9 days to go to the Olympic Winter Games!

So sorry for neglecting my English blog, but the last few weeks have been a rollercoaster for me. Long story very short, work has been totally crazy after we have returned from the new years break and because recruiting is still in process I worked between 50 to 70 hours a week. VANOC is now on Operational Time and that means working 6 days a week from 7am to 7pm (there's supposed to be a shift system to avoid people working more than 10 hours a day, but it didn't really work for me, I still worked 12 hours to get everything done). Anyway, three days ago I had the pleasure of looking at the MOC, VANOC's Operations Centre with representatives from each function in and ouside of VANOC. The MOC responds to everything happening in regards to the Games and whenever there's a crisis or something that needs to be dealt with (competition delays or postponements, snow issues, traffic problems etc) the MOC is reacting accordingly. There's also the TOC, the Technical Operations Centre with I don't know how many computers monitoring EVERYTHING. Also the Helpdesks, Timing and Scoring for the competitions and computer geeks are located there.

Last Saturday I had my job specific training at the Pacific Coliseum, where we had the chance to practice with X-Ray machines, wands and mags and get the teams to work together for the first time as so far every function of the team has had their own trainings. This time, Screeners, X-Ray Operators and Supervisors for the first time worked and practised together what they have learned before in their training sessions. From my point of view it was far from perfect, but there is heaps of time to practise during quiter hours at work and to get up to speed with the whole process.

Today I attended my venue familiarization at BC Place / Canada Hockey Place, which is my assignment for the Games. An impressive venue and I am quite excited about being stationed here. To give you a quick overview about the upcoming events, Canada Hockey Place will host all Men Hockey Matches and all Hockey Medal Matches (Men and Women). BC Place is the venue for the opening and closing ceremony for the Olympics and the opening ceremony for the Paralympics, also all victory ceremonies at the end of the competition days. A busy place not only with all the athletes, spectators and media but also the 9500 people strong workforce team including 950 GSS security people (that's me) and 500 police officers from all around Canada.

Compared to Whistler, Vancouver will be reasonable quite during the Paralympics as most of the competitions will take place in Whistler and only the sledge hockey will be hosted in Vancouver. For me that means that I won't be needed for the Paralympics. First of course I was disappointed, had I counted with more shifts to work to earn more money, but hey, that's life. You should always have a back up plan and that fell into place quickly. In no time had I registered to volunteer for the Paralympics in Whistler, had assigned myself a job in the Athletes Village and organized a bed to stay as well - one of the many bonuses of working for VANOC. I am particularly excited about this opportunity for many different reasons; the chance to finally see Whistler, to stay there for more than just a few days/nights and being able to work alongside many of my fantastic VANOC colleagues; can't wait for this awesome experience!

And more news to come. After having worked so hard over the last few months I think I deserve a break and boost of motivation to start my new job in April (it's all wrapped up and papers signed) so I will go on a road trip with two good friends from work. We are thinking of hiring a car, driving to Calgary, Banff and Jasper National Parks, back to Vancouver in 2 weeks. I am so looking forward to seeing the Canadian Rockies and I guess my camera will be happy too, to be taken out of the closet and being used again!

Alright, that's it for now, enough news and information to take in. I try to give as many updates during the Olympics as possible but I have no idea how busy or tired I will be. But let's start it off with loads of good intentions!

Let the Games begin!!!
Katja :))

merry x-mas and a happy new year!

"Remember, if Christmas isn't found in your heart, you won't find it under a tree." (Charlotte Carpenter)

To all my lovely friends out there; I wish you a merry x-mas and hope you are having a wonderful time with your family and/or friends. For the new year I hope you get the chance to make most of your dreams come true, find time to make new friends, to pursue new goals, find time for yourself and your favourite past time activities and maybe some time to travel and see different places.

I am truly blessed to have all of you as my friends and I hope I can arrange to see most of yous in 2010 in one way or the other!

Enjoy yourselves and Take Care!

Katja

working fulltime!

There is finally good news; being patient paid off and I was offered fulltime employment by adecco, still working for VANOC, doing exactly the same thing that I have done over the last few weeks part time. I am working in the Volunteer Recruitment Centre, doing my outmost hiring Volunteers for the Olympic and Paralympic Games in 2010.

