Justin Correia is the brother of Maritza Correia, a member of the U.S. Olympic swim team. He and his family have joined Maritza in Athens for the Summer Games and will be providing an ongoing diary of the experience.
After my last entry, my family and myself decided to hang out at the Bank of America hospitality area to watch the swimming finals on TV. We found a nice spot in the Internet lounge and watched all the races.
Everyone was in complete disbelief when our men's relay came in third. It was a very tense moment. It was the biggest upset for us, as the U.S. team so far.
On our way home we took the train back to our hotel. When we came out of the terminal, there was a big celebration. Cars were honking and people -- mostly men -- were yelling. We didn't know what was going on. And then we saw the Iraqi flags being flown all around us. My parents were terrified as we walked down the street. I had to put my U.S. flag in my bag as mobs of Iraqis shouted and danced around us. This continued the whole way to our hotel, which was about four blocks away from the terminal. We quickly realized that our travel agency had put us in a hotel in the middle of an Iraqi part of town.
We finally got to our hotel and saw a few Americans who were hanging out in the lobby area, just as scared as we were. We struck up some conversations, and every now and then we would see many young Iraqis chanting and hollering down the street. Finally we saw on the news that Iraq beat Costa Rica in soccer. That explains the celebrations.
At one point in the night, a huge mob of Iraqi fans came by the hotel, stopped and started to chant toward us, screaming at the top of their lungs.
After about an hour of this, things started to settle down, and we had a nice group of American families all chatting together. After introductions were made, we found out that a lot of the families that we were talking to were swimming families. So we talked about the relay and other swimming related things.
We had a wonderful time as the night went on. Everyone was in agreement that we were all charged way too much for our hotel room. The Keller family (Klete Keller) told us that they didn't have electricity or hot water their first night. Now, these are rooms that were $600 a night.
It was 2 a.m. and it was time for bed, so I went into my room and turned the light on. The only problem was the light didn't come on. The air conditioning also was off. I wasn't too mad. I walked back out into the hallway, and others seemed to have noticed at the same time. It was a very comical moment, as one person said, "No hot water, no air conditioning, no problem ... it's only $600 a night!" The electrician finally came and fixed the problem temporarily.
This morning when I awoke, the air conditioner was off again, and I had no hot water to take a shower, so I had to take a one of the coldest showers of my life. My family was to meet up with my sister at the Olympic Stadium, so we took a train to the venue. When we got there, we saw Gary Hall Jr. sitting around by himself. I went up to him and started to talk to him. When I introduced myself as Maritza's brother, he said, "Hey, I heard about you, and what your team did. That's great, man!" and shook my hand. I thought, "Wow, Gary Hall knows about Temple Terrace now, ha-ha."
We talked about the relay last night, and he said he wished the coaches would stick to their guidelines and not bend them, but he thought the U.S. guys did their best. After a bit, Maritza showed up, and we hopped back on the train to town.
We ate at the Bank of America hospitality center again for lunch. It was our first meal together as a family since we got here, which was nice. After lunch, my sister and I took a trip up to the Parthenon. It was so high above the city, it was amazing. A few people stopped up and asked Ritz if she was an athlete. I would interject and say "Yeah, she swam a few days ago; she's a silver medalist!" She got a lot of attention and praise for that.
We took a bunch of pictures while we were up there and had some good brother/sister quality time, which we hadn't done in over a month. We came down and went our separate ways; she had to go back to the village for her daily team meeting before finals. I kissed her on the cheek and she disappeared into the crowd.
I returned to the hospitality center to watch the finals again. I'm really hoping to see other events tomorrow, but ticket prices are so high, and I still have to buy souvenirs for my friends and my team back home.
I am ready to come back home to the States now. I have felt at home at these hospitality areas. But my trip to Greece is over for me.
