Olympic Village

We got into the Olympic Village! We had tried many times in Vancouver and it never worked out. Obviously you can't just go to the Olympic Village. Debbie had to request passes for us, but there is never a guarantee you will get the passes because they are limited each day. It was a fun behind the scenes peak that we feel so fortunate to have had! We saw their post office, bank, store, art gallery and cafe before venturing further into the village. We decided to eat in their dinning hall. They have tons of choices to eat. The athletes eat free of course, but guests can purchase a meal ticket for about $25 per person to eat there too.  My boys and I chose to try the sushi first and it was great! All the food was great, and the boys got to go McDonalds for a mcflurry at the end. Yes, there is a McDonalds in the dinning hall which means you can get anything you want whenever you want from there if you are an athlete. Wow!

McDonalds at the Olympic Village!

We also got to go the houses for the athletes. The street is lined with buildings, some decorated with flags from various countries, for the teams to stay in. The house Debbie and her team is in also houses men's and women's hockey and the men's curling team and probably others but I don't remember what she told us. The team has a lounge area that has a living room and bathroom and a balcony that has a gorgeous view of the Black Sea. They told us that they see dolphins swimming by at times. Two players share a room, so Debbie is with her teammate Jessica. There room is very nice. It has two single beds, a bathroom, and a small balcony that faces another building, but you can see the water when you are standing it. Annie and Erika, from the team, share the room across the hall.  When we were on our way to see the rooms, we ran into Brianna Decker! Got to give her some hugs  and introduce her to Debbie.

On the balcony at Olympic
Village

After our time at the village, we decided to try to find the taping of the Today Show. After a bit of walking and trying to get non-English speaking volunteers to understand where we wanted to go, we got into the taping! There were not too many people there, so we felt fairly confident that we would get on. During breaks, the cast of the show came down and talked with us and took pictures. We met Matt, Al, and Savannah. The pictures are on my camera, but friends and family from home say they saw us in the crowd.

At the end of our day, we went to a curling game. The USA played Japan and we won! This was our first win and it felt good to see them be successful! Later, when I got back to the hotel, I had a bunch of messages on Facebook that my family was on TV at the end of the curling game cheering! Guess this was our day to be almost famous by being on television.