Torino - Venturing Out

I've started my (nominal) 12p to 12a shift at the IBC, and things are much quieter today since competition has started (everybody in production is too busy doing what they're supposed to be doing, rather than worrying about Comms, which are, and have been working fine).

Since I had some time this morning, I ventured out into the area around my Media Village (in search of the laundromat that does bulk "wash and fold" for 3 euro per kilo). After dropping off my laundry, I wandered down to the Olympic Stadium and took some pictures of the flame...



On a side street just off the street in front of the stadium there was a busy little impromptu marketplace (which they setup and tear down every couple of days). The market stretches for about 100 metres or so, and probably has at least 50 vendors...



The market had vendors for toys, costume jewellry, leather goods, jeans and T-shirts, vegetables, cheese, nuts and dried fruits, meats, and even "fresh" seafood...



Walking past the market I came across an old Church. This church has bells that chime (quite loudly and long) on the hour and the half-hour, and it is right outside the back of the Media Village. Fortunately, I live closer to the front of the MV, and can't hear the bells from my room. I would have ventured inside, but today is Saturday, and I think there was a mass about to begin...



Finally on the way back to catch the bus to the IBC, I came across this fellow on the sidewalk outside a sporting goods store. This is about the extent of the snow left in Torino after several days of +8C or better...

Torino - Our First Medal!

Hurray!

Canadian Jennifer Heil won gold in the women's Moguls this afternoon!

The women's Hockey team is playing Italy as I write this, and it is 4-0 after only 7 minutes in the first period.

Caroline Outlette has a hat-trick already. I hope we don't clobber the host country too badly. You want the fans on your side for later games.

Ok, they scored again while I wasn't looking, it is now 5-0, I better wrap this up or I'll never get to finish it.

Update: The final score was 16-0! I stepped out of the room to grab a snack and a coke, and I missed 4 goals.

Torino - Food, Glorious Food!

After I mentioned earlier that I planned to try and have pizza every day to break my 21 day University record, Barry wrote me to say that he would NEVER speak to me again if I came to Italy and ate nothing but pizza. Believe me, I had no such intention, the food here is too good to only eat one thing every day. However, I am reserving lunch (or breakfast, no kidding) for having at least one slice each day (and have done so every day so far).

They have some unusual pizza topping combinations, so I plan to award a Pizza of the Week to the strangest slice I've had each week. Last week, the award goes to the Tuna and Potato Pizza. The current front runner for this week is the Bacon, Lettuce, and Tomato Pizza (with mayo), but we still have until Wednesday to top that.

The food was so bad in Athens (from the NBC commissary) that I had Greek salad for almost every meal, but this is not going to be a trip where I lose any weight, even with the large amount of walking we have to do to get into and out of the IBC. The food in Torino has been a real pleasure (even though I am still mostly eating in the commissary). There is a wide variety of food available, but they seem to eat a lot of meats and cheeses, some pasta, and some seafood. There is ALWAYS pizza available.

The standard meats like steak and chicken have been ok, but the fish, pork and ham have been terrific. They also make amazing mashed potatoes and grilled vegetables. Lots of the salads have meat or seafood in them also. The canneloni has been amazing, stuffed with various cheeses (the best was the feta).

In Athens, I had the best feta cheese ever, and here I seem to have found the best blue cheese ever. It is creamy and tasty, and they have bowls of crumbled pieces available to put on your salad. Unfortunately the lettuce quality and selection is not so great. There are also lots of other kinds of cheese that I do not recognize, but that are also very good.

Breakfasts have also been a treat. I am not a fan of sausage in general, but WOW, do they know how to make a nice sausage here. It is like eating fried pepperoni or salami, and they have had quiche with pototo, tomato, and spinach. They have lots of croissants, but no muffins or bagels, and they have toast, but no peanut butter (only nutella, chocolate and hazelnut, and you'll know why in a moment).

Did I mention that Torino is famous for chocolate? This is where the first chocolate bars were made. Orginally, cacao had been imported from Spain and been used to create a chocolate drink (which was made legal in 1678, making you wonder why it had ever been illegal). Only in the 18th century did the chocolate artisans of Piedmont (the region in which Torino is located) begin solidifying the chocolate into bars. They even claim that the Swiss came here to learn how to make chocolate.

