Wednesday 8 February 2006

Something for Nothing, That's Where It's At

OK, so it took more than three hours, two bus rides, and a long walk uphill to get home last night – and I finally got there at 1.30 a.m. But where else but in the mountains of Italy do you have adorable Italian men making you little cups of coffee (they might be some kind of special coffee, but as a non-coffee-drinker, I can’t tell you what kind of –cino it might have been) as you shiver outside in the cold waiting for the bus at 12:30 a.m.?

This morning I made the schlep back down the mountain to visit the high school serving as the US athletes’ check in center, where they go around with supermarket trolleys collecting free gear. I am not making this up – the US Olympic Committee literally took about 20 trolleys from the Pam supermarket down the street, hosed them off in the bathroom (wonder whose job that was), and disinfected them. The athletes then go around the gym collecting hats, scarves, gloves, t-shirts, leather jackets (one ugly white one that wouldn’t be out of place at a 70s party, and one black one), warmup gear, medal stand gear, opening ceremonies gear, cell phones (for use while they’re here), and the Olympic equivalent of class rings – they get 6 karat gold rings with the Olympic rings and their sport emblems. (About half the athletes upgrade to the white gold version, which means they have to fork over an extra $300 to $340, depending on their ring size.)

My favorite souvenirs of any event are the things you had to be there to have – things that you can’t buy (except maybe on eBay), like the messenger bag I got at the Cannes film festival in 2004. I wasn’t actually offered anything from the athletes’ schwag stash, but I wasn’t yearning for it, anyway – nearly all of it is already available at Target, with minor variations. I love Target – I wish we’d have a version of it in London – but, um, ick. Is nothing sacred?

Off to a press conference – aka how I can start figuring out how I’m going to tell one athlete from another when they’ve got on hats, glasses and ski gear…

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