Flag Bearer

Clara Hughes will be carrying the flag for the Canadian team in the Opening Ceremonies. What a wonderful choice! Not only is she one of our most decorated Olympians(5 medals) but she is also a terrific human being. For those of you who don't know, Clara was so moved by Johann Kos' organization "Right to Play" in 2006 that she donated all the money she was given that year from government grants to the organization. I am particularly excited because she is a speed skater and I am hoping to be working with her at sometime during my time out there.
I wanted to thank all those people who have left comments on the blog. Remember all you need to do is click on the word "comments" at the bottom of each entry. A box pops up and you can write in that box. Please make sure that you also click on the little box at the bottom and then click on "name". It will also ask you for a "url", just leave that blank. This way I will know who has sent me a message. If you don't do this it comes up as "anonymous" and I have to read between the lines and try to figure out who it might be. Thanks.
I think I also just figured out a way to let my followers know when I have posted a new post. If you would like to be a follower and don't know how, email me and I will try to help you.
Seven days to go before I board the plane! The countdown is on!

Revised schedule

I promised my grandson that I would include his picture from the mint as well. He is getting tired of just seeing his sister's picture in my blog!! So this is all 4 of my grandchildren at the mint with the medals in the foreground.
I received my revised schedule today from Speed Skating Canada. It is similar to the last one but now I am working with someone else most of the time which is good. My training is on the 10th and 11th and I start my first shift on the 12th. They also sent me the code of conduct and special instructions like my uniform and picture id which will be waiting for us at the training sessions. Just 10 days to go now until I fly out there. I can't wait.

Medals on Display

I am so proud to be a Canadian! I saw the Olympic medals in Ottawa today at the mint and they are beautiful! The Olympic medals are round and the paralympic medals are square with rounded corners. There are 615 olympic medals and 399 para ones. It took 402 days to produce them through 30 steps, and a clear protective coating has been added to them so they don't tarnish. We were given the opportunity to have our pictures taken with the medals so we took advantage of that. Remember if you want more information about them, go to www.mint.ca, click on learn, vancouver2010, medals.
You should be able to post comments now but it will tell you it is posted pending approval, but it will be approved. Fixing the errors is still a work in progress!
I'll keep working on it.

Blog Family

As many of you know, the opportunity to go to and participate in the Olympics has been a life long dream for me. The fact that I am able to share this experience with all of you makes it even better. I have heard from people that I lost track of years ago and former students who are scattered far and wide. I thought I would give you some insight into the kind of group that we are. There are followers from 2 to who knows what. Some are in Australia, New Zealand, Holland, Thailand, United States and at least 4 provinces and territories in Canada.There are 3 classrooms of children who are also following. I think that is so great. Most of you I know personally and others I have not met, but we have a mutual connection. What a wonderful world we live in! Thank you to those of you who have written with words of encouragement and suggestions.
For those of you who would like to follow a good Canadian perspective of the Olympics, the best sight I have found is www.ctvolympics.ca. Right now if you go there you can see a video of the new olympic song written and performed by Canadians. It is quite a\ stirring song. It will be performed in our 2 official languages during the Opening Ceremonies.
For those of you who have been trying to leave a comment after each post, rest assured that you (Susie and others) are not the problem. I have a new laptop and this mouse pad is driving me crazy. Somehow I clicked on something that has added a security block to the comment section and the "link" section. I am trying to get it fixed and hopefully we will be fully operational soon.
Back to my packing!

Schedule

Good news! My work schedule has arrived and I have now confirmed that I will be very busy for the 2 weeks of the Olympics, which is exactly how I wanted it. I will be working 6 days a week and most of my shifts are from 1:30-10:30 or until we are finished. I am on duty most days at the end of the day so we stay until things are cleaned up. My only concern is I hope the buses are still running on a regular basis at that time of the night. That is something I will investigate after I get there. My training is on the 10th and 11th and my first shift is on the 12th.
I wanted to let you know that this Saturday and Sunday the Mint is having an open house to show off the Olympic medals, before they head off to Vancouver. In case you didn`t know these medals are record setting. For one thing every athlete will get a medal that is different from any other and that is a first in Olympic history and secondly they are wavy to represent the mountains and the ocean that are so representative of Vancouver. Agan this is the first time the medals have not been flat. If you want to read more about it and take the virtual tour of them in the making, go to www.mint.ca. Click on `learn`, click on `Vancouver2010` and over on the left you will see the word medals. Click on that. I am sorry this is so wordy but I can`t find a website address that will take you right there.

Accommodation

I was hoping to be able to tell you about my schedule by now, but I still haven't heard from Speed Skating Canada yet. I was supposed to hear by the end of last week, but nothing so far.
I found some pins at Petro Canada last week so I picked some up. They are quite attractive, even though they have the Coca Cola logo on them. I also ordered some online, so I will have several to take with me.
The weather in Vancouver is very warm right now, but the 14 day forecast says it is going to cool off. They have had rain for 12 of the last 14 days, but things are supposed to improve. No wonder my nephew wants to leave gloomy weather behind and go somewhere for the 2 weeks of the Olympics, while the University is shut down. For those of you who don't know, he has kindly offered his apartment to me for the duration of the Olympics, and I am so grateful. His uncle and his wife are going to put up with me for the week before the Olympics while I am trying to orient myself to the city and get my training done.
Hopefully I can tell you about my schedule in the next day or so. Until then I will continue to work on my packing.

