The End

Sorry for the delay! Things are still pretty busy around here!

Here is my re-cap...

Things I've Done Since My Last Post:

- Watched the ladies free skate...our ladies were fabulous as always! Also got to watch the medal ceremony!

- Bummed around downtown and pretended to be trendy...which meant buying a cupcake and shopping for 'subtle' discounted Olympic gear in a very trendy shop

- Had a 'Sloppy Joanne' at the Yaletown Brewery - it was delicious!

- Danced in fake snow (picture explanation below)

- Toured the Olympic Village where the athletes live...SO COOL! I've always wanted to tour the Village and it did not disappoint! (See my pictures below) Best part: the view from the U.S. Figure Skating 6th Floor!

- Went to the USA vs Finland men's hockey game

- Planned and attended U.S. Figure Skating's Team Dinner at the USA House

- Went to (and got in to!) Club Bud

- Packed up and shipped our office

- Went to the figure skating exhibition

- Drove people around Vancouver

- Had a pizza party at the house while we watched the USA vs Canada hockey game...it was such a good try!

- Endured the mayhem otherwise known as downtown...Canadians are crazy when they win

- Went to the Closing Ceremony - it was just as amazing as the Opening! Favorite part: John Furlong's speech (the CEO of VANOC)...and the giant beavers...too funny!

- Ran into my old friend Janine from Winnipeg at the Closing! Such a small world!

Even though it tends to feel like we are in the U.S., I've compiled a few subtle differences between Canada and the States:

- I have a lot more change
- 'Restrooms' don't exist...instead they are called 'washrooms'

- The letter 'z' is actually 'zed' here

- And EVERYONE always says 'eh?'

And now the Olympics come to end...thank you for keeping up with my blog over the past 16+ days! I hope you enjoyed it and I hope you enjoyed the 2010 Olympics Winter Games as much as I did!

My Top 10 Favorite Things About The Olympics

10. Always being able to find a Diet Coke

9. Watching the underdog win

8. Seeing the inside and outside of the Olympic venues

7. Hearing the NBC Olympic theme song

6. Getting to wear my Olympic and USA apparel every day

5. Buying Olympic souvenirs for everyone

4. Taking a picture in front of the torch

3. Hearing the U.S. national anthem

2. Seeing all of the flags from around the world hung up in every venue

1. Telling people I'm an American

The Olympic Village!

The Village Dining Hall

The Athlete Living Room

The 6th Floor =U.S. Figure Skating Floor!

View of the Sochi House from the 6th Floor

U.S. Figure Skating's Team Dinner at the USA House

Closing Ceremony!

The End

OMG

So I'm sitting in our office today eating McDonald's fries and look up to see Michelle Kwan walking in the door! Apparently my co-worker Ramsey had told her that I hadn't met her yet so she came in to say hi! OMG - seriously still can't even believe it. Then her agent (who I work with on a regular basis) asks me if I want to get a picture with her. I was like - sure! VERY COOL! The best part: she is very nice!

Yesterday I went to the Canada vs Germany hockey game with Liz! Loved the venue! It was sea of red! I was cheering for Germany (my name IS Schmitz after all) but they lost.

Our U.S. ladies did fabulous last night! They are currently in fifth and sixth place going into the free skate which takes place tomorrow night. We're crossing out fingers for another medal!

Room 103 at Washington Elementary School asked me this morning about the medals...each medal weighs about 500 grams which is a little over one pound. They are the heaviest medals in Olympic history! No two medals are alike. I don't think the medals are made out of real gold but I'm not quite sure...check out this awesome website to find out more fun medal facts: http://www.mint.ca/store/mint/learn/medals-4400016

SILVER

We got another medal!!!!! And have you seen who's still leading the medal count? USA USA U-S-A!!!!!

Last night one of our U.S. ice dance teams, Meryl Davis and Charlie White, earned a silver medal! The Canadians were first and the Russians third. It is the first time ever that North America has dominated the ice dancing podium...so we are VERY happy about that!

