Day With Sara.

Here's Sara, waiting for her heat earlier today.

Here she is coming in hot to the finish line, where we were standing to cheer her on.

Yesterday was pretty relaxed. We got up late and had breakfast, and then headed downtown to the Shanghai Museum. We managed to navigate the metro like pros. The Shanghai metro is pretty nice - it's airconditioned, so it's got that over the metro in Paris. Plus, no sweaty, unwashed Frenchmen.

The Museum was very cool. We looked at a lot of old Chinese art and pottery and costumes. The gift shop was also very wonderful. Yay shopping!

In the evening we went to see an acrobatics show. It was an hour and a half long and was absolutely amazing. The time went by like it was ten minutes. There were crazy gymnasts, people doing fantastic balancing acts, flips and tricks. Really mindblowing.

Today we went downtown again to Nanking Road, a famous shopping district, and shop we did (Mom and I at least.) We bought little silk purses and jade items. We even bargained. Mom was especially tough with the walking away. I am too much of a sucker. Can't live without junk. Dad mostly stayed outside having something cool to drink, until he decided we'd been left unsupervised for too long.

This afternoon we went over to the stadium. Sara's long jump had apparently been in the morning, but we didn't know the schedule had changed and we missed her. We were there in plenty of time for her 400m prelim. They had one false start and that threw her off a little, but she finished in 1:35.34, which is close to her personal best. She was happy to see us, though she seemed a little embarrassed about all of our cheering. Tim and I had made Team Sara shirts, and so we all matched in our cheering her on.

We were able to meet up with her afterwards and give her a hug, and then spent about an hour standing around and talking to all of the kids from Team USA. Sara's in a group that the coaches are calling "Triple Threat." She seems to be happy as a clam, even though the athletics kids are basically stuck in the hotel and are getting sick of Chinese food. The good news is that parents are able to check out their athletes if they want, so mom and dad are going to take her out to lunch later next week (maybe to McDonalds for a shogun burger.)

Tim, Grandma and I have to leave tomorrow. The trip has been fantastic and we're sad to leave mom and dad. The athletes will be at the stadium starting around 8:30, so we're going to go over and say goodbye to Sara before we head out. Then only an eleven hour flight home. Yipee.