MY OLYMPICS 2010 ADVENTURE: Day Twenty

Okay, so I know it's been a while, but the internet here STINKS and I've been trying really hard to get homework done. During the first few days, I would be like, oh I'll just blog a little bit and then I'll do homework and then I'll go to bed. But when I get home at 5, and have dinner at 6, and blogging takes me at least an hour and a half with this internet, my bedtime of 8 o'clock rolls around rather quickly when I have to be up at 430 in the morning.

I've also been spending some time in whistler village, sleeping at the Delta with Hayley, where the rest of my crew is staying. It's hard to be all the way out in squamish by myself, when everyone else is in one place. I feel a little isolated sometimes, so Hayley and Bri have been kind enough to let me use a spare bed when one of their roommates is away, or let me sleep on the floor. Hey, beggers can't be choosers.

Anyway where to start? Well, work really started to pick up. I ended up picking up a sort of part time camera assist job. (Part time, as in there were already two girls doing in, but Victor and I would go up anyway and help out. Which worked out because later on, one of the girls left and I got to take her place.)

Anyway, the guy we work for is Per, and he is very Norwegian. Always telling me to make fun of and "give a hard time" to the other Norwegian folk on the production crew. I'm not too sure why really, but he says they all have a good sense of humor. It's been fun working with him. He told me about how Norway has a few months in the winter where the sun never rises. It just stays sunken at the horizon, barely visible. So it's pretty much dark 24 hours a day. Strange. I think I would go crazy.

He tried to convince me to go skiing while I was here since it's free and I told him that putting me on a hill would be like making a cat go water skiing with toothpicks on his feet. ... well, maybe not THAT bad, I would like to learn one day, but I would need someone to train me and hold my hand the whole way down and deal with my tears. Haha, basically, whoever it is would have to be paid. lol.

There's a video of me sitting in the chair operating the camera while Kelsey (the girl that ended up getting transfered to Cyprus so I took her job) was pushing me. But it's on her camera, so I have to wait to get a hold of it. It was wicked though, and when Per realized how interested I was in camera work and such, he talked to one of the guys on the production team that was operating the HUGE ZOOM LENSES, to let me check it out and watch. And this time, I'm not talking about still cameras, I'm taking about video cameras that get all the close up shots of the athletes. It's like a 900 mm or some crazy shit like that, 100X zoom, (compare that to your point and shoots that tend to say 3 or 5 time zoom) and now imagine this little booth, with a GINORMOUS square camera lense sticking out through a whole in bullet proof glass. Yes, bullet proof glass, because the booth is just to the left of the shooting range, so just in case someone's aim is REALLY bad. I also had to where a bullet proof vest. That was a first, lol.

(No I'm not wearing the vest in this pic)

Anyway, it's maybe 100 meters away from the athletes, and 350 meters away from the audience, if I were to take a while guess at it. But when the camera guy let me try, I could zoom all the way into a couple volunteers that were standing in the audience bleachers, and I could read their freaking names off their accreditation cards. Like, so unreal. I felt like a stalker to be honest. And then i panned up to see into the offices in the buildings just behind the audience and i could see through the window that the guy in their was eating a sandwich for lunch. WTF. lol. Insane in the membrane.

(it may be hard to tell but in the screen below is an athlete looking through the viewfinder of the gun. You can see the sunglasses sitting on their forehead and their gloves in the bottom right)

I'll tell you, keeping that thing smooth and not shaky when you are THAT zoomed in was virtually impossibly. Literally, your PULSE will make it move a little, and I'm not even exaggerating. Thats was the Norwegian dude told me. (Wish I could remember his name. But I do remember that the second guy that was there was also named Per.) Of course, looking in the monitor when they are zooming in a the athletes moving skiis, with the snow kicking up, they make it look soooo easy. Ridic. It's not. Don't be fooled.

We spent one afternoon checking out the ski jump event down near cross country. It was pretty awesome, those guys freaking FLY. And it's always fun to watch from the crowd because it reminds you just where you are and how many millions of people are watching it on TV. Even at Biathlon, we have passes to get right up close where the camera guys are, and we do that all the time, but it was almost as much fun watching it from further back where the standing audience is, because there is so much commotion and you can hear the commentators, and the crowd cheering and stuff. Awesome.

It actually brings tears to my eyes sometimes. Bri, Hayley and I have talked about it a few times. The excitement and the patriotism and the enthusiasm and fun...everytime I see a crowd cheer for a winning athlete, or when I watched the Canadian win moguls, I pretty much cry. It's so...moving, and inspirational. The Olympics is world uniting. It brings people of all kinds and cultures together, for one joyous time. Bri put it into the best words possible I think: "The Olympics is the closest thing we have to world peace." And I totally agree. That's what it feels like everyday, walking between compounds and hearing all the different languages and seeing all the smiling faces.

