On sunday we got up pretty early and drove down to Milan. The drive took about 4 hours (took small roads in switzerland instead of the main highway). It took longer but we saw some nice scenery along the way. When we got to Milan, everything was closed so we just chilled and took it easy. Italian roads were pretty confusing and the drivers were pretty crazy so it was an interesting experience. It took us about an hour to find our hostel so that sucked, but we eventually got there. The hostel was pretty cheap considering it was during olympics tim. We played a bunch of hacky-sack and went to sleep pretty early to prepare of the next day.
day 2
We drove to Torino on Monday and decided to leave really early. This proved to be a good idea since it took us an hour to find how to get outta Milan (too much pointless driving and not looking at a map).
We eventually got there and decided to walk around while we waited for Mike to come in by train. The first place we went to check out was the Sponsors village. It has some interactive displays and a skating rink and stuff like that. Was kinda neat.
We then went to the medal plaza before heading to the main station to pick up mike.
The drive to Oulx (where aerials was) was pretty expensive with a ton of tolebooths and stuff but it was easy to find the location. We had to cram 4 people in the back of our car (golf) but it saveed money ,so it was ok.
For the tickets, we all had standing tickets but Alisha got hers later and could only get a sitting ticket so it took some luck and work to all be together. Some one there was nice enough to give us a free standing ticket, so that was nice, we just had to sell the sitting ticket. We eventually sold it for 20 euros (lost 2o euros overall) but o well.
From Oulx we had to take a bus to the top of the mountain where the jumps were. It was pretty nice up there but a little foggy, and the weather was warm.
The Canadians were so good in beginning, ranked 1-4 and were placed 4-7 after the first jump. The top 12 qualify so we were looking pretty good. Unfortunately, our second jumps weren't as good and only 2 of the 4 made to the medal round. Over all it was pretty sweet to watch. Some of the wipeouts looks brutal but they all got up like nothing happened, so that's nice. Got all the canadian jumps on video and most of the spectular wipeouts :D
The moguls was also located here and looked pretty cool.
After skiing, we tried to make it back for womens medal ceremony for hockey, but we parked too far and just missed it. We took some pictures of the Olympic stadium, hockey arena and torch and turned back to drive home to Milan. WE go back to the hostel at around 2ish ready for another day.
The drive to Torino on tuesday was much better was it only took 5 minutes to get out of Milan (the wonders of a map). We decided to check out a few non-olympic stuff. The first was te shroud of turin (cloth jesus was buried in). We stumbled across the church it was in, but we couldn't see the real clothe, just pictures.
Afterwards we went to check out the official olympics store to buy some stuff, unfortuately they have absolutely nothing (no mascots or anything). Along the way we checked out the medal plaza again. We wanted tickets to see but we had to go home early so it wasn't possible. The concert for that day was Avril Lavigne.
We also stumbled across the Mole Antonelliana, so that was nice.
As we were walking around, we ran into the Omega stand and they had a bobsled, so we had to get a picture there.
Afterwards, we checked out sponsers village and found a cool 8 person foosball table. We meet the other Canadian here as well (Tommy, Lindsey, Vance, Bernard, Richard).
The game started at 4:30 so we got to the area at around 3.
I was all decked out with a jersey, flag cape, hair dye, and face paint. It was tons of fun.
We were seated balcony, behind the czech net twice. (saw all 3 cdn goals, first cz goal). The arena was small, only holding 11000 but lively.
In the first period, St Louis had a breakaway, went top corner but goalie got a piece. Richards got the first goal with a wrist shot past vokun (he sucked), assisted by iggi.
The neat thing about international hockey is that there are cheerleaders, interesting.
Our second goal was on the pp, with St. Louis banking it from about the goalie. I got a good video of the whole play.
Afterwards, we got a building wide "lets go canada, lets go" chant going so that was nice.
The 3rd goal was the result of some good work down low. The puck squirted out to Pronger who wired it home.
Kinda wished the score stayed like this from then on.
The Czech got 1 back in the 2nd on a 5 on 3 and 1 more in the 3rd but it was the Brodeur show as he had a number of spectacular saved to perserve the win. He had a sweet glove save that we got on video. In the 3rd he also had an amazing save where he reached back and stop it with his stick, good stuff.
Iggi had some a good chance down low when we charged to the net but couldn't lift it up, hope we gets 1 next time.
We hemmed them in for last minute and didn't let them get a chance to pull the goalie and the game ended 3-2.
Mccabe still seemed useless, taking a bunch of stupid penalities. He hasn't done anything offensively with no points and has the most penalities and I think the worst +/- on Canada. Shoulda brought Phaneuf. I also didn't like us sitting back on the lead but luckily it didn't bite us.
Afterwards, we got some pictures of the flame and headed to Canada house.
We got a bunch of free flags and hung out with some Canadian there but couldn't stay long since we had to drive back to Baden, so we took off.
On the way to the car, we saw the fireworks, so that was a nice touch.
On the way home we missed 1 exit and the new route set us back 3 hours. It sucked. We finally got to switzerland but our route home was snowed in so we had to backtrack, costing us another hour. The new route took much longer and total trip took around 10 hours instead of 4. We got home at 6am, just intime for a quick nap and to get to work at 9. Overall it was really sweet, I wished I coulda stayed there longer, but there's always 2010. GO CANADA GO!!
