 minutes of sleep. The
plane was half-empty, so many of the athletes lucked out with full rows to
themselves, and managed to sleep most of the flight. What is it that's so
wonderful about being able to be horizontal for sleep? So wonderful. Back in
my seat, I shared my row with a very tired Chinese lady who spoke very
little English and slept most of the time with her feet up in the second
chair.

Even talking about this is making me tired again. I think it will take me
the better part of this week to recover from the sleep debt, let alone the
jet lag. My forearm and my ribs are killing me. I've realized now that the
week before I left, I ought to have been pushing hard with my wheelchair,
instead of being gentle and gambling on trying to avoid any soreness. With
as much ground as we've covered, there just WILL be soreness. I wish I'd
gone ahead and met the potential injuries head-on while I was at home, so by
now I'd be more adjusted to the pain and would be stronger because of it.
Sigh. Oh well, at least I'm right around the corner from Sports med.

I'm rooming with a shooter and a blind judo player, and we've earned the
nickname of Charlie's Angels because we're the most dangerous room
combination. One is 19 and the other is 17, and they are both very friendly
and on their first Games. I offered them my services as random
question-answer person, since the Tennis Divas fulfilled that role for me
when I roomed with them in Athens. Gotta pass the torch somehow, right?
We've each got our own room off a commons area, and we'll be on our own
until the 15th, when they fly in the Equestrian Team from Hong Kong to enjoy
the Closing Ceremonies.

We're about to go shoot for the afternoon, so I'll have plenty to tell you
about the archery venue--hopefully we'll get to see the field for finals!
Catch you later! :)