Sharon MacDonald and Vicki Kimmie are volunteers from Quesnel at Vancouver’s 2010 Olympic Games and are blogging their impressions.
Got to depot early so walked around and enjoyed some Russian singers performing with accordians, guitars etc. – talked to one of them and turns out they are a Christian group of Russians who came from Seattle to spread the “good news” – coooool.
Was asked for street directions – yep, me – and successfully pointed the tourist in the right direction.
Bernie, one of the other drivers had a bad day yesterday – got his camera stolen right out of his van in the transport mall at the Village. He’s convinced it was an athlete, but it could have been a volunteer or anyone else. It’s a secured zone so it definately would need to be someone who had passed through security. How very sad.
Assigned to the ROO again today – beautiful sunny day – wandering around the transport lot – suppose to stay by your van, but hey what fun is that. Had the team host for the Chezk men’s hockey team ask me if I could drive him and two of the hockey players to Canada Place as they did not want to take the bus. I said I would love to but was not allowed – called over the loading supervisor to see if he could help them, but no he just repeated what I had said. Wandered over to their bus with the team host as we chatted and stood between the Latvia hockey team loading on one bus and the Czeck team loading on the next bus no more than a few feet from me. They were playing against each other later that day, was hoping someone would offer me a hockey pin so I could give it to my son-in-law but no such luck.
Did drive the coach of the Netherland speed skaters to the ROO later in the day, he gave me a set of orange wooden shoes to pin on, commenting on their Holland landscape as well as a Netherland Olympic pin – very cool guy. I explained that we were not allowed to ask for pins, photos or autographs and that there were consequences to doing so, and low and behold while we are going through our security checks the RCMP officer askes my passenger for a pin – how very rude. He gave him a pin but no wooden shoes and when the officer offered to give him a pin in exchange he said he did not collect pins – a gentle rebuff I think.
Back at the Village depot where I watched the Swiss ladies hockey team unload. Stood right next to the team and commented to several how very nice their team coat was. It was a car length deep brown coloured fitted coat with their insignia on one arm – so cool looking and different from the normal waist length jackets.
Walked among the greats again today. In a nutshell :
Russian women’s hockey team;
China’s women’s hockey team;
Latvia men’s hockey team;
Chezk men’s hockey team;
Germany’s curling team;
Swiss ladies hockey team; and
France’s women’s speed skaters.
There are two camps of people at the depot – one group and they are in the minority, are very blase about being among the great and cannot understand the star struck second group, which I am a member of.
I tried to explain my position that these athletes have chosen to devote their entire lives to perfecting one thing and they have achieved a goal that places them among the very few, but to no avail. Oh well.
Here I sit, totally blown away by the experience.
Was suppose to work tomorrow (Sunday) but the depot called to cancel my shift. They have been doing that lately to the drivers but this is my first cancellation so I guess I have been lucky.
Granville street last night was total bedlam. Diane got a phone call from her son who is an RCMP on crowd control asking if she would sleep over at his house as he did not know when his shift would end.
They were expecting rioting on Granville Street.
I had just been there around 9 p.m. So glad I got out of there.
Next shift is Monday and will update you all then.
Sharon