Torino is famous for a local chocolate confectionary made with hazelnuts called Gianduja, and for their version of "hot chocolate" which is a thick creamy drink, as well as for a secret 200 year-old coffee/chocolate drink called the Bicerin. The legend is that there was a time when coffee beans were scarce, and in order to make their supply last longer, they began to mix coffee and chocolate together. They now also add milk or cream. There is some dispute as to where in Torino this was invented, and it is available in almost any café, but the Caffé al Bicerin is apparently the premier place to go to have a glass of this delectable drink (the drink is served in small glasses, not coffee mugs).

Even though I don't like coffee, I'm told that I will like the Bicerin, and I have located where the Caffé al Bicerin is on the Torino downtown map, so I plan to stop by some morning to give it a shot. I also plan to try the hot chocolate, and the Gianduja in time. My hours look like they will be noon to midnight, which is actually pretty good, as it will give me a few hours of daylight in the mornings to try and do some sightseeing.

I've saved the best for last. Not only is the area famous for chocolate, they are also famous for ice cream. I can honestly say I have never had better ice cream ANYWHERE! It is so good and so rich and so creamy, that a small scoop is really all you can eat before it starts to feel like too much (which I guess fortunate for me). The best so far is the Hazelnut ice cream, but the French Vanilla and Chocolate are also excellent.

I think I can control myself not to over-indulge, and hope that the extra walking and long work hours will cancel out some of those extra calories. We've been so busy getting ready for the Games to begin, that I've really only stopped by the MV bar for a beer after work a couple of times, so that should help keeping my weight manageable. On the other hand, there are a lot of good wines to sample and write about too (but I'll save that for later)!

Ciao for now!

Torino - Opening Ceremonies

Well we made it. As I write this, the Opening Ceremonies are in full swing. We had a hugely busy day today, checking all communication circuits with almost every venue, and especially with the Olympic Stadium.

So far, the show has been uneventful, and relatively uninteresting. I won't spoil the surprise for you, but the giant ski jumper is pretty cool, as are the Olympic rings. I'm sure the show would be more interesting with audio, but we are listening to the director and producer to make sure that there are no problems.

They've just started the parade of athletes (one half hour into the show), so we've probably got at least an hour of that before they get to the lighting of the flame. The Olympic flame will be at the top of a big tower outside the stadium (and close to my Media Village), so I'm wondering how they are going to light it. I hope it's worth staying up for!

Canada has 196 athletes here, and Danielle Goyette (age 40) carried the flag. She is captain of the women's hockey team. I actually met her in Salt Lake City after the team spilled out onto the street after the medal ceremony and she let me hold her gold medal.

On NBC's coverage here, Bob Costas was supposed to point out Canada's new Prime Minister, and I could hear the director calling for the "spotters" to find him in the audience, but Stephen Harper could not be located in time to get on the air by the time the Canadian team marched in.

North and South Korea marched in together under the banner "Koreas", marking the first time for them as a unified team at the Winter Olympics.

The Olympic torch relay will culminate in the lighting of the flame later tonight. There were 10,001 torch bearers in the relay, and my bet is that it will be Alberta Tomba (Italian skier) who is the final bearer.

Hope you enjoy the show!

Update: The show is nearly over (almost 3 hours long). The part after the athletes arrive is pretty good, especially the "climbers". The lighting of the flame and the ending have lots of pyro-technics. After the flame was lit, the director started to panic because it looked like the athletes and the crowd were starting to leave (even though there was more to come). Lucianno Pavaratti just finished singing, which I guess just goes to prove that the show is never over until the fat guy sings!

Here's a photo from inside the stadium, taken by Comm's comrade Tony Kremer...

Torino - The Media Village

I had mentioned earlier that the Riberi Media Village was an interesting looking building. I have a couple of photos that I think illustrate this. The complex is U-shaped, with a another building sitting across the top of the U. The interior is a courtyard with some trees (including a palm), and a dirt field (that I suspect will be sodded in the spring). The actual rooms are in buildings which branch off the sides of the U-shaped glass corridor. Here is a picture, taken from the courtyard, that shows the glass hallway and the entrance to my building...



If you walk up the steps to the building, you can turn around and see the courtyard, and the other sides of the U-shaped structure (note the palm tree in the left corner)...



