Stockholm Syndrome

The last 7 days, I have cheered for the Russians but not the Canadians.  No, you didn't read that wrong.  No, I'm not in gulag.  I have cheered for the Russians because they are undoubtedly the only country that compares in any way to the US when it comes to cheering their athletes on!!!  They are very passionate and they are very VOCAL!  Whereas I chose to stop cheering for our North American neighbors (and my own relatives) yesterday when I realized that Canada does not return the favor.  Never.  Like ever.  In fact, they actively cheer AGAINST us-which, that's cool, Canada, no biggie, just didn't realize it was a 1 way street.

Best Place to Get Drunk And Take Pictures With Every Stranger Imaginable
Austria House.  Located right next to the train station up in the mountains where you go for all the alpine events, it's the perfect meet-up point, beer drinking point, faux podium photo op point, faux ski lift photo op point, giant cowbell photo op point, you name it!  Great food, awesome people (it's open to the public, so it's heavily Austrian and Russian populated), and waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay better beer than they are serving at the venues.

Can We Just Talk About Baltika Beer?
If you don't see the beer cooler to the right of the cashier, you get warm beer.  No, seriously, HOT BEER.  If you grab the wrong one, and pick 0 Baltika, it's non-alcoholic.  If you are lucky enough to grab your own beer (it's weird to get used to the non-controlled way of thinking about alcohol!), then it's going to either taste like piss or taste like drinkable piss.  If Russians think this is beer, no wonder they suck down the vodka.

Crazy Olympic Moments
Everything is so hard to capture.  Little moments when you are laughing at foreign names like Freek Van Der Wort, or a Croatian skiier whose name has 9 letters but only 1 vowel, and doesn't appear to be a name as much as a sound effect.  Sounds like "Zrrrrrrrrinchhhhhh."  Seriously.  Or when they show skiiers biting into apples and bananas (???) on the big screen, in non-appealing ways.  Or seeing a chick dressed  entirely in fur with 8" heels to navigate the ginormous Olympic Park.  Or this from a 7 year old boy:  "My name is Vlad!"  Me:  "My name is Lara!"  "I am from Vladivostock!"  Me:  "I am from USA!  What's your favorite Olympic sport?"  "My name is Vlad..."

I Heart the Olympics.
I mean, you know I do.  YOU KNOW I DO.  You're sick of hearing about it. The last 5 days have been a melee of meeting other Americans, both awesome and not.  (YOU KNOW YOU'RE AWESOME, HEATHER AND BEN!!!)  When I tell you that we're like celebrities, I'm not joking-we sang about half the first verse of "Sweet Child 'O Mine" and I watched at least 10 people get up to come running to take pictures with us.  We sang the Star Spangled Banner and it was like the Cincinnati Who Concert.  I was realizing that LITERALLY this might be the first time these people might be meeting Americans!  So we try our very best to say thank you in Russian, to share smiles and laughs and beers and make sure their first impression is the best one and the one that stays!

USA-RUSSIA HOCKEY
Was it loud on TV?  Because that place was rocking.  Russians know how to cheer!  However, we found out that they don't allow beer inside because of laws meant to curb alcoholism in Russia.  Which is sad and all, but we love our beer !  (Even if we have to drink the goat piss known as Baltika!)

Yesterday was Men's Super Combined and Ski Jumping.  Ski Jumping felt like this awesome party where your friends were strapping themselves to skis and jumping off for your entertainment, but with better equipment and knowledge of physics.  It was sad to see Bode not medal, BUT AWESOME TO SEE HIM WALK INTO THE AUSTRIA HOUSE!!  Every Austrian kept telling me how much they loved him.  Adorable.

Earlier today, we went to Women's Super G.  We also didn't medal there, but like 12 women wiped out-it was NUTS!!!   FYI, hope you like steps if you're going to Alpine events.  I swear we climbed up a 20 story building every time we were there!

Tomorrow-Curling and Biathlon!  Skis and GUNS!  And a stop at Austria House.  Of course.  Because.