Passion Lives Here! XX Winter Olympic Games, Torino 2006

GO USA!


The long driveway up to our villa in Alba


Curling action - Canada vs. Japan


Kofi, Sarah, Debbie & Gary at Curling


With Gliz & Neve, the official Olympic mascots!


Apolo Ohno & the Koreans battling it out in Short Track Speed Skating


At the Palavela, home of Short Track and Ice Skating


Switzerland vs. Germany


Kofi & Sarah root on Team Switzerland at Ice Hockey


Hop Schweiz! Debbie & Sarah live on Eurosport!


The Freestyle venue before the storm hit


Our seats at the Freestyle event during the storm


Almost to the car!


We made it!

There comes a day ever two years that always gets me a little down, and today is the day. No, it isn't an anniversary of some tragic event or a reminder of a terrible day in history. Today is the closing ceremonies of another Olympic Games, and the beginning of my Olympic withdrawls. I really can't get enough of the Olympics, and this year was the best yet, because we were actually there! And when we weren't there, we were glued to Eurosport which has kept us up to date with live coverage 24/7 for the past two weeks.

So, last I left you Sarah, Kofi, Gary & I were driving from the ski chalet in Switzerland to Italy to join in the Olympic festivities. We had reservations at a little B&B in the tiny town of Alba, Italy which is about 45 minutes south of Torino. We didn't stay in the city of Torino, because even if we could find a room during the Olympics, they were exorbitantly expensive! Even in Alba, everything was sold out and we had to stay at a different B&B than our friends. The drive from the chalet should have taken about four hours, but because we somehow managed to get lost in Milan at rush hour and then hit tumultuous fog just south of Torino, it took six hours, getting us into town at about midnight.

Once in town we met a mysterious woman named Roberta who had made our hotel arrangements for us. She had been calling Kofi all night to get an estimate of when we would be arriving. We were instructed to meet her at a parking lot on the edge of town and follow her in her yellow convertible up the hill to where we would be staying. As we followed her, I realized that none of us had a clue were we were going, which seemed a little odd, but what the hell, we were in Italy! We were dropped off down a long, dark driveway off a lonely country road at a very large gate. All was quiet. Hello? The gate opened and we found ourselves walking up the rest of the long, dark driveway to a very nice (but slightly scary in the middle of the night) villa in the hills above Alba. (By the way, even though we spent very, very little time here, the villa turned out to be wonderfully charming and one of the nicest places we've stayed in Europe so far.)

The next morning we were off to the XX Olympics in Torino! Our first event was Women's Curling. Yeah, yeah, I know, how exciting can Women's Curling be? Well, it was actually really fun! There are four games going on simultaneously (Canada/Japan, Sweden/Denmark, Switzerland/Russia, & Italy/Great Britain), and a game actually consists of 10 rounds of play. The final score is the total of the 10 rounds, which takes about 2 hours. We were sitting behind some very enthusiastic Canadian fans, who tried to convert Gary by giving him some Canada pins, but our allegiance was with the Swiss (Team USA was out of the competition in dead last place. Maybe in Vancouver ladies!) and Canada was currently getting their butts kicked by Japan. We learned a lot about this old, Scottish sport (which dates back to the 16th century) and we were taught our chant for the weekend: "Hop Schweiz!" This is “Go Switzerland” to the Swiss-Germans in the crowd (Sarah included).

Later that evening we had tickets to Short-Track Speed Skating, but first, we spent the day checking out Torino. There was such a buzz of excitement in the air and we were happy to be basking in the atmosphere of the Olympics. People from all over the world were celebrating in every part of the city, decked out in their country's colors. The whole town had the feel of New Year's, when everyone is partying and having a great time! The motto of these Olympics was "Passion Lives Here!", which was plastered over every inch of the city, and for some reason we thought was very funny, as we pointed to every obscure little corner and said, "Hey... Passion Lives Here!" It was a great day, I loved every minute of the games and everything that came with it!

Our next stop was Speed Skating (at Palavela where all the Ice Skating took place) to see Apolo Ohno defend his title. We were chanting "Go USA!", but our cries were utterly over powered by the ENTIRE section of Korean fans that were completely surrounding us. They were banging on drums, chanting, and waving hundreds of flags, which in the end seemed to work. In both the men's and women’s races the Korean skaters took gold and silver. Next time, I'm going to bring a bigger flag!

Day two and we were headed to Men's Ice Hockey. It was Switzerland vs. Germany. We had a big Swiss flag and were chanting "Hop Schweiz!", it helped that almost 80% of the crowd was also rooting for Switzerland and everyone was going crazy! We had great seats in the front row of the middle section, which I think was why we got our 15 seconds of fame and made it on TV!! Gary's work colleges saw us on Eurosport, which means we were seen all over Europe!! Switzerland tied 2-2 in the end, but this was by far our favorite event!

Next, we drove an hour into the mountains to Sauze d'Oulx to see our last event, Freestyle Skiing, which is basically skiing acrobatics and used to actually be called Hotdog. It was snowing and very cold when we got to the parking lot, but this was the big event we had all been waiting for, so we bundled up and got on the bus that would take us up the hill to the venue. It was snowing harder and much colder at the top, but there was a tent that was selling hot food, so we took refuge and waited an hour for the event to start. At 18:30, just as the competition was supposed to get underway, we got word that it was delayed due to the storm and there would be an update at 20:00.

When I say storm, I mean storm! The snow was absolutely dumping out of the sky and there was no sign of it letting up. Since we had gone into the food tent, it had already snowed several inches and it appeared to be coming down even harder as the minutes ticked by. We decided to head back down the hill (we thought the odds were pretty good that the event would be canceled and we were starting to worry that we wouldn't make it out of the parking lot). I guess every one else had the same idea, because the lines for the bus back down the hill were miles long. The venue holds 8,500 people and we all had to get on a bus and wind down a narrow mountain road to get to our cars below.

We waited in line for an hour and a half in the freezing snow before we finally decided to walk down the mountain. People ahead of us had been packing onto busses, but the Italians running the event failed to put chains on any of the vehicles attempting to get up or down the only road to where we were. By the time chains were put on the busses, the road was hopelessly clogged and was actually shut down. The walk took over and hour, and Sarah, who is six months pregnant, was a real trooper walking down in the dark, in the snow, weaving through stalled cars, busses and thousands of people making the same pilgrimage. Even in the face of this disaster, there was an air of festivities, people singing, blowing horns, and chatting with strangers. It was actually a fun experience, despite the cold.

So, finally, at 10:30pm we made it out of the parking lot and soon, we were headed back to Geneva. We found out later that the event was indeed cancelled and rescheduled for two days later. We were bummed we didn't get the chance to see Freestyle Skiing (it looked amazing on TV), but that just gives us another reason to make it to the 2010 XXI Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver! :)


See you in Vancouver!