First Day at Olympics!

What a whirlwind today was!!

Today was my first shift at the athletes village in Vancouver. My shift was from 2:15pm until 11:00pm.

I was a little unsure about timing in terms of taking the skytrain to Vancouver, finding the village and the proper entrance gates as I havent been to the village yet.

I got downtown about an hour early and made a couple wrong turns before finding a nice RCMP officer who kindly pointed me in the right direction. There are more police outside and inside the village than I have every seen. There is constantly two helicopters flying over Vancouver. There are two military/police boats in False Creek with suited frogmen in the boats doing security. I walked along Quebec street and down some seedy ally and turned into an old musty packing plant building that has been converted into a security screening site for the volunteers. I was scanned and magnetotronned and passed the security clearance. After exiting the volunteer entrance area I was corralled by a nice volunteer supervisor who asked me my name and knew that it was my first day and gave me some great directions. Into the volunteer reception room where they scanned me again and gave me a card where I get stickers everytime I show up for my shift and a prize after every 3 shifts.

Then onto the morning briefing. About 40 of us 'blueberry' people all dressed in our bright blue uniforms all piled into a meeting room for the morning report. After the report they asked us to raise our hands if it was our first day. There was about 8 of us newbies. The remainder all were given color coded cards and at the end of the meeting all the blue cards went with one supervisor to a station, all the red went with another supervisor to another station etc etc. All of us newbies went with a very friendly Italian speaking Canadian supervisor named Luka. We spent about 2 1\2 hours touring the entire athletes village. Walking down the residential zone you see flags from the various countries fixed to the balconies of the apartments where the athletes are staying that was the first time I really experienced the truly worldly experience of the Olympics.

The Canadians obviously received the best buildings for our athletes. Every balcony is adorned with the maple leaf.

We toured the athletes dining hall. All of the athletes enter their dietary needs into a computer the night before and the kitchens prepare their specific meals for them if they choose.

The tour ended at one of the busiest stations called the Welcoming Centre. This is where the athletes arrive by bus and vehicle. They enter the centre and have to pass through security including xray and magnometer then they receive their accreditation. Luka asked if three of us would stay there and I quickly volunteered as it was very warm and looked like fun. I took my post with a laser scanner gun in hand and zapped people's accreditation cards as they left the building and entered the village. I did that for an hour then went for dinner. When I came back they moved me to the entrance so as the athletes arrived I waived them into one line or another. It was pretty slow today with only a few hundred athletes arriving while we were there. Apparently Sunday and Monday will be the busiest as all the athletes are expected to arrive over those two days. Later I moved inside and helped as a pacer. Stopping people before they went through the mag machine, saying hi etc.

At about 8pm all of the supervisors showed up around us. Apparently an IOC member was arriving so we were all supposed to put on our biggest smiles and make sure we really nice - pretty easy to do as most everyone at the games as volunteers are super acheivers as I can see. It certainly is fun to be around so many people who are positive and enjoying themselves and are looking to have a great life experience.

The day was supposed to end at 11pm but at 9:45 our supervisor called us all in and said that they werent expecting anymore bus loads of athletes for the rest of the night so we could all go home early.

So it was a pretty good first day. I was pretty nervous as I think most people are the first time they go to a new job or try something new but after about 2-3 hours I was making friends with fellow volunteers, teasing a nice girl from Ontario about her Ontario accent (she tells the athletes "Yous can all go into this line now - Yous is so Ontario", and I met a great guy named Magnus from Sooke. We made a friendly bet about who is going to light the Olympic cauldron. (I think Gretzky, he says Betty Fox - we're both probably wrong)

So off to bed, get to sleep in tomorrow and start at 2:00 again. I have to go downtown Vancouver a little early to pick up two tickets to the Opening Ceremonies Dress Rehearsal which is happening on Wednesday Feb 10.

Pretty tired tonight, feet a little sore from standing all day, but my prediction is that this is going to be a lot of fun!