After a phenomenal day of meeting with some important members of the Olympics at the IOC and the Court of Arbitration for Sports, we were able to rest our weary bones and start the day off at 10 AM. Once the group convened, we made our way out to the Olympic Studies Center which was only a short walk away. The studies center is basically an olympic library that has every possible fact you want to know about the olympics during anytime period. There are hundreds of books that recount information on the ancient games, the modern games, coaching, psychology, etc. I could on and on and spend days there just soaking in all the information. After getting a tour of the center I went ahead and looked for books to help me out with my research topic.
After an hour of looking over my topic we got to go across the street to the Olympic Museum. It was cool because all of the exhibits were on a boat which made the experience more enjoyable. The top level had information on every Olympic game starting in 1896 and going through the 2012 London games. It was really interesting to see how the games have changed throughout the years with names such as Jesse Owens and Baron Pierre De Coubertin being replaced by the likes of Usain Bolt and Jacques Rogge. The bottom level had videos of opening ceremonies of some of the Olympics and then what I thought was most fascinating: the coins of every single Olympic games from Athens until London. I made sure to snap a picture of every single coin so I had it for the memories. I thought that the Albertville coins were the coolest ones out of them all. Downstairs they showed two replicas of stadiums: one from the Beijing games and one for the upcoming London games. It was really cool to see the London stadium replica because we had gotten an up-close view of the stadium just days earlier. Pretty surreal!
After the museum, most of the group rented out boats for the day to go explore beautiful Lake Geneva. Four of us rented a motorboat and took it far out almost reaching the beautiful Swiss mountains. It was an unbelievable view we were able to witness as we could see the entire city of Lausanne. However, there was a bit of peril at every turn. After jumping in to explore the Lake Geneva waters I thought it would be easy to just get back into the boat. However, since there was no ladder like there were on the paddleboats I couldnt make it back at first. However, with the help of James he was able to reel me back in as I escaped the dangerous thought of having to swim back from Lake Geneva all the way out to the harbor, a close call indeed.
After the boat ride most of the group went to the beach to go soak up the sun. Most of us got away unscathed with sunburn; however, Tyler was not as fortunate as he got burnt to a crisp. At night, we went down to the beach to have a group dinner/picnic. Our dinner consisted of a variety of meats, cheeses, and delicious sausages while we took in the beautiful night scenery of Lausanne.
Finally, some of the group members headed down to the Lausanne carnival to catch some rides while I headed down to Latino night by the harbor to do some salsa dancing.
A fun day indeed as I look forward to my last day in Lausanne.
Jon P
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