LONDON – Congratulations to the U.S. Women's 4x100m Freestyle Relay team on their bronze medal! We are all so proud of them and the rest of Team USA. My legs were shaking so badly during the race that I could barely stand. My family and I screamed until our voices were hoarse. Missy Franklin, Jessica Hardy, Lia Neal, and Allison all did a great job.
I was able to get Allison's attention while she was standing on the podium for the medal ceremony.
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I don't think she could hear me, but I gave her a thumbs-up to try to convey at least a fraction of my happiness.
Along with their medals, all of the swimmers got a beautiful bouquet of flowers to celebrate the medal win. Allison threw her bouquet up into the stands to my mom. She has a pretty good arm – if she weren't such a great swimmer, I might suggest that she look into the shot put!
The Olympic Park is huge.
There is a lot to see while walking to the Aquatics Centre, and my favorite part is the people-watching.
Everyone has a lot of national pride, and some people really go all out in dressing up to support their country. The hometown crowd really roared when the swimmers from Great Britain were competing, but the United States fans gave them quite a run for their money.
There were American flags everywhere, and I saw one guy who was dressed up like Uncle Sam.
One of the popular activities is collecting and trading pins representing countries and different aspects of the Olympics. I'm not much of a negotiator, but I got a nice London 2012 pin with a picture of Big Ben. I was really impressed by the person who started off yesterday with two pins and now already has over 20.
If it's possible, I think I'm even more excited to watch the rest of Allison's races than I was before.
I can't wait for the 400 Freestyle tomorrow.
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Kirsten Schmitt is the sister of US team swim team member Allison Schmitt. She is blogging for ClickOnDetroit.com while she is in London.