Becca Jane St Clair

Personal Blog

Olympics From a Traveler’s Perspective

It’s actually really interesting to be in another country during the Olympics, and to be watching things on that nation’s television station. It’s interesting how the focus isn’t all about the Canadians, and they’re actually talking about all the other nations and athletes…they even showed George Bush when the US walked by. It’s refreshing, because on the US station(s), I know they’ll be concentrating mostly on the US teams and on telling us all about the US.

The commercials are also great, because they’ve been showing support commercials for both Canada and the US….whereas in the US, we wouldn’t get Canadian commercials.

Also, I completely do not understand the Chinese alphabet they’re using for the countries. Peru followed by Ireland followed by Estonia…oh wait, and now it’s the Czech Republic and El Salvador. What?! And the UK, the US, and Canada all already marched. Can anyone explain to me the Chinese alphabet?

I’m also actually pretty exited…these are the 29th Olympics, and I’m turning 29! Okay, so the Olympics aren’t technically 29 actual years old, but it still keeps me entertained.

The only thing I might miss with not being in the US would be the coverage on *all* of the NBC owned channels and the chance to be watching high diving at 2 in the morning because it happens to be on MS-NBC or something like that.

I love the Olympics. I have since I was little…..Mom has a photo of me somewhere from 1984, asleep on her and Dad’s bed, holding an American flag in my hand because I had been trying to stay awake to watch the opening ceremonies. In 1992, when the US had it’s first “dream team”, dad and I watched every game we could, and collected all the newspaper articles. I bet I still have them somewhere. My hometown was host to an Olympic athlete (he went to Peddie, my public high school’s private rival across the street), and my college (Penn State!) has been the alma of many athletes. My friend is vying for a position on the US Hockey team for 2010, and Tim’s already been teasing me about staying with him in 2012 for the London games.

The sad thing about this year? I won’t be watching them with my mom, and I’ll miss out on the local coverage. Oh, but how’s this for strange? I went to both the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting) and NBC websites to check on the schedule because I don’t want to miss the Penn State alum (Kevin Tam, US Men’s Gymnastic Captain) and I thought I caught that part of Men’s Gymnastic’s was tonight, and I actually had the local (WGAL) logo showing on the NBC site. My IP is currently showing me as being in Canada, so I know it’s not some weird “we’ll go by her IP and show her the station logo for the local station”….but look:


(Click for bigger)

Isn’t that weird?

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1 Comment so far

  1. lmmosm August 8th, 2008 19:51

    It won’t be the same for me either to watch the Olympics together. I probably won’t watch as many events by myself. No one to discuss what is happening. Its just not the same!

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