Our mid-tournament day off **Updated**

It was good to unwind some and catch some of the other sports on the 40 Olympic channels we get here in the village. That's right, we have a TV in the common area of the 8 person apartment, and it shows 40 channels of olympic action. We never know what to watch, so we normally go to channels where Netherland teams are playing.

Speaking of which, the Netherlands softball team played the best team in the world today, team USA softball, with Jennie Finch, Crytstal Bustos and the whole rediculouly talented squad. They gave up only 1 run the whole olympics in 2004, and have given up 4 hits in 6 games here (including 4 no-hitters) this Olympics, crazy.

We had an early breakfast, followed by a 2 o'clock lunch, and a message that we have no practice today. No idea why it was cancelled, but it might have to do with the fact it was sprinkling all day long (which earlier in the week meant it would poor later in the day).

We ended up watching a lot of sports on TV including womens softball, volleyball, fencing, men's field hockey, and both mens and womens rowing (ladies won silver).
The Netherlands won a gold and a silver today which is a pretty big deal, and I happenned to notice that Canada won the 8 person mens gold in rowing, I wasn't to unhappy about that, for obvious reasons I guess.

Tomorrow we play team Cuba (about the best international team there is) at 6 pm, it is pretty much a must win just like the rest of our games... wish us luck!!

I didn't have much to photograph yesterday, so I took a couple of the epic USA vs. Netherlands match on TV...



Netherlands softball against the toughest opponent in the world, Team USA. They lost, compared to normal standards it was a respectable 8-0 defeat, they were also the 4th victim to be no hit by the USA in their 6 games.



Crystal Bustos. The cleanup hitter for USA is so rediculously good, she took this changeup and hit a line drive over the center field fence. She was completely fooled by the pitch as you can see, but it didn't matter, she is huge and strong, and I'm scared of her.



The relief pitcher for the Dutch was Judith Van Kampen, the sister of one of our pitchers, Michiel. Also, in another coincedence, I went to college with Judith. She was the top pitcher for our softball team in my first year of college at Treasure Valley Community College in Oregon. Way back in 2001-2002. She is still a dominating pitcher, and is one of the best in the Dutch head class.