Day 2 - Feb 13 Report

Yesterday Mike and I got to go to the Ski Jump, Normal Hill event. It was awesome! It was the first day I haven't worked with the Andorrans since Feb 5. It felt a little odd, not being on call! But it was great.

We had to get up super early to catch the 6:30 am shuttle from the Whistler Day Lots (now known as WTM, or the Whistler Transportation Mall). And since I'd been working until 10:40 the night before, both Mike and I were grumbly and exhausted. But we boarded the bus no problem and arrived at Whistler Olympic Park (with the unfortunate acronym of WOP) by about 7:15. Isn't it beautiful in the Callaghan Valley? It's a sleepy, snowy valley high in the mountains where they have awesome cross-country ski trails, snowshoeing, and now the Ski Jump venue, the Cross Country stadium and the Biathlon stadium. The bus dropped us off at the security screening, then we had a 500 metre walk up a snowy trail, fork in the road, then 400 more metres up to the Ski Jump venue. Because we got there early (other people were smarter and took a later shuttle!) we got an awesome place right at the fence. This was our view: Here we are on the jumbotron; can you see us? I circled & pointed to us in red...

As we were right on the fence, they would soar through the air on the jump, land and ski right past us. ***Had to take some pictures down; can't have competition shots up on a blog! VANOC rules*** Then they would take off their skis and trudge past us on their way to the lift. Here's the Swiss skier, walking past us just after his first jump. He would go on to win the competition! Here's me and the Polish skier who got Silver: Can you tell I got up REALLY early? We were standing with a large group of Polish supporters, so we found ourselves cheering loudly for Adam. Glad he won Silver!

Here's Simon Ammann, the Swiss skier, just after he found out he'd won Gold:The Swiss were happy!The Austrian with the really long name got the Bronze. He was exciting to watch, too!

I'm not going to rant too much about the transportation "Issues" to get us out of there. I am going to assume they are working out the first-day kinks. AHEM. I believe they knew ahead of time that 12,000 of us would be leaving at the same time. I also believe that they knew that there is no other way out of the Callaghan other than by bus. I know I would have put those two facts together and prepared the buses to be waiting for us. That is all I can say on the issue other than although I was out of uniform, and it wasn't my role, I stepped up and got our Whistler spectators onto the right buses. Just sayin'.

It was awesome anyway! And we got home in time to spend the afternoon with the boys, who I hadn't seen in forever. There was a LOT of cuddling. :)

Day One (Opening) a Day Late

Yesterday was Kuh-Ray-Zee.

I got to WVL at 8:30 am and didn't get home until 10:40 pm. We started off in a flurry of last minute plans. The Alpine Training schedule was all moved around, and for a short while we thought that would mean our Ladies Alpine skier would not get to the Opening Ceremonies on time. Luckily, she did - and I hope you saw her beaming face on the screen last night!

Of course, the giddy frenzied mood of the morning turned sombre pretty quickly when we learned of the luge accident. There were lots of tears in the village yesterday at the loss of such a young competitor. Everyone's thoughts were with the family and teammates of Nodar Kumaritashvili of Georgia. When the Georgians came back to the Vancouver Village after their march in the Opening Ceremonies, everyone stopped what they were doing and bowed their heads as the athletes passed by. It was very moving. As you probably saw, all athletes at the ceremonies last night had black armbands to honour this young man's memory. Everyone at the village felt just horrible yesterday.

It was hard, though, to dampen the enthusiasm these athletes felt at representing their country by marching in the Opening Ceremonies of the Olympic Games. As we herded them all out of the house yesterday, our Andorrans stopped for a group picture at their residence. Gulp. I'm just so proud of these guys, who I've only known for a week! Thanks so much to Shelley, who was at the Ceremonies last night and captured the Andorrans!

It was crazy trying to get all the athletes on the bus. I think we transferred 1500 from Whistler yesterday? Then of course, just as we all breathed a sigh of relief as the buses pulled away in the police convoy, we heard that some athletes had missed the bus. So we scrambled and searched the village for the stragglers, got them on another bus, and sent them down. Then I got in the Andorran VANOC car and drove to Vancouver Village to wait for my guys. Since two of our athletes were scheduled to compete this morning, they opted to bail out of the opening ceremonies just after the parade of athletes. So my job was to race them back to Whistler so they could get to bed as early as possible.

I'm glad they left early; turns out the rest of the convoy got back to WVL after 12:30 am!

Anyway, there were seven of us in the car and I don't believe I have ever made the trip that fast! One of the coaches was driving and turns out he'd had some training as a race car driver... yep, I could have guessed that! It was quite a fun trip up, I must say.

I got back to the cabin at 10:40, and Jack was still awake so I got kisses and hugs from him and Mike. Ethan got kisses and hugs from me, too, but he didn't really notice as he was snoring away. It was an emotional, sad, fun, long day and I'm so happy I got to be a part of it!

One day left until Opening!

