Tara Cariano, a psychology and family and community services junior studying abroad at John Cabot University in Rome, attended the U.S. women's hockey game against Germany on Sunday at the 2006 Winter Olympic Games in Turin. She and a friend from San Antonio, traveled to Turin for the day.

My experience at the Olympics can be summed up in one word — disappointing.

Yes, it was awesome to be able to go the Olympics, and some parts of my experience were amazing, but overall it was not what I expected — especially the atmosphere.

When we first arrived at about 8:30 a.m., the only sign of the Olympics in the city of (Turin) was the decorations.

After we picked up our tickets, we just explored. We checked out the media center, the medal stand and the Olympic Superstore. I was able to pick up a few souvenirs at a reasonable price.

Because there was not really a lot to do, we just walked along the river. We found a church on top of a hill overlooking the whole city and had the mountains in the background. It was gorgeous. We even got to see the Olympic flame from afar.

We decided to head toward the beautiful flame after that. It took us a while to get there because of a few delays and the long distance, but we eventually did at about 3:30 p.m. Once we got near the flame, tourists were everywhere.

The flame was my favorite part of the whole trip. I could not stop looking at it.

We walked by the flame, but most of it was blocked off by a tarp-like object, so you could not see much in front of the two buildings — the Olympic stadium and hockey stadium — or get close to the flame unless you had tickets to an event.

The hockey arena is the most amazing rink I have ever seen. When you first walk in, there is a huge wall that has square mirrors on it with the Olympic rings in the middle. The seats are nice and pretty close to the rink, so we had a good view. American students who were studying in Florence sat all around us.

The atmosphere was hyped. We started the "USA!" chant a few times with the students around us and did the wave.

More Germans were at the game than Americans, so every time Germany did something well the fans would roar.

The U.S. women's hockey team looked quite talented. They ended up beating Germany 5-0.

After the game, we had an hour or so to get to the train. The train ride home was not as good as the train ride there, considering there were six seats in our cabin and all of them were full. I was exhausted when I got home, since I did not get much sleep on the train, but happy that I went.

I hope to go again someday, but for more than one day and to more events. I think London (in 2012) is calling my name.