Barcelona Summer Olympics |
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Barcelona Summer Olympics
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At the very last minute, I headed to Barcelona for the Summer Olympic games. I had promised one of my former sixth grade students, that WHEN not IF he was in the Olympics, I would be there. I visited these fountains located in the Plaza Espanya. At the top is the National Museum of Catalunya.
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This is John Tillman. He came to my classroom to visit me right before the school year was up for the year. He is actually sitting in the desk he sat in when he was in the 6th grade. At this time, I had no idea he would be in the coming summer Olympics.
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I flew to Frankfurt, Germany, and stayed with some friends while I waited for a flight to Barcelona. It took several days, as most of the flights had been filled for months. Finding a hotel was another problem. After many inquiries, and three subway rides, I finally found a room at a hotel with no AC, and costs over $200.00 a night. I'm in front of the hotel eating a ham sandwich that I bought in a nearby deli.
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As it turns out, I was only a couple of blocks from one of Barcelona's biggest tourist sights. It is called Sagrada Familia, a massive Roman Catholic church.
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I was in Barcelona six days. The first four were spent walking around the city trying to locate someone who new my student, John. He didn't know I was coming, and I had no way of getting in touch with him to let him know I was there because there was so much security. On the fourth day, at around 5:00 in the afternoon, I saw a couple walking along and I ran over to them and asked if they knew John Tillman. THEY DID......so I was able to get a message to him. FINALLY!
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I spent the rest of the evening just doing a little sightseeing. This was some police car
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There were so many beautiful stairways around the city.
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While I was walking around, I saw this sign for the famous Michael Johnson. I didn't know it yet, but I was going to be able to see him run the next day. He is a famous American sprinter, and has won four gold medals as well as being a world champion eight times.
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Behind me is the Olympic Village. It was close to here where I was going to finally see John, one day before he had his event, the triple jump. It was also here where the nautical events were held. That was fun to watch.
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The next morning, I went to the main Olympic gate to wait for John. I came two hours early, and got to talking to a lot of the correspondents that were there. I told them my story about promising to be there when he was in the Olympics. They were so fascinated that they waited around for John to come out. FINALLY! After days of walking, sweat, tears of frustration, he came out of the gate. It was like in the movies...we ran to each other (in what seemed like slow motion) he grabbed me, twilled me around, set me down, and said, "Mrs. Smith, you are still crazy!" This is one of the journalist that wrote about the story.
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This is the Olympic stadium. It was amazing to be there.
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When I was in Frankfurt, I made this sign and carried it with me to Barcelona, hoping I would get to use it.
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I had this one taken overlooking the field. I told everyone around me the story about being John's teacher, and that I would go see him when he was in the Olympics. By the time he came out for his event, and they announced his name, the crowd around me went wild. He told me later he heard the roar from my section. :O)
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Talk about role reversal. I met John the next day, and followed HIM around as he visited his sponsors. He had come a long way from sixth grade.
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Here we are: student and teacher.
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If you have ever been to an Olympics, you know that buying and swapping pins is a big business. This is one of the places you could buy them.
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Look at this elevator. This is in my $200 a night hotel. The sad part is, after I got with John, he told me he could have gotten me into the hotel where he was staying.....for free! See next photo!
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This was the hotel where not only John stayed with his family, but the "Dream Team" stayed here. Ohhhhhhhhhh no! Oh well. I did get to stay there for one night, and it was wonderful!
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