A glimpse of village life

As I mentioned yesterday, although we are not living in the village due to the distance from our venue, on Sunday we were fortunate enough to explore the facilities. The enormity of it was overwhelming, an area of 66 hectares and home to 16,000 athletes and officials.

The main hub, or International zone, boasts a plethora of facilities and services. If you need a hair cut or your nails done, no worries just pop into the salon. Need a bank, a florist, dry cleaner, merchandise, post officer/courier centre, mobile phone, photo shop, internet café, movie theatre, or perhaps even a ticket office to book future travel? Again, no problem, it’s all right there and ours for the taking!

If you are a video analysis junkie, then you can get more than your fix at the sport tech centre in the Canadian house. They have a room that is dedicated to all incoming video footage from every venue at all times. The video streams are then filed, categorized, etc. and accessible for review. So let’s say I’m on the soccer team and I am playing Portugal tomorrow and I want to know more about the striker (#19). I could sit down at my handy computer, punch in #19, and every video clip with her in it would be at my fingertips! I dare not attempt to describe the other analytical & technological capabilities that can be accessed from this room as my lack of understanding in this area would not due it justice.

The final honorable mention is the dining hall. OH MY GOODNESS. Can I just say heaven on earth, and I’m not kidding! It’s the size of a football field; upon entrance you have to pause to decide which way to go. If you choose to go right you would enter the Mediterranean Cuisine section: all the freshest fruits and veggies you can imagine along with nicely grilled meats. If you choose to go left you’d end up in the Asian Cuisine section with your choice of local fare. Or if you simply walked straight ahead you’d enter the International Cuisine Section where you’d find the staples of any diet. In addition to the different ethnic cuisine zones the dessert section is centrally located and does not discriminate between nationalities…let’s face it dessert is universal! Finally if you have a craving for a Big Mac, McDonald’s has staked a claim at the far end of the building. Melanie has already claimed that she will be frequenting the joint to indulge in Mcflurries during the second week (when all is said and done), perhaps I will join her (a girls’ gotta dream)!!

All for now, Cheers, Tracy