Opening Ceremony

Today was the opening ceremony. My team was supposed to have arrived late yesterday. However there were news (or no news) of other teams having gone missing, like the south african team that didn't seem to have made its connecting flight and hadn't been heard from since, and the mongolian team which was returned when transiting through the U.S. for reasons of visa. Apparently lots of teams had had problems with connections in Mexico City, and I was sort of relieved to have chosen the Houston route instead.

I took my new translations (with the little fix from yesterday) to the organisers early in the morning. I then went to have little swim. We didn't have jury meeting untill eleven o'clock, so there was plenty of time after breakfast. I took a few laps in the sea and must say that I'm beginning to like sea bathing more and more. The beach was very peaceful this morning, hardly anybody in sight.

The jury meeting was brief. Basically, all the translations were approved. Marking schemes would be discussed tomorrow. We had lunch, then went to change for the opening ceremony. I was back to the entrance, from where the buses for the ceremony would leave in time, but then realised that I didn't have a paper slip of a ticket that we were supposed to carry with us. One of the organisers stressed the importance of having that ticket to me, so last minute I decided to run off to my room to get it. Lack of chance it suddenly burst out with rain and thunder as I did the sprint to my room, and some tropical rain! I was completely soaked with water as I returned to the buses. Inside the buses it was freezing of course. P. saved my life and lent me his jacket. We then headed for Merida.

The opening ceremony took place in a theatre/cinema in the old part of Merida. It was long, as always, yet pretty efficient. But I believe nobody would miss it if we cut the number of speaches from officials down by half. (Or skipped some of the translations, for that matter ...) All the teams (except for those that hadn't arrived yet, and those were quite a few ...) marched on stage, one by one, while pictures from their countries were projected in the background. That was neat. I saw my team.

After the ceremony we had dinner in the governor's building right next to the theatre. An impressive building in architecture, it was definitely a nice setting. We dined in open air, on the balcony. It was really hot and humid, even after the sun went down. I don't know if it was the heat, or what, but again, I could hardly put anything down. I ate the appetizer, but couldn't touch the main course, then gulped down the sorbet we got for desert ...

It was late when we got home. I had a drink with P. but couldn't even finish it. Went to my room and studied the geometry problems a bit before falling asleep.