Okay, after all was complete on the last night of competition in the Bird's Nest, Natasha Hastings and I headed back to the village for dinner at McDonald's. After we ate some nuggets and fries, I went back to my room to meet my mom, Hazel Clark, and Torri Edwards. We spent an hour or so packing up all our stuff and laughing with my mom about the crazy day we had shopping at the Chinese Silk Market. I walked my Mom to her taxi and gave her a big hug, thanking her for coming all the way to China with a broken ankle. Then I walked back to the room to get dressed in a hurry so that we could go to the "Club Budweiser" Olympic Party.

Check out the Pictures Here!

We finally pulled our outfits together and as we walked out the door and made our way to the taxis Hazel and Torri realized that it could be a long night in their high heels but that didn't stop them. They kept on trucking. The taxi ended up taking us to the wrong address, of course, but we weren't surprised by that because that happened just about every time we set foot in a taxi. The language barrier was very difficult to work around, so after walking a few blocks and taking another taxi, we finally made it to "Club Bud" only to realize that it was locked down like Fort Knox! A gigantic gate stood between us and the hottest party of the Games, but we were not going to let that stop us. Within moments we got the break we were looking for, a charter bus had to come out from behind the gate so when the guards opened the gates for the bus to exit, we bolted through those gates so fast the little Chinese gate guard didn't even have time to react. We squeezed right by just as the gate was almost closed.

We were home free, so at least we thought we were. The next thing we knew we were facing another gate, and this was the gate that let you into the party. At this point we were getting very frustrated and the security at this gate was saying that they were only letting people into the club as people came out which meant for us that we might be standing outside the gates for an hour seeing how there were about 150 people in front of us in line. Once again our determination took charge and Hazel and I began to look for another way in. That's when I saw it, the gate that stood between us and party bliss was made with extremely wide set bars. In other words it finally paid off to be skinny. Hazel is the bravest of us and stepped up to be the first to try to slide under the gate as I stood by on lookout. Yes, she made it under the fence without getting a spec of dust on her outfit. I went under next and then Torri followed. We dusted off our hands and casually sashayed into the party as if we had walked right through the front door.

We secretly laughed and joined several of our other U.S. teammates on the stage and danced until about 3:30 a.m., which really wasn't very long because after all that drama we didn't get into the party until almost 2 a.m. By the time we got back the village it was almost time for me to get up to meet downstairs to catch my fight back to the U.S.A. My last night in Beijing was stressful and at the same time it was a lot of fun but honestly I just can't wait to get back home!

Living a little bit on the edge,
Deedee Trotter
A.K.A. D-Trott