A Very Unfortunate Loss

Eric shot his heart out today, and he shot a 114, only dropping 6 points. The bad part is that John Stubbs decided to shoot a Paralympic world record during the match that Eric had to face him. He shot a 117. That is almost unheard of and Eric was eliminiated. :( It was heartbreaking, but very satisfying knowing Eric shot his best today.

He obviously is very bummed. Not necessarily because of his loss today, but because he didn't shoot as well as he wanted to in the ranking round, making him face Stubbs early on. I was able to see him for a bit afterwards and we just embraced for a long time. He wanted me to make sure everyone knows how much he's appreciated your support, both emotionally and financially. This really has been a once in a lifetime opportunity and we BOTH are so lucky to be here and share this together.

After Eric was done competing, Patricia and I decided to get adventurous! We found a bus that goes to different Paralympic venues, and we wanted to go to where the Bird's Nest, Water Cube, and Indoor Stadium are. We had tickets for the swimming event at the Water Cube at 5:00pm and the bus dropped us off around 12:30. We walked down the streets a little while trying to find a place we recognized to eat. We finally found another Starbucks and ate there. We still had tons of time to kill, so we walked the square with all the venues. It's huge and there were SOOO many people. I don't know how they can have 3 major venues all together like that and not have major congestion problems.

This is a picture of Patricia in front a huge river that they were doing a water show in. On the left is the Bird's Nest. The building with the arch on the right is the Indoor Stadium and just left of the tall tower is the Water Cube. You'll probably recognize the tall "squiggly" building that you saw on all the broadcasts of the Olympics.

Here's a good picture of the Bird's Nest, and you can see the torch buring.

The Water Cube

We had another frustrating taxi ride this morning...argh!!!! The taxi cab driver took us all the way east and around on the outer city loops. 45 minutes and $87RMB later...(our usual trip has cost us $38RMB). We were late getting to the archery field and the stadium was filled, but oh well. What can you do when you are in a foreign country.