Gay Games blog report, Aug. 5

I headed to the pool this morning for my first swimming event, the 400 frestyle relay. Scott Brinitzer, Drew Fitzmorris, Jeff Mead and myself teamed up for the silver medal. It feels good to be a Gay Games medalist.

After the race I cut my foot open and went over the officials area to get some first aid. I was told to sit down. No one came back so I stood up to wander away leaving behind a puddle of blood. I heard a stern German voice say ‘Sitz, you are bleeding all over the pool deck.’ The Germans have a way of stating common requests with such authority that you are compelled to obey. She had brought me a Band-Aid, but I still needed a towel to wipe up the blood. She grabbed one, walked over to one of the buckets being used as a base for the tent pole, dunked the towel in and handed it to me. I started to protest, but gotthe German glare. If I get Hepatitis C, no one is going to believe that I got it from a dirty bucket of rusty water. I limped away muttering in German.

I cleaned up and headed off to the Neumarket Athletes Village where I ran into the Icelandic swim team. We had a bite to eat then partied to the sounds of an ABBA cover band. There we ran into the Denmark swim team who ended up adopting me for the night. My birthday was at midnight so they sang to me several and we did shots of Wardmeister mit vodka. A great Scandanavian birthday.

Visual of the day

They have this thing called the Bier Bike. It is a table with beer taps in the middle. It is powered by eight people pedaling away. It came around the corner today with eight shirtless studs pedaling and singing and drinking. I shamelessly chased it down the street for photos.

Observation of the Day

The Germans always cross at the intersection and always wait their turn. I crossed against the light today and felt shame. I also just heard that the fines are huge. Tell me again why we don’t do this in America?