And the pairs figure skating was quite exciting tonight! I enjoyed it immensely, especially the couple that use “Phantom of the Opera” Overture and Music of the Night for their song. :-) If I ever had to skate in a program, I would totally go with a Phantom Classic. I think I’d use “All I Ask of You”; I love that song.

My family has always been into the Olympics; I’m not sure why, because none of us are very athletic (with the exception of my little sister who is about as athletic as you can be). The first Olympics I remember were when we were living in Costa Rica – The 92 Winter Olympics (back when the summer and winter Olympics were held the same year). I don’t even remember where they were, except that we sat down to watch them on TV but we couldn’t see anything but static. :-( So maybe that doesn’t count. I remember the 92 Summer Olympics in Barcelona – right after we moved to Peru, and we watched it in Spanish and were obsessed with the synchronized swimming.

The first Olympics I really got into were the 94 Olympics in Lillehammer, Norway. Dan Jansen (speed skater) and Oksana Bauil (figure skating) won gold medals, and who can forget the Tonya Harding/Nancy Kerrigan drama? And of course the 96 Summer Olympics – held in my hometown of Atlanta, less than an hour from my house… I actually was able to attend some of those events; that was pretty cool. We watched with pride as the US Women’s Gymnastics team snagged the gold medal despite Kerri Strug’s injured ankle. Then the 98 Games in Nagano, Japan – Tara Lipinski at age 14 became the youngest to win gold. We missed the Sydney Games because Peru blocked NBC (we could get the US network stations on Peruvian cable). We had to watch the Peruvian coverage of the Olympics which was…. weightlifting. Ooh how exciting. And if you think NBC focuses too much on US athletes, they’re nothing compared to Peru! My memories of 2002 in Salt Lake City were sitting in Melissa’s room on her top bunk with Jeremy’s laptop (did you ever get that back?) checking the stats realtime as we watched the events on TV. I don’t think I got much homework done. :-) I missed the Opening Ceremonies of 2004 in Athens because Hurricane Charley hit us that night; I was mad, but we remained in Olympic spirit by watching Chariots of Fire. :-)

There you go, my history with the Olympics. I love watching it, and I was even getting into snowboarding which really doesn’t interest me at all, but I think hearing the commentators get all excited made me all excited too. I am looking forward to following these Games, and it’s the first time when I haven’t had the obligation of homework to make me feel guilty for watching TV for three hours every night. :-)