Just wanted to share my experience from the Olympics as I am watching the closing ceremonies and they keep thanking the volunteers and my mother said there's so many volunteers, each person only had to do so much.

I returned from Salt Lake City back on the 12th (late night) and my 5 days/4 nights there were just amazing. I went with the John Hancock group as my father owns an insurance/financial planning company and they are one of the companies he underwrites for and he was invited to go.

First, the volunteers for John Hancock specifically were amazing. We could've asked them to chew our food for us and they would've. The last night there me and 2 other teens (may I add a gorgeous girl) and most of the volunteers got a pool tournament going at 2 am in the morning (SLC time). They were just great.

The volunteers for the games themselves though were AMAZING. Between the John Hancock people and the Olympic volunteers, to get lost you'd have to be thick headed and not listen to them because between bullhorns and signs, they walked you through the entire thing.

Park City's Main Street was cool w/all the shops, the pin trading tent (got 2 pins from Dominik Hasek's cousin for those of you who know who he is!). Almost traded pins w/Matt Lauer in Park City but he REALLY didn't have anything I wanted. I got a cool snowman one where the hat moves up and down that somebody offered me $50 for (I rejected them b/c I really do like the pin)

There were some hikes to venues but once you got up the mountain the views were breathtaking.

I HIGHLY recommend the Snow Bird Resort's Cliff Lodge in Salt Lake (www.snowbird.com) if you are ever going there. The place is amazing, views are sweet.

These closing ceremonies are MUCH better then the opening ceremonies. Opening are much more formal, the closing are a party!

I figured I'd just pass on some of this info so the people who knew I went still aren't waiting for e-mails and the people that didn't know I went have learned about the experience.

I'm a fan of the winter olympics, not really summer but I will be going to Athens in 2004 and hopefully John Hancock invites us to a 3rd Olympics for Torino, Italy (would love to go to Italy... my entire family is Italian so).

899 days until Athens
1447 days until Torino
???? days until Beijing (who KNOWS if I'll be going to these)
Now let's award the 2010 games to Whistler (Vancouver), Canada!

:)

I went to the Mens Luge. It was awesome even though in a blink of an eye you could not see the luge. I took pictures and will scan them later for you guys. The luge is blurry in the picture because it's going hella fast. We got to see the athelets at the starting and finishing point. Even at those points they were still blurry because they were slowing down. There was over 16,000 people at the Olympic park that day with us. Overall it was great, I got a olympic pin for walking 1 mile. The first 2002 people got it for walking up the mountain. I am willing to sell it if anyone wants to buy it. But anyways, that was my experience.

Yea we went to the luge as well but left after 10 minutes because we couldn't see anything.

I'm glad we went as it gave me a new appreciation for the speed they are actually traveling at.

I also got that Gold Medal Mile pin :)

Buy any $60/6-pack of beer? I thought that was pretty outrageous that a lot of places there are making a years income in two weeks by raising prices so much.