International Paralympic Day in Berlin

We arrive at the International Paralympic Committee in Bonn at 6:35a Saturday morning to head to Berlin. The funny thing is, this was our first time riding in a Mercedes and it just so happens to be the taxi's taking us to the airport. Almost all the taxi's here are Mercedes, which is pretty funny to us. Even the garbage trucks are Mercedes!!

The main reason for the Berlin Trip was to attend the International Paralympic Day 2009. Andrew was to work at the multifunctional court, which had demonstrations of numerous sports such as wheelchair rugby, wheelchair dance sport, sit volleyball, and blind football (soccer). I didn't have an assigned task so I somewhat hung around Andrew and watched. I did, however, help Sumi, the Vancouver 2010 mascot, while on the stage with the German President, which was kind of neat. The highlight of the event was watching the long jump... it was so impressive watching these guys who were amputees, some missing one leg and some missing both legs, sprint down the lane and jump 6.5 meters (~23ft).

All candidate cities (Chicago, Rio, Madrid, Tokyo) for the 2016 games were also present handing out free gifts to anyone that wanted one. We both got collector pins, as well as pens, notepads and a cool paper fan from Tokyo. We also were served really good food for breakfast, lunch and dinner. My favorite was dinner which was a potato soup and then they added chopped up hot dogs. A weird concoction, but very yummy!

One annoying thing that happened while at the IPD were these ladies and children who would go up to people and ask for money. My first experience of this was a little boy that came up to me and asked if I spoke English. Thinking maybe he was lost, I said yes, and then he holds this piece of paper in my face in English asking for money. I told the boy sorry but no and he went on his way. The mothers on the other hand weren't so easy to get rid of. They would follow you around for at least two minutes begging! One came up to me and asked if I spoke English and I said no, then asked if I spoke Deustch and I said no and then she looked really confused and just walked away. I somewhat felt guilty at the beginning, but then realized how rude they really were and just went on with my business.

Once the end of the IPD came everyone was very exhausted, but we all went out for a little celebration later that night at the Sony Center with the really cool colorful roof. There were about 25 of us all together and found the Alex Bar to have a drink and a friendly chat. Finally around 11:30 figured it was time for bed so we could wake up rested to walk around Berlin and sight see the next morning.

The IPD was fun and were both glad to be a part of it!