Pins

I was in Ottawa today and I just happened to park my car outside Zeller's. When I went into the mall I was surprised to see that they had just gotten a shipment of Olympics "stuff". I bought myself a set of small mascots that are on the end of key chains, so I can attach them to my back pack when I go. If anyone is looking for "the red mittens" they had a couple of hundred pairs at Bayshore. I don't know if they got them in the Zeller's store near you. I also picked up a very nice pin at Petro Canada. I had to buy a glass and 2 bottles of coke to get it, but I wanted to have some pins to trade and they are very hard to find. If anyone has some suggestions on where I met get some I would appreciate you letting me know about it.
I read a great article on Olympic volunteers in the February issue of Canadian Living. It seems we all have the same passion for the Olympics and wold do just about any job for the privilege of being there. They have secured 25,000 volunteers to date and still need more. This does not include the countless people who are opening their homes to put up many of the volunteers (like the generous people who have offered me accomodation.)
Signing off for now.

Using the Blog

Well I am back at it again! I wanted to let you know that you can comment on anything you read on the blog by clicking on the word comment below each of the entries. So if you have any questions or if you just want to comment on something I have said, you can add a comment. A window pops up which you write in and then it is posted on the comment site. Just be aware that if you comment that your comments will be read by anyone else who is reading the blog. I think that is so neat, though, because that way it will be as if you are all there with me. Of course if you want to comment anonymously you can always email me directly from the profile page.
I am waiting to get my schedule which is supposed to come this week. I will then have an idea how much time I will have to take in other things.
There is a really neat website for the Olympics which allows you to type in the address where you are staying and the place you would like to go and up pops the transportation links you need to take to get there. So in my case, for example it tells me to take the #99 bus to the Canada Line (monorail line) to the end . I can then walk 1.5 km to the Boathouse or take a Shuttle bus to the Speed Skating Oval and then walk the 3 blocks to the Boathouse. It is a very handy tool.

Spreading the Word

For someone who wasn't going to do this on a regular basis until the Olympics start, I seem to have become very regular. I wanted to let you know that if you think any of your friends, relatives or offspring would be interested in reading my blog please feel free to pass on the address. I know some of you have already done that and that is great. Many of you have friends who will be out of the country during the Olympics so this will be one way to have them keep in touch with how the Canadians are doing. I hope to get to at least one of the medal presentation ceremonies and take some pictures if possible. I have so many ideas about what I would like to do, but until I get my schedule and actually get out there, I don't know how realistic those ideas are.

Richmond

I have booked my flight. I was lucky that West Jet was having a seat sale so I booked it even though I don't have my schedule yet. I knew they wanted me out there on the 9th so I leave early in the morning on the 7th with a stop in Calgary and get into Vancouver at 10:57 their time. Apparently all the nonstop flights are gone, but this one isn't too bad. I am coming back on Feb. 26th because I heard that there are 391,000 people scheduled to leave the Vancouver airport on Mar. 1 and I didn't want to be one of them! Besides I am supposed to be flying to Florida on March 1st so this way I will be home for a couple of days before I have to head out again.

Most of us are learning this "blog" stuff together and every day I seem to learn a few more secrets. If any of you are seasoned "bloggers" feel free to let me in on any secrets you know that could make this blog better. Did you know that you can email me directly from the blog? If you go to my profile (which isn't very good yet!) and go to "contact" you will see that you can click on email and it will allow you to email directly from there.

The Richmond Speed Skating Oval which is just down the street from where I will be is one of the most spectacular venues of the games. The ceiling is all wooden trusses that have been planed to look like long feathers. The most interesting part is that all the wood they have used has come from the pine trees that were devastated by the pine beetle over the last little while, so no healthy trees had to be cut to build the building. If you go to http://www.richmondoval.ca you will see pictures of it.
The city of Richmond is apparently the cranberry capital of the world and the Richmond oval is located on the Fraser River so the Olympic organizing committee has combined the 2 to create a spectacular display. If you go to http://www.richmond.ca click on news and then on the cranberry article you will see what I mean. That is all for now. We will talk soon.

Plans

Welcome to my blog. I have never done this berfore so bear with me and we will learn this together.
I said I probably would not do this ahead of time, but I thought I would blog how my plans are going for my own sanity if nothing else. I received my official confirmation from Speed Skating Canada and was told I would be working in food preparation. Apparently they put on events on a daily basis for the skaters and their families and serve things such as wine and cheese, bbq kabobs and chicken wings etc. Sounds like fun! I don't care what I am doing. I will do anything (well almost anything!!!) just as long as I can be there.
I found out the UBC Boathouse is nowhere near UBC. It is where the UBC Rowing team practise and hold regattas and it is in Richmond--which makes sense because that is where the Speed Skating Oval is. It just means I am going to have at least a 1 hour ride each way on public transit from where I am staying. That's okay! If you want to see the building you can go to ubcboathouse.com. It is kind of a neat building.
That is all the news for now.