We had another party last night at the USA House to celebrate their medal. While there, I ran into the U.S. men's curling team and stopped to chat with them for a bit. They were surprised to hear that I was from Hibbing. It was pretty neat! They said they do know Marcy and Ashley! :)

Everyone keeps asking me if Evan is single and since his dating life went public yesterday in People magazine, I suppose I can confirm that Evan IS dating gymnast Nastia Liukin (that's why she was at his medal party).

Interesting facts:

The odds of a Canadian making it to the Olympic Games: 1 in 50,000. The odds of an American making it to the Olympic games: 1 in 430,000.

Minnesota has 22 athletes representing the U.S...the most of any state! Colorado isn't far behind with 13 athletes!

The U.S. medal count is shaping up to be the best total count since the 1932 Lake Placid Olympics. Yay!

Celebrity sightings: Michelle Kwan and Tara Lipinski!

Shout out to my cousin Senia, her coach Jenna and the Greenway Emerald Ice Figure Skating Club! Their skating show is on March 6th and 7th in Coleraine...if you live up north, be sure to go watch!

Ladies short program begins tonight! Our ladies have been looking very good in practice so don't forget to tune in and cheer!

The ice dancing medalists.

Meryl and Charlie with their coaches and our team leaders.

The steam clock in Gastown...we found it on our way to watch the free dance.

Correction to Today's Post

As Kjersten pointed out, the Sochi Games will be in 2014 not 2016 like I stated below. Oooops! My mistake...I was typing really fast and didn't catch that! Sorry! Thanks Kjersten!

Fun Things

Please tell me that you watched the hockey game last night! GO TEAM USA!!!

Fun things I've done since my last post:

- Cheered on the U.S. ice dance teams at both the compulsory dance and the original dance...we are currently in 2nd, 4th and 11th. We ARE expecting another medal party tonight at the USA House - yay!

- Cheered on the U.S. during the USA vs Canada men's hockey game...in a restaurant filled with Canadian fans...needless to say I was booed at for the first time in my life. LOL Interesting fact: Did you know that 7 of the 23 players on the hockey team have 'ryan' in their name?

- Went shopping...again...with Liz in Gastown

- Went to the Procter & Gamble Family Home for another 'Evan Party'. While I was there I saw the curling families...this is how the next few minutes went:

Me: Are you the curling families?

Curling Families: Yes

Me: I'm from Hibbing

Curling Families: (Gasps and shouts) Ohhhhhh! We're from Chisholm! We're from Gilbert!

Me: I know! That's why I came over to say hi!

Curling Families: What are you doing here?

Me: I work for U.S. Figure Skating.

Curling Families: Wow! It's great to meet you!

Me: You too! I think you know my aunt Marcy and my cousin Ashley.

Curling Families: Yes we do!

...Then we exchanged pins and wished each other luck. :) It was awesome!

On tap for this week: Free dance, Ladies short and free skate, tour of the Olympic Village, tour of the International Broadcast Center which will get me closer to the torch, Under Armour party at Club Bud, figure skating exhibition, closing ceremonies...and then the Games are over! It's hard to believe that a week from today I will be back in Colorado Springs!

Be sure to watch the free dance tonight!

View of Gastown

View of the torch...notice all of the people on the sidewalk.

The Sochi car parked right in front of our office! Sochi (pronounced So-chi) is the site for the 2016 Olympic Winter Games. Sochi is in Russia.

Liz and me at the USA House.

Team mangers, Lorrie Parker and Richard Dalley pose for a picture with me. Over the past few years I've gotten to know them both very well and I love them dearly! They are amazing!

Day 9

Happy Day 9 of the Olympics!

Everyone keeps asking me: 'So Julie, if you don't have a credential and if you're not living in the Olympic Village, what do you do all day?'...so I thought I'd take some time to explain how this all works:

Olympic credentials are very limited and each country can only receive a specific number of them. The people who receive credentials as part of the U.S. Figure Skating Team are: 15 athletes, 9 coaches (remember that each of our skaters/teams have their own personal coach so we use a lot of our credentials on our coaches), 3 team leaders/managers, one team doctor, one team physiotherapist, two media staff members, one president and one executive director. All of these folks (except for the two media staff members, the president and the ED) live in the Village. Then there are lots of other people here on behalf of U.S. Figure Skating including me, a few of my co-workers and a skate technician. We also have several U.S. officials here on behalf of the International Skating Union (ISU). So when you include the assistant coaches that are also here and each athlete's agent, there are about 56 people here for the U.S. Figure Skating Team. Then, every athlete has AT LEAST six family members here...some have over a dozen, which means we're technically supporting roughly 150 people in Vancouver.

