PROCESSING!

So this is where we had our Olympic orientation. Sunday afternoon was amazing. We were given a Home Depot shopping cart and walked into a huge room filled with boxes of gear. Hats, pins, shirts, pants, shoes and our super top secret opening ceremonies outfit thanks to Ralph Lauren, they are quite fashionable...

Jimmy, our pro outfitter, was there to be sure we all looked just perfect. I was trying on the fancy pants and out of nowhere a man comes running over, “no, no those are too tight, see this? [points to the pockets] next size….[put on that next size in lightning speed] oh yes now that looks very sheik.”

Then we had our alternations done, took pictures for who knows what, got sized for Olympic
leather jackets, checked our medical forms, and last but not least picked out our Olympic Rings!

That night and the next day we got to pack and repack all our gear, crazily figuring out what we were wearing and what we could send home.

Monday night was our last practice in America before heading to Daxing, China....absolutely incredible. I remember moving in with Alison last September and having the "still so long till the Olympics" conversation....it doesn't seem that long ago.

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The men’s basketball team had just gone through the whole process the day before with multiple security guards and the place pretty much to themselves. Then they were whisked away…and some insider information (Apparently they trained at Stanford for a few days without shot clocks-and who do you think came to the rescue? Stanford water polo gladly supplied the new fancy pool shot clocks. Good work Stanford).