Sunday, August 15, 2010

First day at the IOI

The first day at the IOI has been amazing. The people, the place and of course the swag have been great. Our guide is very nice and everything seems extremely organised.

We left for Waterloo University from the Waterloo Inn at 9:30, I was quite surprised at how short the trip was. On our arrival we met our friendly guide Vanessa who gave us a tour of the campus and our college.

The food here is edible, but still it's the IOI so everything is by definition awesome.

An introduction to the IOI

So today we finally were at the actual place where we would be competing, sleeping and eating for the next 8 days. After waking up at around 7am, and feeling really tired, I managed to have some nice pancakes with maple syrup, apparently a Canadian special. We then packed our stuff, and boarded a bus which would take us to the university campus.

After arriving there, we were all pretty excited and ready to be, as Jarrah challenged us 'sociable', a somewhat foreign concept to us. We managed to meet a nice Belgium guy, who we spent a while talking to, and when we went on a tour of the campus he came along as well. By this time, the already moderately warm day had turned quite hot, and was quickly becoming very humid. After spending an hour walking around, we were all very sweaty and after quickly eating lunch, went to our rooms to change.

After eating lunch, we decided to fulfill Jarrah's challenge by bringing some cards up to the lunch tables and playing Bartog, an interesting game which encourages memory, logic and speed, all things that an information would need, thus explaining its part in the Australian selection process. After getting bored of that, we went exploring in search of a candy shop, and while on the way Evgeny decided to climb a pole, chase a squirrel and climb trees. While on the way we found the Macedonians and the English, both who we had interesting discussions with. After heading back to socialise again, we had dinner and went to a welcoming party.

The welcoming party was fun, meeting the French, Irish and a news reporter. We soon left though, to go play Bartog and the hat game with the New Zealanders and Irish, and after getting too tired, going to sleep.

Friday the thirteenth

I haven't blogged since Thursday, so here it goes.

Friday 13th
Uhh... yeah...
Was woken up by Bernard at about 6 AM. Nothing notable happened, apart from I think Robert losing his shoes somewhere in my room. Don't know how that happened.

I don't remember most of the 20 hour long flights, so I will omit that boring part. That said, planes are loud and impossible to sleep in. We have arrived at Toronto at something like 6PM, making it a (not-so-) great 36-hour long Friday.

Ran into the Russian team in Waterloo Inn, and Australians made me act as a translator for them.

Saturday 14th

Quote of the day: "But I don't have dyslexica... oh wait..."

Arrived to Waterloo University :D We played Bartog several times during the day. Found the kiwi team, pom team, american team, french team, irish team, something team, etc.

We also had a party that was meant for us to socialise, but we ended up talking in our own social circles. And Kolstad was bagging out that kind of behaviour, which was amusing to listen to :D

Some reporter for Wired took an interview, so we're now famous (need those medals!).

Day 0 is tomorrow, as well as the opening ceremony. Looking forward to spending several hours in a humid, hot hall in a blazer and pants.