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Sweating Out the Wait for the Opening Ceremoniesby Josh Gerstein
I'm inside. Just took a bus across Beijing and then made it through the security checkpoints and the excited crowd outside the Bird's Nest stadium. The most arduous part of the journey: sitting right here in the "non-tabled press" section on the second tier of the stadium. Was fine on the way in, but I am in now a flop sweat. I don't know precisely how hot it is, but probably about 85-90 degrees. The humidity is stifling, though. The air is so thick you can see haze around the lights inside the stadium on the far side. The main problem is the air just isn't moving. The stadium has a fabric roof that covers the audience but not the oval. The idea is probably to avoid the audience getting soaked in a thunderstorm. But the combination kills nearly any natural breeze. Anyway, not whining, just clueing you in on the crowd conditions. Picked up a couple of bottles of water on the way in. Will start employing them now. Some pre-program now underway involving performances by pretty spectacular arts troupes from different regions of China, including Tibet. Soon the training lesson for the audience for the crowd involvement is supposed to get under way. We'll see what China, or China and a bunch of foreigners has on the North Koreans, who seem to be the real masters of mass crowd performance. I wonder if President Bush will join in!
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