Opening Ceremonies party & First day of work at Cypress Mountain!

Hello all:

The people I am staying with had an opening ceremonies party last night......I think I mentioned.....14 kids under the age of 7 and 17 adults. I managed to survive.... at least the kids weren't mine if they had a meltdown! They were all very good though. One of the pictures is of the boys and I before the party and the other photo is with kids is at the party. Rebecca (my hostess) is an interior designer & she won a design contest where the prize was a "media" room. She won a huge flat screen TV & an amazing surround system. It was great room to host a party.

It was very sad about the death of the luge athlete from Georgia. I was not impressed with CTV for continually showing the footage of his death throughout the evening. Was it really necessary?

Today was my first day on the job..I was a little nervous (quite a bit) & was up early reading my training manual!! It was the first day there were spectators at the venue so it was a first for everyone.

My job for 6 hours was to stand at the outside entrance where the athletes and media entered. I had to ask them to show me their passes so we knew they had the correct accreditation to enter the area. (there are lots of people that try to enter without the proper accred) It was really neat to be so close to all the athletes from all the different countries in the world.

Reality set in as it poured rain the whole shift. I was outside at the bottom of the mogul run. I couldn't watch it because I was too busy checking passes. It was a challenging job as athletes & media feel they are too busy to show you their passes but I was told I had to insist so I did.... girls at work you would be proud of me... I was quite aggressive (politely of course) & I quite surprised myself how good I was! There are some people that do try to sneak by you. ** the only person I didn't ask for accreditation was Jean Cretian (I know I didn't spell that right but I'm having a blank moment - Nora tell me how to spell it! ) & his wife Aline and their entourage. They came through my entrance. That was kind of neat as they wisked them through and caught me by surprise.

Another reality was that the first day was very chaotic and our team leaders did their best to give us breaks but we were short staffed in our area. I only got a 10 minute break and 1 5 minute break in 6 hours and it took 5 minutes to walk to the break room!

The excitement of being at the Olympics overtook the reality of things so I didn't have too many complaints. The crowd was wonderful despite sitting/standing in the pouring rain for 7 hours. Everyone (mostly) was very pumped. I heard on the volunteer bus home that Jennifer Heil won silver.

Off to sleep to rest my weary bones. I felt my age today!

We'll talk soon. Hope all is well with everyone. Happy Valentines Day. Big kiss and hug to Bruce, Kath, Mado, Murffy, DoDo, mom & dad etc etc.......

Marianne