I thought I was all finished work last night but I got a text just before 11 pm about a potential problem that needed to be fixed before the village to village courier left this morning at 9:30 am. Luckily, it only took until just after midnight to fix it. I still had to make sure everything went ok, so I was up again at 6:45am and got to the athlete's village early. (Is it ok if I start using the VANOC acronym for the athlete's village, WVL - it would make my tired fingers a lot happier!) I was just grabbing tea at the WVL dining hall on my way to the courier desk when I got the text that she'd followed my instructions and all went well! So I was only there about 20 minutes this am.

Next I met up with a fellow assistant to hand over some papers, and then met our third team member. We spent the day planning the logistics behind tomorrow's opening ceremony. It's a lot of this: OK, so athletes A, B & C will be here and will go there at this time. Athlete D and Coach A will be here with Assistant A... and so on and so forth. With any luck, we will get all of our delegation to the Opening Ceremonies tomorrow!

Whistler village photos of the day:

OK I have a headache and the morning will come too soon, I just know it! I doubt I can blog tomorrow, so watch your TVs for the Opening Ceremonies, and remember - cheer for my Andorrans! - T.

Special Request

Hey all - thought I'd put this out there... any chance that any of you know of 12 beds available on Feb 28 only? Not too expensive, but they will have earned the right to stay somewhere comfortable. In between downtown Vancouver and YVR would be perfect. Just thought I'd ask? Bragging rights would ensue for having an Olympic team stay for a night!

If you know, email me privately please. THX!

Wednesday (I think)

OK so first off I have to stop saying day four, eight, whatever because I seem to be unable to keep track of days properly any more. It's definitely all blending together, and I think it will be easier to start tracking as VANOC is. So T minus 2 today - Opening Ceremonies on Friday!

I was at the athlete's village all day today. It was a long day but a few interesting things happened. One thing I really noticed today was how many more athletes have arrived! It's real! It's real! It's almost here! Also, the media were allowed into the residential zone for 2 hours today, the only time that will happen until the games are over. So athletes and team officials were told that if they didn't want to be on camera, they should stay in their residences during that time. I, on the other hand, forgot they were here and emerged from the computer room to buy a Mars bar. Holy paparazzi, batman... they weren't taking pictures OF me, but I may be on the Bulgarian news tonight!!! Good thing I had ponytail hair and tired eyes. And I was scarfing a Mars bar, which is ALWAYS attractive. Truly a fantastic representation of Team 2010.

One thing I got accomplished today, through a series of roof-climbing endeavours, was to decorate the Andorran residence. Don't it look purty? I photo-shopped the address out, in case you are all terrorists (make that terrorists WITH accreditation to get inside the village), but after the games I'd be happy to show you where we all hung out.
I have to admit I was all pissy that they razed the cool kids playground behind MarketPlace in order to build the Medals Plaza. Then I realized that there were some new mysterious lumps where the playground used to be, all veiled in secrecy, but I still thought it might be part of the Medals Plaza. Tonight one of the lumps was uncovered! It's going to be a maybe-even-cooler playground! And I do have to show you another sight I see on my walk home every night... the colours change, and it's pretty in the day, too, with the mountain in the background:
And as a good night, since Carrie has exposed my "secret" blogging life, here's a shout out to the Peace Arch posse! Keep my boys safe and see you all soon! xo

Day Eight (Sustainability)

Most of today was supposed to be a driving day - we needed to go to Vancouver Athlete's Village and back up to Whistler this evening, although I didn't end up going myself. Which led me to think about the pledge of the Olympics to be Sustainable. I think they have done a lot in the construction of the housing and venues to be ecologically sound. And they are really awesome about sorting the garbage into compost, recycling, and waste. But the amount of transportation that goes into staging a games is huge!

(Incidentally, by the way, it is getting harder and harder to write and talk in English. I am communicating in French and Spanish all day, and I'm starting to think that way. Oh la la...)

There are many more buses on the road in Whistler, and at this point they are not all full by a long shot. But I do think that for the most part they have been necessary to allow regular residents and all us volunteers to get where we need to go since we can't take our cars. And my connections have been fantastic from where I'm staying! And come Friday, there will be a lot more spectators using the services that are currently used primarily by workforce (me!).

But since I've gotten used to walking everywhere here, to get in a car again and drive all the way down to the city seems a waste. But I know that my team is not wastefully driving everywhere, so at least we are doing our part!

And my commitment here at the cabin is that I will not generate more garbage than one white kitchen garbage bag during the month I am here. I have compost bags and recyclables, and so far, in one week, I've maybe filled only a quarter of the kitchen bag. So I'm on track! We'll see what happens when Mike and the boys join me on Friday... hopefully they will follow my lead!

Not much else to report for now. Until tomorrow!

Day 7 - Felic Cumpleanys

Today was one of the Andorrans' birthday. So I didn't do much work today, besides track down some candles, balloons, and make a card. We celebrated with cake and beverages at the Andorran house in the village. These guys and girls are all awesome - so welcoming and friendly! We walk in and it's all hugs and kisses. They're lots of fun to work with!

Here's one of the sights I get to see that others don't. I took great care not to photograph any athlete here! I found some Swedes today too! Another fun day!