day one

(this was written Friday night - I still haven't found a way to access internet outside of work, but I can write and save on a mini-firewire and then post it from here... so that's the plan for now)...

wow, what a crazy day.

I'm in Torino Italy to begin my assignment for NBC at the Olympics. We landed in a snowstorm. I dunno if it was a blind landing or not for the pilots, but looking at the first pic above shows you all that we could see as we landed. We landed at 8:30 and they cancelled incoming flights from 9am to Midnight. But being here with snow covered fields and trees only seems appropriate when here for the Winter Olympics. I wonder if it skews my perceptions since every Italian seems to make a point of how long its been since it snowed here...

We bussed from Milan to Torino (ugh, 3-4 hours cause of the snow - at least I finally got some sleep). We landed at a warehouse we they gave us this huge bag of stuff. NBC/Nike gear like winter coats, ski pants, shirts, goretex undershirts, tights, gloves - the whole shebang. Do they know that I'm going to be working in front of a computer for 12 hours a day? Then off to another center for our official credentials. And finally to Riberi Media village - my home for the next month.

Riberi is a former military hospital that they've obviously recently converted. Room are small and basic (twin ikea bed with wardrobe, no curtains, etc) but I think I lucked out with a pretty sweet corner room in the back of the place. My windows look out on this cool old church that's always lit up. I went and bought a phone card and tried for a few hours to dial up to the internet - no luck. I tried everything I could think of. Nope. Nada. I finally crashed for some much needed sleep.

I woke up around 10 or so, unpacked and rearranged the room (shut up), and then decided I was desperate for a diet coke (I tried several times earlier for one - no coins for the machine, cash register is closed, etc - ugh), but figured I'd make my first stop the "bar" in the media village before venturing out. A couple hours and a couple beers later, I ventured home after conversation at the bar with my new friends Andy the engineer from NC, and our Italian bartender whose name I have forgotten and who can't get over the fact that we tip him for beers. And now out on my windowsill rest two treasured diet cokes...