Order of the Nations

Greece is always first in the parade, to honor the country that started it all.

Host country is always last.

Other countries come in alphabetical order by the home language, which in this case is English. It could have been French, but for some reason, they went with English, as I think Vancouver has little French going on. Of course, the official language of the Olympics is French, so you hear a lot of it during the Opening Ceremonies.

Ali was paying attention when she noticed this:

Cyprus

Czech Republic

Denmark

North Korea

Estonia

Ethiopia

North Korea is really the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, so they were in the right order, even though it seemed odd.

In other nation orderings:

I loved Slate's commentary about Ireland being the buffer between Iran and Israel.

Chinese Taipei is apparently the official name for Taipei in this Olympics. I think there's some politics around that, but I don't like to talk politics during the World's Games.