No pictures today!
I spent the morning helping the boys and Mike pack up. Then Mike drove me to YVR on their way home, as I was picking up our last athlete. She's awesome! Very sweet. She and I came back up to Whistler on the athlete's bus, and I helped her check in and get to her home away from home! I left the house at 10:15 am and only got home at 9:00 pm.
I'm tired tonight! But I have to poll y'all: She wants to trade jackets after the games. Do I give her my volunteer jacket in exchange for her Andorran jacket? It's beautiful and warm, and pretty unique. It's not the sweater you saw them marching in the Opening Ceremonies; it's a heavy winter ski coat. White and black. Hem Haw what do I do? I've EARNED my volunteer coat, but there will be a million like mine around Vancouver post-games. How many Andorran coats will there be?
I am feeling way more confident in my French after tonight. I was getting desperate, feeling pretty useless sometimes as I have struggled to understand my crew. ESPECIALLY on the phone. Ay Ay Ay. But I could always understand one of the athletes, and I can now understand the new girl perfectly. So I am feeling better about it all now. The others, with their accents and dialects, give me a bit of a headache. But it was easy to talk tonight! So whew.
Off to Ladies Super Combined tomorrow. Hope to be able to post tomorrow!!!!
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
Day 5 (Tuesday Feb 16)
Our big disappointment today was that the Men's Super Combined (downhill + slalom) was postponed. It was doubly disappointing because we had tickets, and my two Andorrans were competing today. But they have now rescheduled it for Sunday, so Mike may be able to come back to Whistler and enjoy it anyway!
The reason it was postponed was because of a huge dumping of snow. So we played in the snow today. Ethan got nailed by a snowball - action shot!
Mike and his dad built a fort with tunnels in the courtyard. The boys LOVED it! 
And then we went to the village and played around a little there, too! This is in front of the CTV broadcast. Can you see whats-her-name's back, behind the boys?
We needed a picture in the bobsleigh of course! 
We were in the village when our girl won Canada's second Gold medal of the games. It was so exciting! Crowds were gathered around outdoor screens all throughout the village, and we were all watching her last run with baited breath. Snowboard Cross is pretty exciting, and we all cheered when she won the Gold! It was a very cool atmosphere.
Tomorrow I think the boys are heading home, so we'll be back to self-portraits and a lot less noise in the cabin. But I know I will miss them desperately once they leave! I have an airport pick up tomorrow,so I'll be heading down to Vancouver for a moment or two before returning to Whistler. Enjoy watching the events on TV!
The reason it was postponed was because of a huge dumping of snow. So we played in the snow today. Ethan got nailed by a snowball - action shot!
Mike and his dad built a fort with tunnels in the courtyard. The boys LOVED it! 
And then we went to the village and played around a little there, too! This is in front of the CTV broadcast. Can you see whats-her-name's back, behind the boys?
We needed a picture in the bobsleigh of course! 
We were in the village when our girl won Canada's second Gold medal of the games. It was so exciting! Crowds were gathered around outdoor screens all throughout the village, and we were all watching her last run with baited breath. Snowboard Cross is pretty exciting, and we all cheered when she won the Gold! It was a very cool atmosphere.Tomorrow I think the boys are heading home, so we'll be back to self-portraits and a lot less noise in the cabin. But I know I will miss them desperately once they leave! I have an airport pick up tomorrow,so I'll be heading down to Vancouver for a moment or two before returning to Whistler. Enjoy watching the events on TV!
Monday, February 15, 2010
Day 4 (Monday Feb 15)
Most. Awesome. Day. Ever.
Translation of this morning's Andorran conversation:
So Tamsin - can you drive me to Creekside?
Why sure!
Oh by the way here's your upgrade accreditation.
Whaaaa?
Meet you at the chairlift!
Um, ok!
Here's your seat in the VIP area. Here is your view for the day; is this going to be ok?
Yes, I think I am very comfortable; thank you!
Would you mind videotaping our boys when they race?
Sure!
It was a very cool day. I was so proud of the boys; they finished 47th and 48th!
Meanwhile, while I was hard at work :) Mike and the boys were celebrating Whistler.
And SOMEBODY is bugging me for more Swedish shots, so here you go, courtesy of Mike. Satisfied? :)
Translation of this morning's Andorran conversation:
So Tamsin - can you drive me to Creekside?
Why sure!
Oh by the way here's your upgrade accreditation.
Whaaaa?
Meet you at the chairlift!
Um, ok!
Here's your seat in the VIP area. Here is your view for the day; is this going to be ok?
Yes, I think I am very comfortable; thank you!Would you mind videotaping our boys when they race?
Sure!
It was a very cool day. I was so proud of the boys; they finished 47th and 48th!Meanwhile, while I was hard at work :) Mike and the boys were celebrating Whistler.
And SOMEBODY is bugging me for more Swedish shots, so here you go, courtesy of Mike. Satisfied? :)
Sunday, February 14, 2010
Day 3 (Sunday 14)
Happy Valentine's Day! Gung Hay Fat Choy to anyone celebrating Chinese New Year today! And Happy Olympics to us all!
Mike went to the Luge today with Aaron. They got some great shots!
***Update; had to take some pictures down. I realized I'm not supposed to include competition shots in my blog. VANOC rules!***
This is a picture of the German guy who won the event. Apparently, he was the only one who was warming up before his runs - guess it paid off!
The boys and I got up to no good:
Well, they got up to no good; I was the one trying to get them to BE good. Futile. Completely futile.
Mike went to the Luge today with Aaron. They got some great shots!
***Update; had to take some pictures down. I realized I'm not supposed to include competition shots in my blog. VANOC rules!***
This is a picture of the German guy who won the event. Apparently, he was the only one who was warming up before his runs - guess it paid off!
The boys and I got up to no good:
Well, they got up to no good; I was the one trying to get them to BE good. Futile. Completely futile.
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. :)
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. :)
Saturday, February 13, 2010
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!
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!
Thursday, February 11, 2010
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.
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.
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