Opening Ceremonies 2014 Olympics ~ The Lighting of the Torch

This is the fourth installment of the Opening Ceremonies for the 2014 Olympics in Sochi, Russia. 
To see the first, go here -- Beginning with the alphabet.
To see the second, go here -- The Athletes Enter
To see the third, go here -- The Performances


If you're like me and are watching the Olympics, the lighting of the torch is old news -- but it's still fun to see! One of the most memorable torch lightings had to be when Muhammad Ali lit the flame in Atlanta in 1996. Even with Parkinson's he stood tall and proud!

However, this year's lighting was also exciting to watch as the flame was handed off to several Russian athletes before it was finally lit.

Arrival of Olympic Flag

This was a spectacular light show

A tribute to all the athletes

Maria Sharapova, silver medalist in 2012 and Sochi native, ranking World No. 5 by the Women's Tennis Association, was the first to carry the flame after it entered the stadium.

It was handed off to several Russian athletes

This was the longest Olympic Torch relay in history!

The lighting

Of course, the torch is outside!

Fireworks!

You'll have to excuse some of those pics -- I ran out of battery power on my main camera and used my small, take it in your purse, camera for these.... and it doesn't have a stop action setting (or at least one that I have found!), so some of the photos are a bit blurry.

Well, that's it! Now we can all settle back and watch our athletes! May they stay safe and bring home lots of gold! (They've gotten a pretty good start already!)

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Opening Ceremonies 2014 Olympics ~ Performances

This is the third installment of the Opening Ceremonies for the 2014 Olympics in Sochi, Russia. 
To see the first, go here -- Beginning with the alphabet.
To see the second, go here -- The Athletes Enter

The Russians put on quite a grand performance during the Olympics Opening Ceremonies -- it was a celebration of their history and was very colorful, exciting and interesting to watch. The following pics are just an example of what was shown....

This has an ice sculpture look

There were a number of these horses floating above the floor

Do they remind you of the Lilliputians in the Wizard of Oz?

The little girl who read the alphabet made appearances in this part of the program

Next was a kind of carnival atmosphere

Everything swirling and turning around

with Saint Basil's Cathedral in the center

These guys reminded me of those balloon men that 

flip and flop and flutter at the car lots!!

The little girl begins to walk on a human staircase!

This depicted the ballroom scene from Tolstoy's War and Peace

Have you read it?

Anna Karenina is one of my favorites but I could never get into 

War and Peace.

Maybe I'll rent the movie one day!

The dance was beautifully done

Russia's Industrial Revolution

Soviet space program

I'm not so sure about these floating heads....

a bit creepy if you ask me!

The little girl floating with her red balloon

This was gorgeous

The "wings" created streams of light that the dancers 

twirled above their heads creating a spinning light show!

Oliver slept through the whole thing!

Of course, that's not unusual for him!

I hope you'll come back tomorrow for the last installment -- the lighting of the torch!

sharing on Blue Monday


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Opening Ceremonies 2014 Olympics ~ The Athletes Enter

This is the second installment of the Opening Ceremonies for the 2014 Olympics in Sochi, Russia. To see the first, go here -- Beginning with the alphabet.

It's always exciting when the athletes enter the stadium -- they always have such big smiles and you can tell they are totally thrilled to be there! This year, except for Greece and Russia, the teams entered in order of the Russian Cyrillic alphabet rather than the usual ABC line-up that we're used to.

These are a few shots (taken on my TV!) of some of the participating countries. Hope you enjoy the fashion show!

Greece is always the first country to enter

Bermuda had one athlete

Gotta love the Bermuda shorts!

Germany with 153 on the team had these beautiful pastel uniforms

Kyrgyzstan was another country with only one athlete participating.

I'm loving those scarves!

Speaking of scarves, Latvia had some cool ones too with matching hats!

This is Nepal, another one athlete country!

I thought it was interesting that Nepal has the only non-rectangular flag in the world!

I couldn't get a good shot but it's two triangles, one above the other.

Plus his hat is very cool  :)

and here's the USA! We have 230 athletes, 

second only to Russia which has 232!

Their uniforms are again by Ralph Lauren Polo, but this year they are 100% made in America!

If you remember, the uniforms for the 2012 summer Olympics were made in China and caused quite a disturbance. Ralph Lauren was a smart guy to change to American made this year!

Raising that flag high!

Shaun White with his new haircut...

I kind of liked it long....

She's got red, white and blue hair!

This guy is from Timor-Leste, a country in southeast Asia.

He has trouble explaining his sport because there is no word for "ski" in his dialect!

Czech Republic -- more cool hats!

Russia -- the host country always enters last.

Their 232 athletes wore these fabulous coats!

That's the end of the Olympic fashion show! So many athletes, all so proud to compete for their county!

I hope you will come back tomorrow to see some of the amazing performances showcasing Russian history!

sharing on Blue Monday

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Opening Ceremonies 2014 Olympics ~ The Alphabet

Did you watch the Opening Ceremonies for the Olympics last night? I must admit, I am a ceremony junkie! If there's any pomp and ceremony attached, I watch! The Olympics are no exception -- and they were fantastic, let me tell you!

Snowflakes that turned into....

the Olympic Rings!

Ooops, that one silly snowflake wanted to stay a snowflake!

I'm also an Olympics junkie and will be watching every night! Love the ice skating and snowboarding especially, oh and let's not forget the luge! How anyone can go that fast on a tiny track on their backs and feet first is beyond me!

I took these pictures from my TV, by the way.... and so as not to have complete Olympic overload, I've decided to post them over four days (I know, I know, that's a lotta pics!!) But this was so fabulous, it's gotta be shared!

So it is my hope that you'll come back for more over the next several days. If you didn't see the opening ceremonies, this will give you a taste, and if you did, well maybe you'll see something you didn't before.

This will  be the line-up....
Today -- Beginning with the alphabet
Sunday -- Athletes entering
Monday -- Carnival and Russian history performances
Tuesday -- Lighting of the torch

Enjoy!

The start of the performances showed the Russian Cyrillic alphabet, told by a most beautiful child as she reads her alphabet book. When the athletes enter, they will be in the order of the Cyrillic alphabet, rather than our own as is the norm.

Years ago a Russian friend of my brother gave me an English-Russian handbook and inscribed it with my name written in Russian. Since it is Sarah, he told me that it did not translate into Russian since it was a Biblical name, but that it was pronounced the same as in English. Anyway, in the Cyrillic alphabet, Sarah is written Capa. There's no individual letter for the "h"

S

A

R

A

Even though many of the Cyrillic letters look like ours, they stand for an entirely different letter. And then there are the letters that have symbols....

F for fish

the letter with pronunciation of "ZH"

YO

Hey, you've gotta have a cute little hedgie pic!

and a kitty!

I missed the letter, but he's a (big) cutie!

"Russia" in Cyrillic alphabet

You can see how the girls are standing on graphics on the floor. This was a new technique and was absolutely fabulous! I don't have the knowledge to explain it, but trust me, it was unbelievable! The graphics moved and changed with whatever was going on above the floor. 

Can you see that tiny white dot just below the center cloud?

That's the little girl who read the alphabet and then soared above -- 

the platforms and clouds are actually hanging from the roof!

Here she is floating over to the platform which is the third one you see in the first shot

Still a tiny white dot!

and here she will land on that floating platform -- 

seven of these platforms floated through showing scenes from Russia's history.

Of course there was singing and beautiful costumes

OK, that's it for today... next up will be some of the athletes entering. You'll see some very colorful uniforms! I hope you'll come back tomorrow to see!



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