It began, sadly, with a long wait.

The local organizers failed to announce an interruption of bus services to and from the main press center (MPC), a logical interruption necessary to manage the athletes' passage from their Village to the stadium for Opening Cermonies. The interruption in bus service stranded hundreds of media types who were uninterested or unable to attend the Opening Ceremonies.

This was the first egregious mistake by the locals, who have been spectacularly helpful and willing and wonderful. There was no audible shouting in outrage, possibly because of the constant military presence.

Thirty steamy minutes of line-waiting for a cab netted us (distinguished Inquirer Phil Sheridan and me) a clean, small car driven by a clean, small man .

As we got in, the cab was approached by a harried fiftysomething, one eye askew, laden with equipment, shvitzing like a nafka at temple. He was eager to accept our announced offer to share our cab to North Star Media Village.

Unfortunately, "North Star Media Village" comprised about 25 percent of his English vocabulary. His Mandarin was even worse. His Hungarian, presumably, was excellent.

He sat in the front seat.

From there, our newly formed League of Nations spent 20 minutes driving up and down mostly empty streets, which were empty, we discovered, because they were closed. One particularly distressing moment came when we went down a one-way correctly, found it blocked, and had to retrace it against the flow. Luckily, there was no flow.

En route, our Hungarian pal repeatedly tried to direct the driver with hand gestures and onomatopoeiac (SP?) utterances; when he wanted the driver to speed up and pass, for instance, he would slice his hand forward through the air and say, "Neee-youm!"

Or, maybe that was Mandarin.

Meanwhile, in the back seat, distinguished Inquirer Phil Sheridan, or DIPS, and I were entertained by a LCD TV in the headrest on the back of Captain Hungary's seat (DIPS' nickname. DIPS is smart, and funny). Nice touch, that screen, but all in Chinese, and a little tinny, and we were stressed and headachy. DIPS saw a volume control and punched it.

It got louder. A lot louder.

So.

We figured out how to mute it, the driver found the highway, sped us back to the Media Village, and dropped us off -- that is, me and DIPS, who tipped generously. Captain Hungary , however, refused to exit the cab for a few minutes, gesticulating at a map. We scurried away as the soldiers approached the car. Last we saw, he 3 uniformed military types, 2 interpreters and 1 traffic cop hovering.

A couple of hours later DIPS and I went to dinner, where we watched much of the Ceremonies. As you might expect, the Chinese food here is quite good; the dumplings last night went down like French Fries, the Yanjing draft cold and fresh.

When Yao Ming carried the Chinese flag down the track it was like being in a Brazilain bar during the World Cup. Or maybe Chickie's and Pete's during the NFL playoffs.

We had faded by the time former gymnastics star Li Ning shot upward, torch held aloft, ran around the roof of the stadium and lit the cauldron; still, our Aussie drinking buddies in the Media Village watching with us gasped. Hard to impress an Aussie.

A passing squadron of soldiers even broke with eyes-front for a second, stealing a glance at the moment their country joined the rest of the world.

Now, about that oppression ...