Presents

These last few days the office is getting quieter and quieter. Most sports are done, so their respective desks have been closed. Athletics runs until the last day (tomorrow) with the Mens Marathon as the last event.

So, we're now mostly busy with transport of athletes and officials to Marathon and Panathinaiko and with the hand-out and intake of marathon drinking bottles. These are all provided by the organisation and need to be filled, labelled and handed in before the race at our desk.

And then there is the return of the pole vault sticks ("poles"). That is quite a messy task as these poles are piled up in one stack after transport back from the stadium. And yes, of course some NOC's simply forget to pick up their poles...

We are now holding our own Olympics. Yesterday we had the Olympic Chair Dance contest and today we'll probably come up with some other 'event'. And now that their done, several delegations pass by to say goodbye and leave some presents for the "good job done". Pins, keychains, caps and T-shirts. As we have quite a large group we end up holding a lottery to see who gets to keep it.

The organisation is also handing out presents for the volunteers. After this blog I'm off to the stadium to pick up my Volunteer Pin and Volunteer Swatch Watch. And then it's off to the Village for my next-to-last shift. My last shift is Monday and my flight back is Tuesday night at 03:00 hrs. Let's see if I'll be fit enough to show up at work on Wednesday morning 3 hours after arrival at Schiphol...

Cheers,

Roberto

PS: Just a cool picture to liven up the blog... ;-)