Olympics

Welcome to Mary's Garden. It's a little rainy but still HOT! Please grab some goodies and a beverage and settle in and let's talk Olympics.

I've been watching the Olympics since... well I don't know. I can't remember a time I didn't watch. I was always big on Gymnastics. In Junior High I was on our gymnastics team. I wasn't great, but I had a great time. Then we had trampoline. I did that, bars, and beam. I was so not graceful to do the floor exercise.

Through the years the highlights have been when the USA brought home medals of course, but one of my favorite experiences by far... When the Olympics came to Utah. The 2002 Winter Olympics. I worked in the command center so I watched a lot of them on the big screen on mute while I manned the support phones.

Mostly, it was on the boring side. However, I do have one funny story. Volunteers called in with any problems they had, like if they lost their supplied work phone, or they couldn't find a venue, etc. I received a call from an upset young women who had ruined her phone. She said, "I dropped my cell phone in the porta potty. I fished it out and cleaned it off. I dried it off with a hair blow dryer. It still didn't work so I put it in a bag with some rice to dry it out. It just won't work. What do I do?"

After, I got over the ewwww of what she had said, I very professionally explained the process of turning her phone in for a new one. And no she would not have to pay for the ruined phone. And then of course, I got off the phone and told everyone the story and we had a good laugh.

I worked the 2 pm to 10 pm shift and there were nightly concerts and parties, etc. I would ride the train to work each day. My husband and friends would drive in and visit the activities and when I was off work, I would meet everyone after. They had places (restaurants) called the Swiss House or the Danish House, and others, where they would have authentic food of the country. And if you were lucky some of the athletes would show up. Then there were times we would go to a concert usually at The Zephyr.

Anyway, I thought I'd share some of my favorite pictures. There was a skier from Switzerland who looked, sort of, like Harry Potter. We were at the Swiss House and the athletes came in, and I had my picture taken with the skier and got to hold his gold medal.

Swiss House

He's arrived

His smile says it all.

Gold Medal in the Men's downhill

Silver medal in the women's downhill

We also attended a hockey game for the USA vs. Germany (I believe) and I was able to take a picture of the Stanley Cup.

At the Paralympics we had tickets for the downhill skiing. It was amazing.

And there were pins everywhere and I collected as many as I could. We have them hanging in our basement family room.