Day 9: Let the Games Begin!

Well there is never a dull moment in Sochi and with the game now officially underway I'm sure the party is just beginning! But I guess before we get into all that we should catch everyone up on the last couple of days for the Algonquin crew. Starting all the way back to Tuesday...

Tuesday: Doug went into Sochi to pick up the event tickets he ordered back in Canada.  He had a couple extra seats and it was a fight over who got to attend with him. Luckily everyone was happy in the end and all body parts are still intact. Mikaela was back at CBC for her last day and what a day it was! Since the Canadian team has been arriving all week, Tuesday was a big day for opening press conferences.  The morning started off with the Canadian cowboys' alpine skiing team who are really enjoying the Olympic experience and playing some shinny with the women's hockey team. In the afternoon we had the pairs figures skaters followed by the men. It is a pretty cool atmosphere and when Patrick Chan is talking the room goes silent. After working on some solo interviews with the skaters after the press conference, the long track speed skaters arrived. What a big team that is! There were many onlookers in the room but the most excited by far to see the team was Clara Hughes , who is working with CBC for the Olympics. There was also a chance to tour the CBC studios and take some pictures posing in Ron Maclean's desk.

And if the day wasn't exciting and surreal enough, Mikaela was offered a ticket to the dress rehearsal of the opening ceremonies for that night as a thank you for the work put in. To be one of the firsts to see the biggest spectacle of the Olympics?!? Yes please! The ceremony was awesome! Some pictures were slyly taken until a large security guard saw and yelled loudly in Russian that pictures were not allowed. And now that almost everyone has seen the opening ceremonies, how cool were those giant mascots?!? Pretty realistic!

We will skip Wednesday because other than being minor celebrities on the boardwalk and everyone asking for pictures of the Canadians, it was a pretty low key day.

Thursday: after a week of waiting we finally had our orientation and started our Olympic experience at Canada Olympic House (COH).  We went in the morning and got our uniforms and had a tour around the house and learned some important information. Stacey will be working bar, Doug and Lisa are working access and accreditation (because naturally they are the toughest ones ;)) and Mikaela is working communications. It was a jam packed day and after the first part of orientation we ate some lunch. Not only was it lunch, but it was lunch prepared by Stephen Harper's chef. The Canadian team borrowed him for the month. So we will be eating like "royalty" all month long!

At 1:00pm was the official ribbon cutting and opening of COH.  Many important people spoke and if you look closely in some of the pictures and videos you can see some of our heads poking through in the background. There were some athletes at the opening including Scott and Tessa , who even took a picture with all of the volunteers.

The rest of the afternoon was individual team meetings and gearing up for a commemoration ceremony for French broadcasting legend Richard Garneau who covered 23 Olympic games for Canada. He passed away last year and the IOC was honouring him with a medal. Only 15 have been given out in history and he is the first journalist to receive it.  The event was well done and many members of the media were there to celebrate.

Friday: Opening ceremonies day!!!!!  Excitement was in the air as the opening ceremonies started off the Olympics. We planned on finding a restaurant to watch the ceremonies which proved more difficult than we imagined it would be. Not many places were showing the ceremonies, a completely different feeling than if we were in Canada. After about an hour of searching we went back to our favourite pizza joint to watch the ceremonies. It was a small but packed restaurant and everyone was pretty happy to be watching the ceremonies. We cheered patriotically when Canada marched out and everyone in the restaurant followed, cheering and clapping for Canada. We instantly made some new friends. We returned the favour and cheered when Russia came out.  The ceremonies went well and we all had a good time watching Russian TV with our new friends. A lot of what was happening we didn't understand but we discovered pretty quickly why everyone burst into laughter and cheers when one of the torch bearers come on. Turns out its Putin's girlfriend. It was as funny to us as everyone else in the room.

Tomorrow everyone starts official shifts with the COC and the true chaos begins. Happy Olympics :)