北京欢迎你！

Jingshan took us to the Olympic Park this morning. Carolyn, Rebecca, Hannah, Becky and I arrived around 8:20 a.m., 25 minutes before we had to meet, in hopes of grabbing some McDonald's breakfast (a few big hash browns!) and 星吧克 (Xing ba ke, a.k.a. Starbucks) beforehand. We trekked past the school (where we were supposed to meet everyone), all the way down the street aaaaand around the corner to the Wangfujing Mall, where Starbucks in located, only to find it was closed until 10 a.m. A slight difference from the U.S. We all settled with hot chocolate from MickyD's. A side note: I never ate McDonald's in the States, but 40 cent ice creams and fries are so tempting when haven't eaten all day and you walk out of school around 4 p.m. -- The McDonald's is RIGHT next to our school.
I was interested in seeing the Olympic Park, not so much so I could see the inside of the Bird's Nest or Watercube, but so I could gage the crowd's level of excitement. The Olympic symbol is everywhere here. Everywhere. On cell phones, billboards, banks, stores. It's bordering on pathetic; 10 years down the road, even two years, China can't be celebrating that the Olympics were once here.
I had high hopes going to the actual scene. I didn't get to watch much of the Olympics last summer, but I had heard such great things about ceremonies and buildings. The watercube was made to sound as awe-inspiring as Michael Phelps's eight gold medals, and people are still talking about the Bird's Nest. I was just talking to a friend online and one of the first things he asked me was, "Do you do a lot of visiting? Have you seen the Bird's Nest?" I told him we'd actually gone this morning.
"You did!? Was it as it looks like on TV?"
I don't exactly know how it looked like on the TV, but I would assume it wasn't how it looked in real life. In all fairness to the Park, it is winter, so wooden boxes topped with green clothe stood in lieu of flowers. The "forest," about a mile down the walkway from the Bird's Nest and Water cube looked more like a pike of dirt with scattered pines on it. Maybe the mound was at least green in summer.
The place was fairly crowded. There were lines to get into both buildings and a fair amount of people use the promenade as a place to exercise. Some were speed skating on roller blades, a few were running and speed walking. The place is miles and miles long, so on beautiful days it must be nice to and just walk. I don't think that much open area exists anywhere else in Beijing. Speakers line the walkway and shuffled through three songs: "Beijing Huan Ying Ni" ("Beijing Welcomes You," 北京欢迎你), "One World, One Dream" and some song all in Chinese I couldn't understand.
People use the Bird's Nest as a place to picnic and were scattered over the fake grass. A larger list of songs were blasted from speakers inside, which the Beijing Olympic mascots danced to.