Olympiad Day 0

A long but mainly pleasent journey from Leeds got us into Dresden at lunchtime today. Due to a double booking on the Eurostar, Rupert Jones and myself got moved into first class, which meant a free dinner and all the wine we could drink. The only drawback was a 5 hour wait at Brussels railway station for the night train to Berlin. Brussels isn't the most interesting place in the world and the railway staion could do a fair impersernation as 'Hell's waiting room'.
After a short break in Berlin we took the train to Dresden. A couple of people recognised us as chess players, so we took the opportunity to play "Guess which country we are from?". We thought we had won becuase they failed to recognise our obvious PNGness, but honours were shared when we failed to recognise Karsten Muller (the well known author), despite the fact that Rupert Jones had met him 10 years previously.
We arrived in Dresden to find that our hotel accommodation is still the Ibis, while the Australians are staying in the 5 star Maritim, right next to the venue. Despite claims to the contrary, average ELO carries some weight. I also picked up various bits of gossip from around the venue, including news that Kirsan Illumzyhnov was involved in a car accident in Moscow while heading to the airport to fly to Germany.
At the moment I'm blogging from the press centre, which may be the only place in Dresden that provides free internet access. The ClosetGrandMaster was already here when I arrived, so if you can't stand me, there is also coverage from him.
The hotel charges 5 euros per half hour and there is now way I'm paying that. So updates are likely to occur before and after the rounds, with the latter being more likely.
The opening ceremony is taking place in a couple of hours and hopefully I will have some photos for tommorows post.