Stepping inside, here is a view down the glass hallway towards the Media Village cafeteria and bar (which are in the bottom of the U)...



You can actually walk on top of the glass hallway if you go up to the second floor, which would be nice in the summer I'm sure. You can see how high the ceilings are in the hallway, and the rooms are the same (they must be 12 feet high!).

Ciao, for now!

Torino - First impressions

Torino is an industrial town... and looks it. In Athens, everything
looked ancient, but here everything just looks old. Maybe its just
the weather, but it is dark and drab and grey most of the time. There
is a haze around the city and you can't see the mountains most days
(which are supposed to be a 90 minute drive away), and even the sun
appears as a dull orange/red disc well into the morning before it is
hidden by clouds. I'm told things are much brighter after a day or
two of rain or snow. The temperature has been very nice at around 8C
most days.

Here's a picture that illustrates the kind of haze that seems to be hanging around the city (clue: the blob in the background is supposed to be the sun).



One of the downsides of doing the Winter Olympics is that there are
fewer daylight hours. Most mornings I am heading in to work just as
the sun is coming up, and then heading home well after dark. And
unlike Salt Lake City, where I lived at the Best Western in the
downtown core, I am living at a Media Village that is not quite in
the suburbs, but isn't downtown either.

The streetscapes are kind of depressing looking, with barred windows,
and rolling sheet metal covers over store fronts when they are not
open. The streets are lined with apartments, mostly about 5-10 stories
high, that have retail stores on the first floor. It sometimes feels
like driving throught a canyon with walls on each side. I haven't seen
any houses, or lawns, and most of the trees are deciduous (and so without
leaves right now). There is very little greenery, save for a few
conifers, and surprisingly, a few palm trees (still with green leaves).

This is home to auto-maker Fiat, and that name is everywhere on
buildings all over the city. It also seems that 90-95% of the cars
here are hatchbacks (of various brands: Fiat, VW, Toyota, Ford, Citroen,
and some other European brands). The other vehicles are buses, or
mini-vans. There are very few large cars or SUVs. Gas is 1.25 Euro per
litre, which is about $1.78 CDN. The gas stations are weird, they are
right along the road, or sometimes in the median between opposing lanes
of traffic, and are long and thin, kinda like a pit stop at a race track.
Most are unattended, so you just pull off the road, gas up, and then
merge back into traffic. The other weird thing is that I have been here
for a week, and the gas price hasn't changed since I got here (certainly
not the way it works back home).

At the IBC, I'm here a week earlier than I was in Athens, and it seems
like we have a long way to go to be ready for the Games. Many of the
communications sites at the venues do not have their communication
circuits (voice and Ethernet) in place, and some don't even have power
yet (as of Wednesday). The mobile trucks often pull up at the last
minute also. This means that we will have to send COMMs crews back to
each venue multiple times to finish installation of our equipment.
Since some of the venues are (at least) 90 minutes away in the mountains,
this is a real problem for us. There is a fair bit of stress in the air,
but I think it will all work out (it has too!) by the time we get to
Opening Ceremonies on February 10th.

I expect my postings to be a little chaotic, at least until the Games
start, and we get into a routine. I have been having trouble getting
email and internet access, but think I have that worked out now. I'm not
even sure yet what my work hours are going to be. Right now we are all
working roughly 8am to 8pm, but the facility is moving to 24 hour
operation soon.

Cheers - Sean

Andy Morris' Lymphoma Blog

I was inspired to try blogging by Andy Morris who was the NBC Project Manager for Communications in Atlanta when KVS was finishing some software (that had been started by another company) for a new Telex product to be used at the Olympics.

As the deadline neared, I ended up making several trips to Atlanta for last minute debugging. Ultimately, the product worked (with a few scares), and Andy was appreciative of the effort we had made.

Although there were no new product or firmware issues in Sydney, Andy thought it prudent to have a software support guy on-site, and I was invited to go. Since there were fewer software issues, and I really liked being at the Olympics, I decided to find a way to make myself useful enough to continue to be invited back to future games.

Andy (and the rest of the Comms team) let me start helping out from an operations point of view, so that I could become a regular member of the Comms team (with the added bonus of being on-site to tackle any software issues that might arise).