Against the background of the Winter Games many people came to Vancouver in the hope of finding work, as it is expected that thousands of people will be needed for the preparation and realisation of the Games. While this is true for the amount of people needed, job seekers had to realize quickly most of the Olympic workforce is made up of volunteers. People passionate about the Winter Games, about helping out at a big scale event like the Olympics, people who want to represent Canada, being part of a once-in-a-lifetime-opportunity, people who want to meet people from all over the world and quite a few hockey enthusiasts who signed up just to get close to their hockey team! VANOC (who organizes the Olympic and Paralympic Games) is hoping to sign up 25,000 volunteers to make both Games happen and a full success for British Columbia and Canada.

If you happen to have applied to volunteer during the Games, chances are high we'll be contacting you soon (or have already done so recently) as we are dealing with applicants from all over the world. Just today I was talking to people in Germany, the UK, Australia und New Zealand.

I must say I have been more than lucky to have scored a paid job during Olympics time and to be working in the security sector, to make the Games safe for everyone. Just now many employers have realized they need more staff for Games time, as many coffee shops, bars and restaurants are now hiring. So, Vancouver needs Baristas........

Last week I have witnessed first hand a film shoot in downtown Vancouver. What made it so interesting was the fact they were obviously shooting a scene in Germany's Frankfurt as they had replaced all the licence plates with German plates and had even made the effort to change the decals of an urban bus to make it look German (well, the destination sign in the front did it all, by saying: Kaiserstraße). They were shooting parts of a car-race-scene but it took them to long to wind up again the camera to its position up on the roof of a tower building and so I left the scene. Still an interesting experience and I hope I'll see more of it while I am in town!

stocking up on tissues, vitamines and panadol

The Vancouver weather is really going to get me. In fact, it already got me - right yesterday. Having spent just another day in the rain I came home with a running nose and head ache which over night developed into a flu and all that comes with it: sinus and nose blocked, aches everywhere and feeling tired all day.

I finally managed to score a temporary job with adecco, signing me up for a job with VANOC, which today I had to cancel as it isn't advisable to go to work being sick. Right now there's kind of a panic about H1N1 here in British Columbia so nobody wants to have sick employers turning up at work. So I didn't and stayed in bed.

As mentioned earlier, weather is a bitch and out of 7 days it's raining 6. Whenever I get the chance to leave the house with my camera, I definitely do to take some shots and to avoid going insane. I also at least once a week meet up with a few Germans for coffee, breakfast or a drink and a bit of fun.

Ah and the good news is, I passed my BST exam with 85% what officially makes me a security worker now! Boo-ha!

hitting the books again

I know it's been a bit silent around here lately but there is not much to write about. For the last few days I have been attending a BST (Basic Security Training) course in order to obtain a security licence. Interesting on the one hand for the opportunity to increase my English vocabulary and get to know some security related stuff but boring on the other hand as we've been talking about the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the difference between criminal and civil law, all sorts of offences and terms like actus reus and mens rea, when to apply force and how much of it; when the use of deadly force is allowed and how to respond to offenders in the right way so the use of force isn't necessary at all.

As I said, it's all quite interesting to a certain extend but after speaking about the whole issue for more than 16 hours (4 training sessions with each lasting 4 hours) I feel like I need to steady myself so not to fall asleep. Doesn't help much having the lessons in the evening and naturally being tired. Anyway, a few more lessons to attend and an exam this friday I need to sit and pass to get the security licence without I wouldn't be allowed to work as a supervisor at the Olympic Games. I am not too worried about the test as it will be a multiple choice test but the biggest challenge so far has been the officialese I must get used to. But I'll manage.

And once I've secured the licence there's a different world opening up to me with job opportunities like bouncer for a night club, security guard or private investigator. I heard you laughing! But you may have noticed I am not taking the whole thing too serious myself so who knows what happens next. Just had a thought though.... when's the Rugby World Cup in New Zealand, 2011? I should send my application...

greetings from Vancouver!

short trip to Vancouver Island

Three cities, a total driving distance of 550 kms and two ferry rides each close to two hours and all that in not more than 4 days? You call that ambitious? Yes, that’s me!

