Home at Last! Home at Last!

I'm not sure if it is a Vanoc policy, a B.C. policy or just a venue policy but all of us at the Athlete's Village received a CPR doll before the Olympics even started. My CPR training was completed a short time before my trip to Whistler, so what to do with that CPR doll? Didn't feel like brushing up, so I just threw it into the top shelf of my closet. Serious decisions had to be made however when packing my suitcases and the CPR doll would have had me overweight. Finding the maids in the hallway, I decided to donate my CPR doll to them but I did it in my own way!

We had one last job to do on our trip home. We had to deliver our Bell vehicles to the Livingston warehouse in Delta. Everybody else was scheduled on a bus directly to a heavenly sleep at the Westin. It was weird to drive by our venue and not make that left hand turn at Function Junction. All the smurfs were gone, yet we still had some security staff on hand. Our venue had been the Whistler Athlete's Village but it was already quickly becoming Cheakamus Crossing. Although we were trying to stay ahead of our bus, there was always time for a last stop at Tim Hortons in Squamish. We considered one last trip to Fields but were afraid that Nadine and her other handsome friend with the bad brunette wig would be in a hugging and worse, kissing mood. Straight to Delta with no incidents.

We tried to get everybody together on our last night in Vancouver but there were three trains of thought for the perfect evening. Hot tubbing, Earl's or The Keg were on the list. Most of our village team opted for The Keg. Joe decided to accept a challenge set by our server at The Keg. Twenty four ounces of prime rib (which was a special order and is not on the menu). He ate it but that didn't leave much room for anything else. He had already started on his meal by the time we took the picture with Liz (who visited us for a drink only). I wished more people had returned later to my room for a last shot of "Paarl" but everybody had their own way of saying farewell. Since I still had practically a full bottle of brandy and I had no way to safely pack it, everybody said that I should just make somebodies day by leaving the bottle on the curb. That just didn't feel right to me. I left the bottle in my Vancouver hotel room, just like we had left all of our left over food and drink in our Whistler hotel room. At least our Coast hotel in Whistler took all the unopened food and brought it for us to the shelter. Maybe one of the staff could have used it!

We all went to the Olympics to do our little part in providing the world a "flawless games." There were a variety of other reasons we went though too. Some of us, like Larry and Tony were there as their swan song. They will be retiring soon after. Some of us went for the adventure and some of us were there for the ride merely to escape a "numbers only" manager. We collectively gave the world their "flawless games." There would be no medals or parades for us on our return but I would gladly do it all over again for the chance of meeting all those people who struggled beside me. Those people I hadn't known before on the Bell team (like Joe, Maurizio, Jeff P, Rich, Remo, Mark, Predrag, the two Brians, the two Alexs, Jean, Dave, Ken, Tony, George (from Kazakhstan) Franco, Fernando, Werner and Leslie) but also those that got thrown into the "Technology trailer" (Alexa (it's her fault), Tatiana, Germana, Andy, Magda, Melissa, Erwin, Lucas) and let's not forget all the rest of those lovable "smurfs" (you really couldn't have an Olympics without those smurfs, Christian, Laura and Adrian (Pat--my day wasn't complete unless we got a good look at Pat and found out if we had enough courage to try the "Crocodile Dundee" male/female sexing maneuver etc). We worked hard but we had a blast doing it. Although I couldn't be everywhere nor could I record everything on this blog site, I hope that at least these pages will trigger your own memories (since I'm not flawless) and those memories put a smile on your face.