Here is a photo of (from left) Andy, Project Manager for NBC Olympic Comms, Greg Aull, Technical Director for the Conan O'Brien Show, and Jeff Baker, Maintenance Supervisor at WNBC in New York. We are sitting at the patio bar at the Media Village in Sydney.



Since then, Andy has invited me back to Salt Lake, and recommended to his successor that I be brought to Athens, and now Torino.

Andy is a great guy, and a smart manager who created a very capable Comms team with different areas of expertise. I am grateful to Andy for getting me, and keeping me, involved in the Olympic Games.

Recently, Andy has suffered a recurrence of Lymphoma, a cancer that he had contracted and beaten 15 years ago. He now lives in Colorado, and is recuperating from a treatment of high dose chemotherapy, followed by a stem cell transplant (his own cells, previously harvested).

Andy has been keeping a blog detailing his saga, which, as I said at the start, was what inspired me to try bogging about Torino. I hope you will visit Andy Morris' Lymphoma Blog and wish him the best on his recovery.

Torino - Oh look, they have pizza!

Well, here I am in Torino!

I left on February 2nd at 2pm from Toronto to NY (JFK), and then had a 4 hour layover before my flight to Italy at 8pm. Both flights were great, and only about half full, so there was room to curl up and sleep on a pair of seats for the 8 hour flight. I woke up after sleeping for about 3 hours, just as morning was breaking and we were starting to pass over the Swiss Alps. Wow! What a view! It was just miles and miles of mountains, snow covered, with lakes and valleys, and small villages nestled in between them.

After landing in Milan at 10am local time (4am back home), we had a nearly two hour bus ride to Torino. It was really sunny and the bus got very hot inside (even with the window curtains closed). We could see the mountains in the distance, but the weather was very nice on the ground (about 8C and clear). The roads here are very narrow (even the highways) and there are no shoulders. Our bus was trying to pass a big truck, and there was literally about a foot between the vehicles, and another foot or two between the bus and the concrete divider on our left.

They took us to the NBC Field Shop (where all the supplies are stored), and gave us our SWAG ("Stuff" We All Get). It was a pretty good set this time. All the clothing is Nike, and we got a navy blue winter jacket with a zip-out (and separately wearable) lining, a red turtleneck shirt, a grey mock-turtleneck shirt, a pair of snow pants, thermal long johns, a thermal undershirt, a pair of winter ski-gloves, and another thin set of gloves (that can be worn inside the ski-gloves). We also got a funky lined hunter-like hat with ear flaps. Everything has the NBC Torino Olympic crest on it.

From the Field Shop, we got transported to our Media Village in mini-vans. I'm in the Riberi Media Village, which used to be a military hospital that has been renovated for our use, and will be turned back over to the military after the Olympics. It's a really neat looking set of buildings, most of which are connected by a big glass enclosed walkway. My room is bigger than in Athens, although decorated in much the same minimalist way. The washroom is much bigger than Athens, and I have a bathtub, sink, toilet, and a bidet (Crocodile Dundee's favourite bathroom appliance).

The Media Village is outside the downtown core in a kind of drab area of town, although it is almost right across the street from the Olympic Stadium (for opening and closing ceremonies) and close to the pillar for the Olympic Flame. After checking in to the Media Village, I hopped a shuttle bus to the IBC (International Broadcast Centre) which is where I'll be working. This is a 4km drive, but takes about 25 minutes. I had to activate my credentials (and get them to change my name from David to Sean), and then went in to meet all the friends I only get to see every two years in COMMs.

After getting settled in, and finding my bearings inside the NBC portion of the IBC (which is huge), we called it a day at about 8pm and headed out for dinner. I've actually been here a few days now, and have already had dinner outside the IBC more times (twice) than I did the entire time in Athens. The food has been terrific (OK, I had pizza both nights). It seems that the city is filled with "Pizzerias", and the restaurant signs rarely even mention the name of the restaurant, but have "Pizzeria" in neon lights. The NBC commissary opened yesterday, so there will be fewer chances to eat out in the future. On the other hand, the NBC commissary looks like it will be far better than in was in Athens. Since I am going to be here for 28 days, I think I have a pretty good chance at breaking my University record of having pizza 21 days in a row!