Dave and Brian's Excellent Adventures

January 29, 2006

Hotel

January 29, 2006

So starts this log (or Blog)

After a very exhausting 9 hour flight from Atlanta to Milan, I was able to reach Italy for the start of the next adventure. I was unable to sleep (which is unusual for me on a plane) and it was a little cramped. It was a very interesting coincidence that when I got on the flight, I thought I recognized someone in the waiting area. It was, in fact, a person I had worked with at Avid who was going over. The coincidence gets better because we are sitting together on the flight. And it keeps going on because I was going to call this person to thank him for recommending a job we received (Keene State College). And I haven’t seen or heard from this person in 6 years.

After waiting for an hour for our luggage, with me also carrying Rosemary’s large suitcase so she won’t have to deal with it, we are met by the NBC crew. Unlike the IOC, these people have always done this right. We were met outside of Passport Control, walked thru Customs (there really wasn’t any to speak of), marched out to the bus, and driven to our next stop, the Field Shop. A funny story, in Seoul for that Olympics, after a 22 hour flight, met by the NBC people, driven around, handed $2,200 in travelers checks for per diem, dumped with SWAG (Stuff We All Get), and then pushed back on the bus is a very exhausting start. Same again. Only I already received the per diem and was getting SWAG again. Which I really don’t care about any more and have Rosemary give away once the Olympics is over. Any takers?

This is also the time for Old Home Week. Old friends, that I don’t see unless I work one of these things, shows up. Poor NBC people were trying to SWAG me, process me, give me a car, read the “rules of the road” and push me out quickly just didn’t happen when you get another “Hey Dave”. We get thru the process, finally and I meet my friend, Mr. Family Wagon, out in the parking lot. The runners for NBC even loaded it for me with all of the suitcases and SWAG. Now to drive up to Sestriere for the evening. The roads are confusing enough but I still haven’t had any sleep. They decide to give me a driver that will come back later from an office up in the mountains. We start.

Torino is a nice city that is set up for tourism. It is just outside the Italian Alps and is perfect for doing a winter Olympics. We don’t see much of it as we head northwest towards the Italian border. My venue is Cross Country and we are located in Prageloto Plan which is way up in the Alps. For tonight and tomorrow I am located in Sestriere, which is the town for hosting the Giant Slalom and Downhill. We are driving thru mountains (no, really thru mountains…big tunnels) and heading up towards the Alps. It has snowed in the last few days and for Torino this is very surprising. They received about 6 inches and the town is paralyized. Usually they get snow in the morning and it is gone in the afternoon. This has stayed and is now raining. As we are heading north thru these long incredible tunnels, it is still raining. The wild part is that we enter one tunnel near the end of our journey with rain, and a huge blizzard coming out the other. We have landed.



Sestriere is a wonderful Alpine town that you always think of when you hear Alps. Chalet after chalet with snow covered roads and no @#$#@ sidewalks! You walk in the @#$% street trying not to get killed. We are actually located in Sestriere Colle, which was built in the 1930’s by the Fiat Family who gave weekend trips to their employees to come up to ski. The resort town grew from there. It will host the downhill events, as I mentioned earlier.

That night, I had another chance to meet more old friends that were working in Colle. They will be the technical managers here and we did have a nice long chat. For dinner, we eat in the hotel. As this doesn’t sound exciting, let me say that having to not trek again out in the cold was a plus. To not have to go in to Colle to find a place to eat was another plus. Also, the food was top draw with 4 courses served by an expert staff you don’t always see in a hotel. Unfortunately the food is very, very good and rich so expect Rosemary, Brian and I to come home 300 lbs. heavier. And the wine was fantastic. And it was incredibly cheap. So, when you see us again, we will be alcoholics and fat!

Because of the heavy snow, I did not get a chance to take any pictures. You would have seen nothing but white. I will start including pictures as the weather improves.



Hotel Field of Play


NBC office where I work Start and finish area

posted by DaveandBrian @ 2:28 AM