Arrival in Guadalajara

Estadio Omnilife, an open air stadium

Where do I start….

It was not a typical air travel day. After the usual time in the air, long period between flights in Houston and the final flight into Guad, I was finally here. Caught up with Mark, our press chief, on the flight in Guad. We were met by one of the drivers for team Canada and arrived at the Village. Very quiet at this time as barely anybody is here. The Village is officially opened to delegations but only “partly”. This means that only 5 members of each delegation are allowed in the Village. This allows set up and preparation for the athletes and teams arriving in 2 days.

My plans were to build my clinic tonight. Open all the boxes and crates that we had planned and shipped here from Canada. Some of the material is left over from our colleagues that were here for the Pan Am Games as we will occupy the same areas.

So here’s where the fun begins: UPS has not delivered my medical equipment and medications and the stuff left over from the other group is behind a locked door…and no one knows where the key is. UPS states they don’t know where the material is as they are under the assumption that it arrived here on Friday…..no it hasn’t and they are “closed on the w/e”. Will be fun tomorrow dealing with this little issue. There is a lot I can do helping set up the Mission staff office and operation centre for the Canadian team. There is always tons of stuff to do.

Great seats!

But tonight, an opportunity occurred. The Guad soccer team ( team Chivas ) was playing at the new impressive stadium which has just been built in the middle of a vast valley, a walking distance from the Village. That is where the Pan Am opening and closing ceremonies took place. So the 5 of us went over got field level tickets (in the corner) for 20 dollars and had a great evening watching a great game! Very large beers for 7 dollars made the evening even more fun.

When the game finished, instead of everybody leaving, they bring a Mariachi band at center field and they played for about half an hour while people hung out. An impressive open stadium and a great event. We figured we’ll never get this opportunity for the next few weeks so lets take it. We had fun.

Now back in my room. One advantage of being a smaller Game than the Pan Ams is that we ( Team Canada ) were given more rooms than required and won’t be crowded. I have my own room with no roommate! A rarity in these events. Only problem is that there is no internet yet so it will be some time before I can file this one.

By the way, I haven’t unleashed the camera yet so the fun pictures aren’t here yet. These are with my iPhone.