My second day on the job and I was ready! I knew how to get there, knew where to go once I was there, did the morning briefing, got my posting for the day, unfortunately, there were so many of us keener volunteers there and not enough athletes and people arriving to keep us busy so I got sent home about 3 hours into my shift.
The organizing crew were expecting to do about 5 Welcoming Ceremonies today. The Welcoming Ceremony is a traditional Olympic ceremony that occurs in the athletes village where all of a countries athletes and NOC people gather at the International Plaza, say some speeches, raise their flag to fly during the games and sing their anthem and do some ra ra ra stuff. However, they started doing the ceremony for Lithuania today and no athletes were in the village yet and only about 5 of their NOC (National Organizing Committee) members were present so they have delayed starting the ceremonies until tomorrow.
We got word today from Vancouver Airport that they are expecting bus loads of athletes and village residents to be arriving tomorrow so I would expect Monday to be a huge day for us.
I am slowly figuring out the ins and outs. Today I arrived early and did my usual check in stuff and went to the briefing room. When I got to the briefing room I noticed that the front row of chairs were already filled so I took my seat in the second row. While we waited for the supervisors to arrive to deploy us a different supervisor came into the room and said he needed 4 people right away for something really fun. Before I could jump up the front row folks got the job, that job turned out to be hanging out at the Welcoming Ceremony so tomorrow I plan to get there early and get the front row seat - I know I am such a keener.
Before heading to the village this morning I went to the training centre on Dunsmuir Street and picked up my tickets to the Opening Ceremony dress rehearsal on Wednesday. I was only allowed 2 tickets but the fellow in front of me in line was only picking up 1 so I asked him if he could buy a second for me which he did so know I can take both Ted and Lesley (my generous hosts) to the show - should be fun.
Met 1 celebrity today, good ol former Canuck Jyrke Lumme who is involved somehow with Team Finland. I am sure some of the other folks I helped into the village today were celebrities in their own countries but unfortunately I didnt recognize any of them.
Thats it for today, more to report tomorrow hopefully.
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