Don't Stop 'Till You Get Enough

This morning I left my flat before 8 a.m. for an event that started at noon – the men’s downhill – and barely made it. That’s because the bus driver in Oulx (the main transport hub for the mountains) drove us to Sauze d’Oulx (where I’d just come from – it’s the location of freestyle skiing) instead of Sestriere Borgata, and there was no telling him he was going to the wrong place. As I wrote my boss this morning, I’m starting to hope I’m going to fall asleep and wake up in Venice. Possibly even Venice, California.

Now about the men’s downhill: I can’t believe people pay $144 for tickets to watch all but the last four seconds on big screens. It was a beautiful sunny day, and I guess you get to say you’ve been there, but literally all you can see is the finish. And they do play some decent music – everything from Madonna’s “Hung Up” to Michael Jackson’s “Don’t Stop Till You Get Enough” (the last of which they also played at the opening ceremonies – I wonder whose job it is to DJ these things?) Occasionally there would be another distinctly late 70s/early 80s sound – the noise the Pac-man video game makes when Pac-man dies. It was played at completely random moments, so I guess it’s one of those lost-in-translation things.

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I had heard the Winter Olympics were low on the celebrity count, and now I know it’s true (not that I should tempt fate, given my employer's primary interests). The opening ceremonies had Susan Sarandon, Sophia Loren, and a supermodel or two (and Bode, marching dead last with the US athletes). There were bodyguards at the restaurant I went to last night and my pulse quickened a bit, but it was only the president of the Czech Republic. And at another bar: Tom Green, aka Drew Barrymore’s ex, having pizza and wine with a handful of guys. Quick, somebody alert the paparazzi...