Tuesday - Saturday

Tuesday:

The last day, I think, to work at 0730! Not so bad!

Wednesday:

A day off today! I go to Bardonecchia to watch the Snowboard Mens Giant Parallel Slalom Finals. It is fun. It ends, with the gold and silver going to the 2 Swiss guys, who are brothers. On the way back, we enjoy a snowball fight across the river. Uber TP!

Then, I go to Sestriere Colle to watch the Womens Alpine Skiing Slalom Finals. There is soo much fog, that we cant see anything, except the large screens! On the way out, I have my picture taken with Neve and Gliz, the Torino 2006 Mascots.

Thursday:

I sleep till late and go to Palazzetto to check out the venue. Its not bad. After that, Gwen and I go to Pinerolo Palaghiaccio to watch the Curling Womens Finals. It turns out to be better than expected. I used to think that Curling was kinda boring, but in the stadium, its a lot more fun. The Swedes beat the Swiss after extra time.

Friday:

Back to work in the morning. In the evening, we head to the city to go to the Medals Plaza. This is the place where the medals are presented to the winners. This is followed by performances by Italian and/or International artists. We reach the city and head to the MTC to pick up our tickets. After that, we go to McDonalds for a quick bite.

Finally, we head over to the Medals Plaza. The concert has just started and we see people with tickets are not being allowed in, due to security reasons. However, we have good seats, as we are part of the Olympic Family, so we are allowed in. The concert is by an Italian guy called Max Pezzali. He's not bad, something like the Bryan Adams of Italy.

Saturday:

Sleep till late as I have to go to work at 1600 :)

Saturday - Monday

Here is a picture of me in the Helpdesk.

Its very quiet here these days. Usually a lot of waiting and surfing the net, waiting for some problem. Luckily no major probs so far.

I cant believe there is only 1 week left and I'll be back in Bombay. Really gonna miss this place and all the people.

Friday - Friday

The work continues. It is usually pretty quiet. Just the usual morning checks and wait for some problems to occur. Meanwhile, in the evenings, we get to see the events. Pretty awesome view from outside the helpdesk!

Not much to say, except that I'm having a blast.

Sunday - Thursday

Sunday:

I think this is the last Sunday Im going to get off. Sleep, Sleep, Sleep.

Monday:

We continue with Implementations. Nothing really new.

Tuesday:

Today, BJ (Bart Jan from Holland), who is the Assistant VITM at Bardonecchia comes to our venue to pick up some toner. He is really impressed with the venue. Its just too beautiful for words. We go walking around the venue and go to the start of the Bob. The view from there is amazing. You can see the whole venue and also catch a nice view of Cesana San Sicario, which is the venue for Biathlon.

Wednesday:

More work continues. In the afternoon, at about 4 pm, I get a call from Caroline Brunelliere, who is the Duty Manager for Staffing for Atos. She tells me that she has a ticket for me for the Dress Rehearsal of the Opening Ceremony. Yippie!

I speak to my VITM and leave early, and reach the city to see the Opening Ceremony Dress Rehearsal. In one word, it was AMAZING! According to me, it still needed a bit of polishing at a couple of places, but it was pretty good nonetheless.

Thursday:

More work continues. Its the last day before the games start! Implementation is completed, so its just fire-fighting at the moment.

Wednesday - Saturday

Wednesday:

For dinner, we go to this restaurant in Grangesises. It turns out to be pretty awesome. Great food, great service, good ambience, albeit a lil pricey. I have gnocchi and Crème brûlée. Both are too awesome for words, especially the latter. However, I end up paying 22 Euros for the meal.

Thursday:

Its venue lockdown today. Lockdown means all sorts of security is deployed, both computer related (port security, access control lists, IDS, etc.) and physical security (metal detectors, no entry without proper accreditation, etc). It also means a day off for us, to sleep!!

Friday:

More work. Tonight, we have food at Guiseppe's (Beppe)(Italian) apartment. He cooks some pasta and I add in some Maggi Tomato Soup. We also watch True Lies in Italian. LOL.

Saturday:

Another long day. We spend pretty much the whole day deploying CIS (Commentator Information System) Workstations with their TouchScreens.

Monday - Wednesday

Nothing new really. The work continues. Tomorrow is Lockdown day at the venue. We continue with helping with the Implementation team. Gustavo Labbe (he's from Vancouver 2010) is coordinating with us and trying to make a schedule for us and plan the activities for the next few days. He has worked with HSBC for a long time, implementing projects and mainly infrastructure planning and deployment. He is here to gain experience and then, play a major role in VANOC (Vancouver Olympic Committee).

Thursday - Sunday

Thursday:

Well, the work continues. Its starting to get pretty cold here. Everyone is praying for snow, especially for events like Alpine Skiing, Biathlon, etc.

Surprise, Surprise! Its snowing in the city, we hear. And it usually never snows there. Its starting to frost a bit here too. Last night, on the way home, the temperature outside for -10 degrees and it was frosting. Visibility was bad!

I go to the city to pick up my new accreditation and my uniform. I am driven to the city by 3 guys from Kyocera. They are for Reprographics. Their names are Marco Groccia, Marco Panzetta and Francesco Stuppia.

After picking up all the stuff, I head over to Zuo Nan's apartment for dinner. They are about 8-9 of us there. Most of them Chinese. Only Sylvain and I are the ones not from China there.

After dinner, we drive back to the mountains with Ben Fisher.

Friday:

Finally, we have laundary service in Grangesises. More work continues meanwhile. It always alternates between lots of work and just sitting around not doing much. Anyways, its snowing a lot.

Saturday:

I am supposed to go to work today. But Gengi (my VITM) calls and says not to come today as there is lots of snow and not many people have turned up.

I open the door of my room and all i see is fog. It ends up pretty much snowing all day.

Later, in the evening, I go with Luc to Club Med for dinner, where we are met by Gwen and Ben. After dinner and some pool, we head over to Luc, Gwen and Gideon. We spend a lot of time playing on his XBox. We play Dead or Alive 2, NFS underground 2, Tony Hawk 4, etc.

Sunday:

I go to work. The volunteers have come today. They are introduced to us and we take them around for a short tour.

The other interns are saying something about going to SnowBoarding. There is a competition in Montgenevre and all the stars who will take part in the Winter Games are supposed to be there.