With so many friends and family, board members and VIP's, it is easier to understand why me and my other non-credentialed co-workers are here to support our skating family. Here is what my days usually look like:

6:00am - Wake up and get ready (Remember I'm living in the house we are renting which is about 2 blocks from the figure skating/speed skating venue and our U.S. Figure Skating Olympic Office)

7:30am - Open up the office (which is actually a small private school). Turn off the security alarm. Turn on both of the TV's. Turn on both of the laptops. Make coffee. Make hot chocolate. Update the medal count (see picture below). Print and post recent stories about our skaters. Refill our table of USA 'stuff' (pins, noise makers, beads, etc.)

9:00am-ish - Depending on if it's a practice day, we may already have had some visitors by 9am. Each visitor (mostly friends and family) usually has several questions or needs to pick something up. Tips on how to get into the venue, directions for how to get on the bus/train system, addresses for all of the special houses downtown, hours of the Olympic Superstore, distributing practice or event tickets and answering questions about ticket availability are all a part of how we support the F&F.

12:00pm - Usually about this time Bob mans the office and I go grab some to-go lunch. Then when I get back I re-do everything I did at the start of the morning (make more coffee, etc.) I also check my email and actually work on things that I do on a daily basis when I'm in CO. My AMAZING intern, Liz, is still in CO right now and has been handling the vast majority of things for me while I'm gone (organizing the World Junior, World and Spring Teams...all of which compete in March). So fortunately, I haven't had to deal with any major issues back in CO yet.

1:00pm - Things usually start to pick up at the office especially on an event day. Everyone stops by to check their email, catch some Olympic coverage, grab a Diet Coke or just to say hi. The afternoon flies by!

4:00pm/5:00pm - We usually close down the office at about this time. Then we either go across the street to watch the event or we go downtown to watch or we find tickets to something else or we just hangout downtown and take in the atmosphere.

Every day is different which makes life very interesting! You never know when someone will have an extra ticket or a VIP pass to something. You just have to be ready to change your plans and GO!

I am very thankful that I had so many unique jobs in high school and college! Opening up the office reminds of me of working as the house manager at the Ted Man Concert Hall, making coffee reminds me of working at concessions stands both at HCC and the racetrack, answering questions all day reminds me of working at JCPenny's, washing laundry at the house reminds me of working for the women's basketball team at the U, making a bulletin board for the medal count reminds me of student teaching and driving the van reminds me of driving the water truck for Curbside! Like I said before, you can never underestimate the impact of those odd jobs you had growing up! :)

An update on the compulsory dance front: our teams are currently in third, fourth and fourteenth. We are expecting them all to move up after tomorrow's original dance so be sure to watch!

View of the Vancouver skyline from our office - the weather has been great for the past few days!

Entrance to the Pacific Coliseum

Our medal count!

GOLD

Where do I even begin?

So in case you haven't heard, Evan Lysacek won the GOLD medal last night!!!!! It was a very exciting event and also a very close event. We are thrilled that he beat Plushenko!

Immediately following the end of the event, we hosted a big party for him at the USA House. The place was crawling with famous people! Vera Wang, Nastia Liukin and Wayne Gretzky...just to name a few! I also got to meet Stacey Dales (famous women's basketball player from U of Oklahoma) last night - I got to work with her to set up some interviews...that was pretty cool!

Compulsory Dance starts tonight...there is a STRONG possibility that we will also medal in ice dance so be sure to keep watching! Our dancers will also skate the original dance and free dance on Sunday and Monday.

BTW - found out last night that Apolo Ohno is living about 5 houses down from us. Wild!

Also, just to keep everyone in the loop, here are a couple of fun websites to visit:

http://www.nbcolympics.com/

http://www.icenetwork.com/

http://www.teamusanews.org/