My friend Amy, that I’ve met during my travels in New Zealand, lives and studies in Nanaimo and that made a visit to Vancouver Island (where Nanaimo is located) a must. We only had the Saturday as she had to work on Sunday and I made my way to Vancouver Island the conventional way, on board a BC Ferry, leaving Vancouver from Horsehoe Bay, approx. one hour north of Vancouver. The ferry ride only takes about one hour and forty minutes and you can either enjoy the views of the main land mountains, the declining skyline of Vancouver and lots of water or you line up at the buffet for an intake of calories.

After Amy had picked me up at the ferry terminal we dropped off my backpack and picked up her boyfriend Neil and sightseeing in Nanaimo started. It was more a photo session as Neil and I are both passionate photographers and Amy patiently followed the whole procedure. I can now claim I’ve seen Nanaimo’s beautiful waterfront with various little fishing boats, many inukshuk built of stones found nearby and Lantzville Beach that was particularly beautiful at sunset as all the taken pictures proof.

Next day Amy dropped me off at the Greyhound bus depot where I caught the bus to Tofino situated at Vancouver Island’s west coast that strongly reminded me of New Zealand’s south island and especially the Milford Road that I’d taken so many times to get to Milford Sound. High mountains covered my thick forest and beautiful lakes alongside the curvy and steep road, in need of some maintenance every now and then. Tofino is a laid back surfer’s paradise township at the end of the road. Whoever makes it here came for a reason: It might be the tranquillity of the many beaches, hiking or watching wildlife (whales, bears, birds).

Next morning I was back on the road with Greyhound. To make the whole trip a bit faster I changed buses in Port Alberni and boarded an Express Bus to Victoria, the provincial capital of British Columbia what saved me more than an hour. When I had arrived in Victoria I straight away set off to explore the city and to fill the memory card in my camera. Golden hour at Victoria’s picturesque Waterfront proved successful and I left with quite a few good shots.

Knowing the HI standards I was quite disappointed of the HI hostel in Victoria and I was wondering about two big dorms connected with each other (one room was a walk through), hardly any power points (where to plug in your laptop, camera chargers etc?) and just one light for the whole room making it a challenge late in the evening when everybody is going to bed at different times. Definitely not my port of call next time I’ll be in Victoria!
Early Tuesday morning I took the bus to Swartz Bay where the ferry would leave to go back to Vancouver. This time it would be going to Tsawwassen, what is about one hour south of Vancouver. Due to some problems with other ferries, my vessel had been delayed what made us miss the bus back into the city by approx. 15 minutes and a wait of another hour for the next bus. Back in Vancouver I caught up with Angela, my new flatmate, for a key hand over and I had officially moved in to my new place!

some good news

There’s some good news I need to tell you about. First I’ll be moving into a flat, finally leaving hostel life behind. My intention was not to look for a flat before I had found a job (just to be sure it will be a job in Vancouver and not somewhere else) but one particularly morning with smashing doors and chatty roommates at 7am I made a decision that I had to get out of there, for my own peace of mind. I’ve checked the ads online, found one that interested me and rang up; two hours later I had inspected the flat and in the evening I received the call that I can move in. The location is great and exactly where I had hoped to live – near Stanley Park and just 2 minutes away from the beach English Bay, rent is a bargain and the girl I’ll be sharing with is Mexican and seems to be very nice. That will also be good for my Spanish as now I have somebody to talk to and practise what I’ve learned! I am still on Vancouver Island but as soon as I’m back I’ll be moving and reunite with my suitcase that has already spent a few nights there by itself.

There’s more news to come. I’ll be part of the Olympics 2010! Not as a competitor (Christ no!) but responsible for the security checks at entrance gates. There’ll be screeners checking tickets and X-Ray Operators checking baggage for dangerous items and there’ll also be Supervisors to make sure they do a good job and that will be me. Only for the duration of the Olympics though but still for almost 3 months with a fantastic pay and also paid training that will commence for myself in a few days. I am looking forward the challenge this new position presents, to working with all these people of different nationalities, and also the one in a lifetime opportunity of being part of such a worldwide event. Having scored that job I feel much better about the current job situation that is everything but easy not only in Vancouver but all over the country. I think finding a job that is flexible with hours is now my first priority and I don’t care if it will be a shop assistant selling jeans or newspapers (although I’d prefer the newspapers as I am not very much interested in fashion). I may get a response from one or the other hotel that I’ve applied with later in a few months closer to the Olympics but I am not sure if I can squeeze them into the schedule then.