VANCOUVER!!

Sooooo I feel like I have SO MUCH to say about covering the Olympics in Vancouver! I feel like once I pull in pictures, it will be easier to tell more. So, for now, in my mess of a suitcase that I'm sure contains the camera cord I need, I will just make a list, of what I will miss a lot... and what I won't miss. : )

What I won't miss:
10) Being away from home and being away from my routine of going to the office, working on a video story, talking to Katye, Les, & Rene, driving to and from work with Dusty, going out with friends in D.C., playing in our bocce league, etcetera...... : )
9) Beeping horns after Canadian wins... They were intense! I will not miss that.
8) Take out, take-out, and more take-out... India Gate's buttery chicken was the best thing I had that was take-out in Vancouver (yum) ... but it was nice to sit down in a restaurant the few times we got away from our production room.
7) My total inability to buy souvenirs! There was nothing that really appealed to me for friends & family (besides the few things I was able to pick up--like the shot glass I got Meg for her collection) and what I REALLY wanted was the mittens. I checked and rechecked so many times, but only snagged 3, and 2 were already promised to a friend.
6) No Hulu and no pandora! What would I do with my life? Thanks to fellow blogger and another one of those good az friends who ended up in D.C. and an advo too in fact Natalie Fletcher Cubbal, I found out about grooveshark, a website where you can list a bunch of songs and listen to them as much as you want. Quite ideal, I'd say! Which is why I was listening to SO very much of the boss, GREAT motivation. : )
5) Long render times... and maybe the long hours, too. (But I do not lose sight of the fact that I was really really lucky to be there, no matter what kind of work I had to do.)
4) Lack of social time with anyone there. But same footnote as the one before it... And it must be said that I went to a really sweet curling party before the games started. So awesome!
3) Slow-moving crowds. It's soooo east coast of me, BUT everyone was looking up and around and never straight ahead and moving forward. There were several large stairs that led me down to the office where I worked. It was a BEAUTIFUL plaza, and so much was constantly going on -- jugglers, performers, dancers, everything. (You can't see the crowds in this picture because it wasn't shot during the Olympics, but basically this level is after a few stairs down, and then after I tucked in a door to the side there were more stairs down... So many people, though! haha)
So I guess you can't blame them because they were there for fun, and I was there to work so I had a direct mission and a place to get to while they just ambled and took it all in. But still, you can be considerate to who is trying to get through! And the worst part was the stairs... If there had been any kind of emergency, people would have been stuck for sure! There was no easy way to get through on the stairs YIKES!
2) No phone!! That was really rough for me. Also no kindle was pretty bad... It got damaged on the trip. That was another major way for me to unwind, and I didn't have those. Lame-o.
1) Cheesy for sure, but what I missed most was Dusty. He's my best friend and he's so great to live with! So of course I missed him!


What I will miss:
10) My PRESS PASS!! I will definitely post a picture soon. The beloved press pass got me into so many cool places and around crowds in certain ares, so that was way awesome. I saw the finals for ladies' figure skating because of that bad boy. So cool.
9) Pin trading! It is a super big deal to trade pins in the Olympic host city--between journalists, Starbucks baristas, the security personnel at all venues--It makes everything like a big opportunity to meet anyone. It's really fun. I got some sweet pins from this French guy who I think only knew the words "pins" and "no money" in English. That's all I needed! I got a pin from Nagano and Calgary from him! The whole thing kind of reminded me of the National Catholic Youth Conference, and any 4-H conference I went to where it's just all about meeting people. So nice!
8) My hotel was on the WATER! Seeing ships on the harbor every morning gave me instant happiness, and there was something so romantic about the foggy misty look of English Bay. I usually walked from my hotel along the water up to the press center where I worked. Sooooo pretty!
7) I got gifts in my hotel room every day! I made a facebook post about it: Shannon Green I'm excited to get back home to D.C., but I know I will miss the person who comes into my room every day and makes the bed, cleans the bathroom, takes out the trash and even organizes my stuff sometimes. On top of all of this, they have been leaving a gift everyday, and good ones! So after working 13-14 hours, it is nice to come back to a clean place with a gift waiting : ) hmmmm... guess I'll have to hire a gift maid. haha - Friends suggested that Dusty would be up for the job and work for cheap. I think I'd rather have him make dinner every night (no more take out for a really long time!! yay!) which he does for free. sweeeeet. I'll make a blog post with pictures of all the stuff I got.
6) Funnily enough, there was a lot of funny Canadian tv shows on at 3 a.m. that I liked. I think my favorite channel was slice and the best show was Til Debt Do Us Part. This woman comes in and puts crazy spenders on a budget and if they survive, she gives them $5,000 and they have a plan to get out of debt in the next couple of years. It hurt their relationships a lot so she helped with that, too... It was kind of addicting! I also saw some sweet Scottish wife swap episode and it made me think of my friend and (again) fellow blogger Jane Christie. She can do a sweet Scottish accent lickety split because she still has family living there. I think I kept watching the show solely because of their accents! Also, a dream come true: Waiting for Guffman came on at 3 a.m. It happened when I was pretty far in (I think 16th or 17th Vancouver Today... so I was sooooo happy, haha)
5) I learned a whole bunch in a short amount of time and learned a lot about staying calm and solving problems in high-pressure situations. I felt like I also learned how to identify what I need to be more effective and how to respectfully ask others to help me with that and achieve my goal. I also learned a lot technically from the nightly shoots and editing all night.
4) I was in the Olympic host city!! There was so much beauty all around, excitement, and things you would ONLY see there. Case in point: the Olympic cauldron, the torch relay which I caught the tail end of, athletes, athletes, and more athletes!, the countdown clock to the Olympics , a zip line (not sure this is an Olympic city thing but it was pretty cool going across the square haha), proud and kind Canadians, tons of people from all over the world wearing clothes to identify where they are from with pride, and general controlled chaos.
3) Being able to attend Olympic events. I went to women's hockey USA v. Russia, ladies' figure skating, long-track speedskating and saw a medal ceremony! and finally, closing ceremonies. That is fantastically lucky and fortunate and I am so so so happy I took a bajillion pictures and videos of those happenings. I think I took so much because I just wanted to say, "I was here and I saw this" and document it forever. I kept pinching myself.
2) Being completely immersed in the stories of Olympians, who are in the end normal people who work really really hard and get up after they fall. I was pretty baffled when I saw them in the airport entourage-less and in coach like the rest of us. How did that happen? I'm still not sure. There were stories of complete failure and complete success--sometimes for the same athlete. There was drama, and there was friendship and happiness. When I felt upset about a technical difficulty with the show, I just reminded myself that I didn't get disqualified in an event that I had been working towards for four years, so I was okay. The stories of these Olympians are so heightened and powerful because they are competing on the world stage. Wow. And they do it and they either succeed or fail or do a mixture of both and then they go home to do more work for the next four years. On top of that, all these people with different cultures and backgrounds come together and respectfully compete against each other. There's really something redeeming and beautiful that comes through in all of that.
1) All the walking in the pretty town of mountains against beautiful water past smiling faces, flowers for sale, and book stores. I know it was good for my health and good for my soul.

More Olympic stories to come. : )