Olympic tickets? What was I thinking???

When I heard there was a final round of Olympic tickets going on sale Friday, I was stoked to have the opportunity to see competitions in the famed Bird's Nest and Water Cube. Wow, I was being a naive American.

I decided that getting in line for tickets at 7:30 a.m. for the 9 a.m. selling time would be plenty of time. There were 250,000 tickets going on sale after all. And surely many of the Beijingers already purchased their tickets. Again, wow, I was being a naive American.

I am not sure why the above sounded logical because I spent more than 12 hours in the freezing cold to get a quality spot for College Gameday during my freshman year at Purdue. So, in a city of 17 million people for China's biggest event in the country's history, I was going to be able to buy tickets. Not only the two allowed for a first purchase but I talked about getting back in line afterward.

When Andrea, Megan and I arrived at the site, it was chaos and the tickets were an hour away from being on sale. I saw people in line but couldn't figure out how to get where they were. In my way were dozens of police officers. Andrea found an English-speaking local and soon found out that more than 300,000 people were already in line and the masses of people had stretched to more than three blocks away. Wow, I was being a naive American.

Several news stories I have found didn't note that many people but once the tickets went on sale people ran over others in search for the shortest line. Some people were injured and others who waited in line for more than a day for basketball tickets had to settle for synchronized swimming.

I think I forgot I was in a city and country as grand as Beijing and China when preparing for purchasing tickets.