The Olympics... and beyond

I am sitting in the gate area at Milan-Malpensa Airport awaiting my gate assignment for my flight from Milan to Paris, which will hopefully lead me home today. Thought it would be a good time to say thank you to Italy. Thank you for finding the perfect hotel for me in the mountains. It was a bit out of the way, but everything else about it was great. The small local hotel was the perfect counterpoint to the large chain hotels you often find yourself in. With gracious and kind hosts, fellow guests who were interesting and varied (as best I could tell I was the only US guest there) and absolutely spectacular scenery. It allowed me to take it easy when I needed to and work when I needed to. Thank you to my hotel in Milan for the absolutely massive breakfast buffet choices. There was absolutely no shortage of food every morning and it allowed me to "stock up" for the day and not get hungry early on. From eggs, bacon and mini pancakes to croissants, fruit and everything in between...

Today is the final day for me here in Italy. My flight to Paris leaves Milan tomorrow morning and weather permitting, on to Boston from there. I spent today wandering around Milan for a bit. I took the subway to Milano Centrale train station and then took another train to Piazza Duomo for one final time then walked around, had some lunch and did some work in the media center, which is slowly being converted back into the convention center. From there, it was back to the hotel where I did some more writing and got things situated for tomorrow. One of the big things I did was book an Uber for tomorrow morning so that getting from the hotel to Milano Centrale will not be a difficult process. Otherwise, the process was going to involve me dragging my suitcases to one of the local train stations and onto a subway to get to Milano Centrale. That was not something I was looking forward to. But a little more on last night's Closing Ceremony. I wrote last night's blog post on the train ...

What a day. I am writing this on the train from Verona back to Milan after the Closing Ceremony of the Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics, my sixth Olympics, my fourth Winter Olympics and my fourth Closing Ceremony. It was no doubt an exciting day, as I am sure it was for many people in America, waking up to watch some hockey over the morning coffee. Even my brother, who doesn't watch TV, got a free trial of DirecTV so that he could watch the game out in Wyoming. I think this was something that captivated the entire country, much like the women did earlier in the week.  And that turned out to be one heck of a battle, as you should have when you're battling for the gold medal at the Winter Olympics. Team USA pulling out the overtime win to earn their first men's hockey gold medal since the Miracle on Ice team of the 1980 Lake Placid Olympics was a fitting ending. But man, I did not need that overtime. Earlier in the day I stopped at the Milano-Centrale train station to make sure ...

My times in the mountains of Italy is officially over. As I write this I am sitting high above the ice of the Santagiulia Ice Hockey Arena in Milan, just a few minutes from my hotel. It was a bit of a chore to get here today, but it went much smoother than the trip to the mountains less than two weeks ago, The trip back was easier because I had an idea of what it entailed. I knew which bus I needed to get on, when I needed to get on it, where the games connection desk was in the Venice train station so I could leave my luggage while I got something to eat before the train came, where the train let off in Milano Centrale Station and how to get to the train to my hotel. All those things are things I did not know when I went the other way, so today went much smoother on my end. I caught the local bus from Santa Maddalena at 7:45 a.m. and then caught the bus to Venice in the Monguelfo, the village at the bottom of the valley where my hotel was, at about 8:40 a.m. We made it to the Venice t...

Today marked my final day in the mountains of Italy. Tomorrow morning I get on the bus, then another bus, then a train to get back to Milan for the final few days of my Olympic journey. The mountains have been both amazing and amazingly frustrating. First and foremost, this area has to be the most beautiful place I have ever been. With the previous three Winter Olympics that I have been a part of, I never really felt like it was winter, even though the mountains outside Sochi, PyeongChang and Beijing provided snow. There is no question that there is snow here, particularly at the venues, which are some of the most historic places in World Cup action, as biathlon in Antholz and alpine in Cortina are regular occurrences.  But as for the amazingly frustrating, I am obviously referring to the transportation and the long distances between venues. Riding five hours on a bus for a cross-country race is a bit much, but so is riding two hours to cover an alpine race or a curling match. But ...

I have been to four Winter Olympics and today may have been the most winter weather I have seen in all that time. And that made the already unreliable mountain transportation even more difficult to predict and deal with and made for one heck of a weird (and wet) day. It was snowing when I woke up this morning and I debated about whether I wanted to head to Cortina or not. We got a notice on the transportation app that some buses may be running late in the Cortina area due to the snow. It wasn't snowing too badly, so I boarded the local bus and headed into the village at the end of the valley, where I got on the TC (for credentialed folks) bus to Cortina. The ride was fine, albeit a little slower than usual, as the snow continued to come down harder and harder.  By the time I got to Cortina it was snowing really hard and I walked from the bus stop to the venue media center between the curling center and the sliding center where I wanted to do a little writing and then catch a little...