So, along with all the work, we also get to go to free concerts and such, if  you ever find the time. Hayley, Utah, and Victor and I, all went to see Swollen Members last weeks sometime, that played at the fire and ice show at the bottom of the ski hill in whistler village. There were snow boarders jumping through fire hoops. SO CRAZY. But I forgot that we would be standing on show, and I was wearing just normal boots, and my feet were freezing, and so when I couldn't feel my toes anymore, I decided it was time to bail out a little early. But that's okay, it was a good show :) and Prevail like attacked the crowd at one point, and was practically on stop of us, singing in the mic. I scrambled to get a picture but I was a little slow so they didnt turn out that great, and he had kinda already moved to the right a bit, but oh wells. It actually kind of scared the shit out of me for a second. I didn't see him coming so at first I had no idea what was going on and why people were screaming and reaching lol.

Before the show, we actually went for dinner at the Longhorn, which was good, but the service was shitty. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention, WHISTLER HAS SHITTY ASS SERVICE when it comes to restaurants. I don't know if it's because they were not prepared for how busy it would be, or if they are just incredibly sick of tourists, but MAN i've never had a server be such a snot to me, and this was pretty much everywhere we went. We had good service today, when Hayley and I went to lunch at Caramba, and good service one night when we went to the Mongolie Grill (which is so freaking sweet, you get a bowl, and fill up on all the amazing ingridients you could ever want in a stir fry including all sorts of different sauces, and then you pay according to weight, and watch as the cooks cook up your meal on a big round hot plate, kinda like at Japanese Village. Anyway, that was a fun way to eat) Where was I? Oh yeah, other than that, bad service everywhere else. Oh well, what you gonna do?

A few days ago, Alyssa came into town! The first ACPer i'd seen other than Hayley since we've been up here. So the three of us went to lunch, and just as we sat down, we saw a torch bearer dude standing outside with people waiting to have pictures taken with him. So of course we rushed outside, telling out waitress we'd "BRB" and got pics. haha. Good times. I kinda felt bad for the guy because believe it or not, we was waiting in line to get his picture taken infront of the olympic rings, but while he was trying to visit the tourist attractions, he BECAME the tourist attraction. lol. But then again, he was carrying around the tourch, so what did he expect?

Other than that, I've been to 2 bigger concerts in the medals plaza. You have to line up early to get the broadcaster's tickets, but both times we did we didn't have any problems. The first we saw was DeadMou5, which was AWESOME. We SOMEHOW made it up to the very front of the mosh pit, where the rail was so we could see perfectly and didn't actually have to mosh. But getting up there was an experience. lol not going to lie I was a little frightened for my life. I'm a LITTLE PERSON. haha but NOT the smallest! When we got up there there was this little like 8 year old kid trying to push through the crowd, and everyone but these cold hearted bitches up front moved for him, because they were afraid he'd get trampled. But the best part was when he got up front, he crowd surfed. INTENSE. I'VE never even crowd surfed, and I'm 21 lol. brave little tyke.

Really good show though. The music cut out for about 10 minutes about half way through the show, but he handled it really well as the tech guys came out to fix it, and the crowd was supportive as opposed to pissed off, which is always a bonus.

Finally, was the show last night, JET! i was supper excited to see them. Obviously when they sang "Are you gonna be my girl" the crowd went wild. We didn't try to get into the mosh pit for this show. I personally think for a show like this, sometimes its better when you're farther back and can see the stage more clearly. But someone in the center of the pit, clearly jacked the sign that separated the regular crowd from where the pit started, and was waving around the MOSHPIT sign. Pretty funny.

ITS GOT TO BE SAID, about BOTH of these shows that I've seen so far, one of the best parts is the actually stage set up. It's GORGEOUS. the colors, the lights, the graphic design, actually amazing. I was mesmerized by it the whole time. Too bad it's temporary :( I almost feel like they should keep it, just because it's so awesome. I bet they'd get a lot of bookings.

Oh yeah, one more thing, on our way to the concert, Hayley and I saw Beavers eating at a restaurant. Seriously, there was a table of dudes eating at a pub, all dressed in BEAVER costumes. lol. So funny. Pictures were necessary. YAY CANADA.

AND CANADA PLAYS US HOCKEY ON SUNDAY. They better freakin win. The women's team beat US tonight with 2-0. WHOOT. And obviously the Men's game against Russia was awesome. Can't wait. I get nervous just thinking about it though!

Okay, so before I can make this any long I'm going to finish this off. Just a few more days left, and tomorrow is actually my last work day. Saturday and Sunday I have off, and I'll either be working all day on my script and major project, or be coming home early, if I'm allowed. We'll see!

Ciao bellas,

Meena