Curling and luge and a kick ass party!

Olympic photos (20)
http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=z6muajd.avszjii1&x=1&y=epb3l2

I woke up this "moring" at 3:30PM. It was a long day!

We woke up early yesterday to go to Pinerolo to see curling. The security to get through was 100 times more strict than the snowboarding half pipe the day before - maybe they think there is a bigger terrorist threat for curlers, who knows. Our seats were next to the families of the curlers - about 50 people - mostly from Minnesota and Wisconsin. They were decked out in patriotic gear - kinda like the 4th of July in February. The US team beat Norway, 11 to 6. I cant really explain the rules but it is like lawn bowling or botche ball but with ice and a lot more strategy and skill. The largest curling club is guess where... St Paul on Selby and Snelling. Who knew?! I'll have to check it out when i get back. We went out to lunch with the group and two of the people had tickets to luge that they werent going to use because the USA mens curling team had another game that night. Anne and I kindly offered to take them off their back. It took two hours to get from the curling venue to the luge and we were NOT properly dressed to stand outside for three hours but we didnt care.

The luge was fascinating. We had to watch most of the race from the jumbotron and then for the split second that the luger sped by your part of the track you could watch them. There were tons of accidents and one US luger went unconscious when she hit on the corner that we were standing at (i had just snapped a photo) and she was like spaghetti flying down the rest of the track - really scary! How would one get interested in luge? Crazy! We took the train back through the mountains down to Torino and ate pizza (a staple, cheap dinner). Anne had to catch the last train back to Milan at 10:50pm and she found a travel partner because we ran into the chick we met at halfpipe from Salt Lake who was also going on the last train.

Paul and I, my friend from Long Island who I met in Florence, went back to the hotel to get ready for the big snowboarding party. The US women took gold and silver earlier that day and the men did the same the day before. We took the metro and waited 25 minutes for a bus before we realized that there werent any running. We started walking and 30 minutes later we stumbled upon John's Garage and the party. It was a very chill party! They had snowboard videos playing on the jumbo projector, a sweet DJ, and good drinks. Atleast half of the people there were related to Danny Kass (the siver medalist) and he was there chillin too. There was only one bathroom - which proved interesting later in the night - but with less than 100 people it was ok. I met Danny and chatted for a while with his brother and cousins. Amazing! Super chill people! My new friends from Berkeley and Seattle that I met at the luge stumbled in at 430am - crazy how you keep running into people! We all took a cab back to the train station near where we are staying at no earlier than 630am.

It is 5 pm now and i still havent had breakfast. I suppose it is a lost cause. I did get on the Today Show around 8 am your time and got a pic of Katie Couric. What a freakin great night!!

Ciao!