A look ahead towards March

On Wednesday, I took a day off from work at the Coke Pavilion to attend training for my role as a Plaza and Events volunteer at the Whistler Athletes Village during the 2010 Paralympics in March.  Though the training session didn't start until 12:30pm, I had to wake up at 5:30am in order to make the 2.5 hour Greyhound bus trip to Whistler.  Can I just tell you that I found this Greyhound experience to be AWESOME!  It was just like the thrill of getting on a plane, except...well, you're on a Greyhound.  The scenic route was just breathtaking, and I would have gladly stayed on the bus for an extra 2.5 hours if we'd kept on trucking to Alaska or Russia (yeah, I know the second option's not exactly feasible, but does it hurt to dream?).

After exploring the village of Whistler for a short while, I made my way to the Athlete Village for training.  Though a slight miscommunication between the Village workers and myself had me thinking I came up to Whistler on the wrong day and that I was not actually a volunteer, these issues resolved themselves within the hour. (phew!)

At our training session, the highlight was by far taking a tour of the Village, which officially opens today.  It's huge, and during the Paralympics, it will actually host more athletes than its sister village in Vancouver.  Internally known as the Alpine Escape, no minute detail was left unmentioned during the tour.  In an effort to display new sustainability practices to the entire world, both villages will be heated by their respective sewage systems.  Though that slightly weakened my stomach at first, I can tell you from personal experience that the heat smells fresh and crisp, with no (for lack of a better word) foul aftertaste.

The athlete dining hall was huge!  Though I will actually be eating elsewhere during the Paralympics, it was definitely cool to see the vast area in which athletes from around the world will eat during one of the pinnacle journeys of their lives

After finishing the tour, I was able to grab some delicious cheese fondue with friends before heading back to Vancouver on the 9pm Greyhound...it was delicious!  I doubt I'll be back in Whistler until March 4th, but knowing just that gives me something to look forward to after my Olympic experience with Coke has ended...woo hoo!

I would love to go on and on about my week, but seeing as my Monday morning starts in five hours, I'll wrap up quickly.  It was sunny and gorgeous in Vancouver this week...it was awesome!  The Pavilion looks better and better with each passing day, and I truly cannot wait to bear witness to the final product.  Okay...'til next time!

-Brandon

[Pictures from this post will be available following the Paralympics in March...thanks for understanding!]

And some sun with that rain, please?

Wow, what a week!  I have never worked so hard in my life!  A typical workweek consists of getting to work every day at 7:30am, working non-stop (maybe briefly stopping for a bite of homemade lunch) until the construction site ceases operations at 7:30pm.  On Saturday, we didn't report to work until 10am, so I was able to celebrate a fellow housemate's birthday the night before with sushi and burgers.  Now that is a good combination!  Food aside, this week I put in about 70 hours working on projects both directly and indirectly influencing construction of Coke's Pavilion.  What a workweek!

The craziest surprise of Vancouver has definitely been both the lack of snow and the plethora of rain.  I assumed that, being in Canada, Vancouver was constantly covered in a deep blanket of snow.  The clothes I carried in my $15 stow-away suitcase on my flight up here were predominately warm-weather gear, with a bathing suit added last minute in the event of a wintry hot tub anywhere near me during my March repose in Whistler.  Over the past week, five days have seen non-stop rain, and the other two have been on-and-off!  It's crazy!  But, the good thing is that Vancouver's city council is encouraging residents to leave their Christmas lights up through the Games, so at least it should look like a winter wonderland minus the presence of snow.

With one day a week presently available to me for both recovery and sightseeing, the "territory conquering" mentality I evoked with Buddy (my sister), throughout Europe simply isn't perceivable.  Instead, I let my "sleep bank" recoup until I wake up naturally, and then I get off to sightseeing later in the afternoon.  Last week, my Quebecois friend, Camille, and I went to North Vancouver to check out the Lonsdale Quay Market via the TransLink SeaBus.  This week, we went to Chinatown and bought some amazing groceries from a Chinese supermarket!  Cooking has been a new art for me, but thanks to some lessons before I left Mobile from both my sister and mom, I have been eating the fruits (though rarely actually of may labor for most meals over the past 12 days.  In parting, I'll share a picture I took of a Coke display I saw this evening at one of the grocery stores on Cambie as I was buying groceries...yup, those Coke people are geniuses!

P.S. - Happy Martin Luther King, Jr. Day!  And see that big metal structure at the top of the first picture in this post?  Yup, I definitely helped assemble that in the pouring rain...it was AWESOME fun!

Arriving

Well, I'm now an official Canadian immigrant, eh? Though I'm still learning the proper placement of "eh" in sentences (it doesn't go after questions...only statements thereby making them questions), I feel as if I'm getting the hang of it fairly quickly.

The voyage from Atlanta to Los Angeles to Vancouver was quite swell on Wednesday. It was my first time in Los Angeles, so I definitely soaked in the five minute walk outside between terminals. Immigration at Vancouver International Airport seemed quite intimidating as I walked off the plane, but Canada's immigration officers couldn't be nicer! With a work permit stapled to my passport, I left the airport ready to jump right in...

The city has already Olympi-cized itself. There's a huge five-ring construction right outside the airport, and their are street banners everywhere! Though not every Vancouveran (as I believe they are called) is fond of the Olympics coming to their hometown, the signage certainly got me excited about it.

I am living in a house that is super convenient getting to downtown where I work. I literally walk four minutes, take an eight minute ride on the Canada Line (a metro/train/monorail), and then I'm a block from where I work. I share this house with nine other people from around the world...it's so cool!

Working as an intern for Coca-Cola has been incredible beyond words. The team is so fun and energetic, and I cannot wait for the Pavilion to be completed...it's going to be incredible! And let me just tell you...thank goodness for technology, eh? (that was a well-utilized "eh"!) Having a cell phone with a Canada Plan has been so nice...I feel like I'm in the States. But I'm not...I'm in Canada...which is super. So now I've begun rambling. Seeing that I have nothing more to offer to the table at this moment, I'm signing off...later!