Day 3: Starstruckkk

My face on the big screen at the start of our "race". This thing is HUGE, so cool, although I was a little concerned about having something on my face, blown p x10000000. Note the name, if you can see it. Go Norway!



Today was our first day with actual forerunning duties. We left at 7 to catch a bus, transfer, catch another bus, transfer and then catch another bus. Security wasn't too bad, we get to skip the volunteer lines because we have been given "athlete" status. More on that. Security is pretty crazy... There are all kinds of wands, metal detectors and searches to get into the site. There are four different line to go through different kinds of security, and we get to skip two, which is awesome. Whenever the buses pull into the athletes village they check for bombs on the bottoms with mirrors and there are helicopters and these little white balloons carrying spy cameras above our heads all day long. There are apparently snipers dressed in white posted in the woods all along the trails already, with more to come once the games actually start. Today we were lugging our skis up to the site. Once they're there we can leave them until its time to fly out. Our athletes pass gives us access to the wax trailers, we have two to ourselves in the rep trailer area. We're right across from madshus, how convieniant :) The team wax trailers are a few meters down the road, we walk through there to get to the stadium. It's pretty cool to see all the different flags and hear all these crazy languages being spoken all around us. We are also the only volunteers to have access to the athletes lounge and chalet. This is incredible. We get food, eat, wax and chill in the same room, at the same tables as the world's best. I finally wish I had listened to Patrick and done my ski knowledge homework. People around me are constantly pointing out our sport's greats and the only two I could recognize today were marit bjoergen and peter northug. Sad, maybe ill do some research tonight. Mike has promised to give me 50 bucks if i can get a picture of me kissing peter's cheek, we'll have to see if i can summon up the guts to ask.

Our job today was to ski the 15km skate race so the timing crew and media can practice timing and filming. It was pretty cool, it was like we were actual racing in the olympics, except for the fact that our only spectators were olympic athletes and they really couldn't care less. But other than the lack of attention, we had bibs, our faces on the big screen and fake names. Steph was Alex Harvey, and I was some sprinter from Norway, Toro Asle Gjerdalen. Apparently he's fast. Buutt I got caught by Alex Harvey, biiigg surprise there. On the other hand, the announcers had a field day on the fact that a bugarian won the race. I guess that doesnt happen very often. They were funny. Most of the girls ended up grouping together and skiing as a pack, 15k is a long way to go All in all, today was super cool.

The only slightly less awesome thing is that i think im getting really sick. I've been fighting off something for a couple weeks now by now I've got this pressure in my head and a cough. I'm super scared that I'll give it to one of the athletes, were around them so much. I would feel terrible. I'm trying to be super careful an wash my hands like, all the time. Anyways, I'll get a goodnight's sleep tonight and hopefully tomorrow will be better.

That's all folks!

Michelle



The ski jump... back of the bleachers.



Me somewhere on the course



Annndd again







View of the stadium from the trail



Our uniforms. And yes, the hats are manditory, don't get me started.



The twins and I. This mesh stuff is EVERYWHERE.



The view from our wax room. We can see the jumpers training, you actually have to be insane to do this sport. It's crazy. Not like, whoa, crazy, you can eat 4 burgers. Like, holy sh**, thats crazy, you just launched yourself a gazillion feet into the air AND LANDED IT! kind of crazy.