Olympic dustbowl comes to life
 | Mike Otte, Nia Tavoularis, Lisa Weisenberger and Geoff Weisenberger decided to attend the Olympics after arriving in Greece for a wedding. |
Mike Celizic |
It’s just after 2 p.m., and the vast dusty plaza inside the Olympic Stadium complex is hotter than a Paris Hilton video. It’s a dry heat, though, so it doesn’t feel as if you’re in a sauna. It’s more like a pizza oven.
The stadium, so alive Friday night, is empty, as is the area around it. The dust on the unpaved plaza is thick. Rows of trees, planted just days before the Olympics began, are already abandoning the fight, wilting by the minute despite the muddy puddles of water around their trunks.
Despite the heat and the lack of anything to do, volunteers stick to their stations, huddling in the scant shade of light posts and signs, waiting for their shifts to end, listening to the sound system pump out music straight from a Classic Rock FM station’s play list, from Queen to Red Hot Chili Peppers to Dire Straits.
Beyond the stadium, at the other end of the complex, the open areas are full of life. The morning swimming session has just let out, and crowds of people, many wearing the colors of their country, are competing for the best places to get pictures of themselves against an Olympic backdrop. The favored place is a long latticework arcade with a sharp parabola arch that slinks sinuously around a series of large reflecting pools.
This is where the Metro, completed just three weeks before the Games began, disgorges passengers at the Irini Station. Among the passengers who disembark are two young couples from Chicago, Geoff and Lisa Weisenberger and Mike Otte and his new bride, Nia Tavoularis.
Tavoularis is of Greek ancestry, and she and Otte had come to Greece to get married just last week. The Weisenbergers came with them. Once they were in Greece, they decided to go to the Olympics, and now here they were, taking in the scene, waiting for the men’s gymnastics preliminaries for which they had bought tickets to begin.
The night before, they had watched the Opening Ceremonies at a café, and thought it was spectacular. Now, seeing the site live, they are doubly impressed.
“I can’t believe we’re here,” said Otte.
“We go around high-fiving each other, shouting, ‘We’re at the Olympics! We’re at the Olympics!’” says Tavoularis.
“They pulled it off,” she adds, referring to the Greeks and the Olympics. “They really pulled it off.”
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