2006 Winter Olympics

Top ten reasons why WE deserve a gold medal for attending the 2006 Winter Olympics:

10. The determination to make (seemly) hundreds of decisions once we decided to actually attend this once in a life-time event: which days to go, which event(s) to attend, purchasing the tickets, finding a hotel, researching train fares, deciding to drive, planning the route, buying a parking space, etc.
9. The constant repetition and resulting pain that was required to pay an unbelievable number of tolls (drive, stop, pay, drive stop, pay…) to drive thru the French and Italian Alps.
8. A test of patience and orientation skills, the Turin tram system is not in any hurry to get thousands of people anywhere in particular. Even BAD signage, information, or maps would have improved on their faulty ESP navigation concept which obviously didn’t work in the pouring down rain.
7. The ability to prevail against all odds to find THE street in Turin that had it all: lunch, a bank machine, the Olympic Store, beautiful Italian architecture, the entrance to the Metal Ceremony Square and GELATO!
6. The concentration required to figure out who in their right mind would approve those mascots - Neve & Gliz?!? She’s a soft, friendly & elegant snowball; he’s a lively & playful ice cube…riiight.
5. Hours and hours of dedicated practice, hard work and sweat put in to trying to pronounce the name of the venue for women’s freestyle skiing qualifications: Sauze d'Oulx!
4. Enduring an ankle-deep snowfall in 2-hrs that twice delayed the event and the only beer available was Budweiser. Fortunately the event was cancelled at 20:30 before too much damage was done.
3. WALKING, 1-hr, down hill, in the snow, fighting off bears with our cool, souvenir pins with thousands of our closest friends because the fan buses were unable to navigate the snow-covered road.
2. Overcoming doubt and confusion came when we were getting directions home from two non-English speaking Italian fire-fighters who gave directly conflicting information even after 3 attempts at clarification.
1. The final test of endurance had us arriving home at 3:48 for a quick nap and off to a fully productive day at work. All that and we only got to see two practice jumps…now THAT deserves a medal!
You can find pictures of our adventure here.