Australian Tour Journal

Wednesday, January 5
Well, today was the day...the Opening Ceremonies. It was awesome!

We arrived at Olympic Park this morning at 11:00 for a final dress rehearsal. That dress rehearsal took all day. It took so long partly due to the several times we had to stop and wait for the rain to stop. It would rain just enough to force us to stop for about 10 minutes then the clouds would pass and we could continue. Late in the afternoon, we appeared dressed as the Village People on TV with the local weatherman.

At 5:30, everything started up as a helicopter landed in the middle of the field with the two hosts/masters of ceremonies for the evening--one of which is longtime friend Rob Farmer of Australia. The evening was kicked off by the parade of athletes entering the arena. The USA delegation got a huge round of cheers, topped only by the cheers for the host nation of Australia who were the last team to enter. Outside the gates, there was entertainment by all kinds of street performers--people on stilts, clowns, magicians, mimes and all kinds of folks dressed up in wacky costumes, and of course, the event mascots Mel and Vic.

There were all kinds of performances including Quest affiliate artist Astad Deboo with a group of dancers from India, Max-i-mime of Canada, and TOYS from Russia. The Quest Village People looked great on stage with Sophie Monk, plus a 200 person choir, a 100 girl cheerleading squad, and a large group of backup dancers. Toward the end of our song, fireworks went off ( a big surprise to all of us!) but it looked and turned out great.

There were speeches and acknowledgements of several Deaflympic dignitaries who arrived in the stadium in vintage Mustang convertibles. The celebrity singers rounded out the evening with more song and dancing for everyone and the evening closed with a beautiful display of fireworks!

After the show, cast members mingled with others for some picture taking opportunities then we dashed out to get some dinner and head off to what has become the center of the social situation here at the Deaflympics...the Transport bar located in Federation Square directly across from our performance venue.

The Party continues.

Stay tuned...

The athletes from Canada enter the stadium	The USA team enters the stadium.
Our friend Asphyxia does a performance for the gathering crowd	The Quest "Village People"
The Village People, Sophie Monk, and Robbie	Myra and Guy Sebastian, The Austrialian Idol
Mel the Mascot gets fresh with Paul!