Settling down in Vancouver

By Brianne McLaughlin

We got to Vancouver Sunday evening. We had just enough time to throw our things in our hotel room and go downstairs for dinner which was a quick sandwich and salad so we could run to processing!

This was the fun part. I started off in the room to order my Olympic ring design. It was a tough debate but I splurged and got the pricey upgrade. Hey, how many times is a kid going to go to the Olympics right? So I got the yellow gold with diamonds around it. It was either white or yellow gold and just for the sake of wanting a gold medal I’d rather have a yellow gold ring to match.

Next, my roomie and I snuck over to the clothing just to check it out and ended up scoring an early spot in line out of our time slot. The ladies working let us go in a half hour early so we got a jump on the rest of our teammates as far as sizes go. I couldn’t believe how much apparel was in this room. They gave me two big rolling bags and a huge duffle to fill them all. They started me in shoes to get fitted for opening and closing ceremonies. The shoes are “chunky”. When you have “large” feet the last thing you want on them is “chunky” shoes! The man assured me it wasn’t as bad as I thought but he may have smirked when he walked away … Anyway, the whole process took an hour or two and then they sent me over to alterations so a stranger could dress me in his own fashion so I look put together for ceremonies.

That actually turned out to be fun. As my family probably knows, I wouldn’t have known how to put that classy of an outfit together all on my own. He showed us how to wear our hair to look good with the outfit and everything! After a long day we finally got to go back to our room and jumped in bed.
The next morning we got up early for breakfast and had an ambassador meeting. They just told us pretty much how everything was going to work in the village, with media, in competition, and some other things. They showed us a few videos that were amazing of past Olympic highlights. You could see everyone on the team light up a little watching those moments with USA athletes winning their medals and standing on the podium. The ones that were amazing to me were the Paralympics. They showed a guy with one leg cruising down the mountain carving around the flags like nothing and winning the gold. That’s incredible to me, the courage you would have to have to be able to do something like that.

After the meeting we got on the bus and headed over to the Olympic village! I’ve been trying to imagine this place for months and what it would be like to get here. It looks pretty close to what I imagined but it feels so much more amazing than I thought. It’s absolutely gorgeous here, so nice out, and the view from my room is perfect. Straight out from my balcony is kind of the center of the village with an open area filled with lights and entertainment. The athlete “hang-out” building is to the left with huge Olympic rings on the top, and of course water to my right with the rink, city, and mountains behind it. Like I said, the perfect mix of everything to see. It’s pretty neat to walk around in the village and in the dining hall and see all of the different countries jackets. I’m always trying to read everyone’s clothes to see where they are from. We didn’t have much time until we were back on the bus on our way to practice.

Everyone was pretty excited to get on the ice after seeing everything. The rink looks awesome, it’s all done in blue and green and there’s a huge section in the seating for media during the games. We will play three games there then move over to the Canucks arena for the medal rounds.

Anyway, we headed back to the dining hall after practice (us girls have to eat!). The food is great and there is everything you can imagine including an all you can eat free McDonalds. Our trainer had us do a contrast cold to hot tub before we went to bed so a few of us went over to the training facility and we met some of the speedskaters, so now we have friends besides each other.

That was pretty much our first day in the village. This morning we woke up pretty early again for breakfast and a teammate and I took a lap around the rest of the village to check everything out that we hadn’t seen yet before we went to practice. We pretty much had the rest of the day to ourselves and it was a media day for any press to come in and get any pictures or interviews that they needed.

One of the Minnesota girls and I headed over to the athlete lounge which is amazing! It’s filled with different kinds of video games like rock band, arcade games, Wii, and a big wall with fake spray paint cans. The cans have a sensor at the nozzle so when you “spray” it your design shows up on the wall using lights. So if you've ever seen a smart board it’s kind of like one of those but huge.

We had some fun with that writing "USA HOCKEY" all over the wall. All of the countries have been putting their colors and sport all over it the last few days. We walked into that building while it was still light out and by the time we left it was dark. But don’t worry, every newspaper or news station in Japan, Canada, China, and a few others didn’t leave without catching me singing and playing my heart out on the drums to my own rendition of "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" on Rock Band.

Sorry mom and dad I got caught up in the moment. I can blame that on dad for blessing me with his singing voice.

I also played the game of my life in pool and got in about 5 balls in and they got that too. One of my only rules growing up was, "don’t embarrass the family," and I always tried my best. Luckily now maybe I’m old enough not to get grounded.

Anyway we grabbed some dinner and headed back to the rooms where were lounging on the couch watching a Wayne Gretzky special. So I’ll have to fill you in on the next few days soon!