Hot. Cool. Yours.

Hot. Cool. Yours.

This is the Sochi motto…we’re not 100% sure what it means but it’s fun to say!

The coastal village has been very busy. Here are the things we have been up to:

    * We’ve welcomed figure skating, women’s ice hockey and speedskating over the last few days. We are excited to have curling and men’s ice hockey join us soon!

·   * We’ve moved lots and lots of bags, equipment and other odds and ends between the three villages and the other outside ops centers. And when I say ‘we’ I mean my teammates and our NOC Assistants move the bags and I stand back and basically boss everyone around. LOL

·   * We’ve been coordinating many motor pool requests for everything from touring the local hospital to purchasing tennis balls for the hockey team. When a request comes up, we evaluate if we can deploy a vehicle and we send an NOC Assistant out with a staff member from the sport to accomplish their task.

·   * We’ve been coordinating the bike rentals. We have 29 BMW bikes and 96 athletes in the coastal village which means the bikes are in very high demand! We’ve set up a self-check-out system and are helping athletes get the hang of things. We inventory the bikes on a daily basis.

·   * We’ve been managing our NOC Assistants. We have 12 NOCs in the coastal village and 4 of the 12 are assigned as team hosts to the hockey and curling teams. They are volunteering for the Sochi 2014 organizing committee and have been assigned as our permanent helpers for the duration of the Games. They are extremely helpful and we ask them to do all kinds of things! Translating, driving, moving beds, wrapping gifts, shopping and washing cars are just a few of the many tasks we assign them. And they are knocking them all out of the park! We seriously could not be successful without their assistance!

·   * We’ve been gathering whereabouts for the next day for all of the coastal sports. Team leaders submit information to us, we compile into a big spreadsheet and then submit to our security division, our sports medicine division and the U.S. state department.

·   * And in our free time, we’ve been exploring the Olympic Park which is connected to the coastal village. The park is huge and the venues are amazing. Below are some of the pictures I’ve taken on my explorations.

Events begin tomorrow and the Opening Ceremony is on Friday! I hope you all get a chance to watch and cheer on Team USA!

P.S. Shout out to Mrs. Flatten's class in NK-G in Minnesota! 

And another shout out to Girl Scout Troop #2359 in Colorado Springs, Colorado! I hope cookie sales are going well! Martha and I miss you! :) 

The sun is shining is Sochi! This is a view of our housing building from the ground. 

The sunset on the village buildings. 

A view of the mountains from the coastal village. So beautiful!

The coastal village spirit store.

The coastal village general store.

A view of the Bolshoy venue (men's hockey) from the Olympic Park.

This one is for my brother-in-law, Chris, and my nephew, Mikko...a hockey player!

The inside of the Adler Arena! Home of long track speedskating. 

The rings are everywhere! Trivia: What do the rings represent? 

A view of the long track speedskating venue that most people never get to experience. I took this from the INSIDE of the track!

The Ice Cube! Home of curling!

The USA House! This house is inside the Olympic Park and will be the home of Team USA medal celebrations, sponsor viewing parties, Order of Ikkos ceremonies (where our coaches are recognized) and all kinds of other special functions! It looks great!

Inside the USA House

The big screens at the USA House.

I'm a sucker for nostalgia. Trivia: What moment is this?

The Ralph Lauren display at the USA House.

The Iceberg! Home of figure skating and short track speedskating! 

The figure skating team event kiss and cry! The team event is BRAND NEW to the Olympic schedule and therefore it will be a historic event for U.S. Figure Skating and Team USA. The event begins tomorrow (Thursday, February 6th), before the Opening Ceremony, so be sure to watch! 

The jumbo-tron at the Iceberg. 

Another view from inside the Iceberg.