1 p.m., Sestriere

Holy Cow! The drive from Turin to Sestriere might have been the most white-knuckle experience of my life. After you get to Penerolo, the next 35 miles or so is a two-lane road that winds up, over and around the Alps. There’s loads of traffic as people head up to the men’s giant slalom and the road is about as wide as a typical residential street in Tampa. Difference is, it’s covered with all this melting snow from yesterday, so it’s wet and slick. Every fifth vehicle is a massive tour bus and when one comes toward you from the opposite direction, you just cringe.

The road contains some insane hairpin turns and it seems like you’re always shifting up and down. And it seems you’re always in second or third gear, never in fourth or fifth. If you hit overdrive on this road, they should check that person’s head. One time, I had to come to a complete stop as a large bus swung wide and was barely able to stay on the road. The really crazy part is I saw people passing other cars on blind corners. To go the final 35 miles took more than an hour.

Once I got to Sestriere, I understood why Bode Miller is reportedly partying here. This little ski resort town is hopping like Park City did atthe Salt Lake Games in 2002. There’s a disco here called “Tabata” that Bode has

reportedly hung out in this week. I tend to take that with a big grain of salt but I did see a DJ’s name I recognized who is spinning tunes here this week, Joe Vanelli. He’s pretty big in Europe and I think I still have some of his mixes on tape or CD. Wish I could hang out here, too, if Vanelli is DJ’ing.

Over at the ski venue, almost 10,000 fans packed the stands and another couple thousand were along the final section of the course. Let me say this about people who ski down these mountains: I have a new-found respect for them. Television does not show how steep the mountain is or just how fast they a re coming down the mountain. They are amazing athletes to be able to get down to the bottom in a mater of a couple of minutes without breaking any bones. No wonder people go nuts at these events.

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11 a.m.

It’s time to head to Sestriere, about 65 miles away from Turin.

Bode Miller is skiing the giant slalom today and I want to see if he can win his first medal of the Games. That may not sound like very far to go, but more than half of it will be on a rather treacherous two-lane road that winds through the mountains. You know that Michael Cain movie “The Italian Job,” the one where they nearly go over the edge of the mountain in the final scene of the movie? That was filmed here in the Italian Alps. This will be my biggest driving challenge yet of the Olympics—besides trying to find a parking place in Turin.

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5 p.m., Central Turin

For the first time since I arrived in Turin, snow fell on the city – loads of it. I have never been a big city where there was snow and it really made it look beautiful. All the Renaissance and Baroque-style buildings in the central part of the city were covered with a thick layer of snow and as night fell, it sort of felt like a real Christmas. The snow came down so thick, I could draw “Tampa Tribune” on the windshield of my rental car. And then some German-speaking guy in his 20s came up and saw what I was doing. So he drew a picture of something most people would consider obscene on my hood. I was so surprised he did that, I could only laugh, and so did he. Don’t tell the Italian authorities, but I think he might have been drinking. That’s just a theory.

Being a Floridian, however, I didn’t realize there’s a down-side to all this white stuff. It’s not like Charley Brown’s Christmas, where you run around and catch snowflakes on your tongue with no repercussions. When snow gets on you, it melts. And that gets you wet. No wonder people were using umbrellas – duh. Of course, I brought everything in my suitcase except that. But no worries, tomorrow is suppose to be a sunny day here and that’s good news if you’re covering outdoor Olympic events.

Eventually, I’d like to make it down to the medals plaza at Piazaa Castello. It’s suposed to be a wild scene and tonight, thousands of people stood outside in the driving snow to see Shani Davis and Joey Cheek receive their speed skating gold and silver medals, respectively. It must have been a blast for the fans but all I could think when I saw it on television back at the MPC is “are those people nuts for standing out there for hours?” Maybe they’re a little crazy, but doing something a little off-beat is what a lot of Olympic fans come here for—to wear goofy hats, paint their faces and cheer for their country in freezing weather.

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5:30 a.m., Via Spotorno, south Turin

Here’s a vital travel tip: if you bring your home set of keys with you on a trip, make sure you leave them packed away in your suitcase. Otherwise, you might wind up like me early this morning in frosty Turin—locked out of your apartment and feeling like a total dork.

Here’s how it all happened: After trudging up to my apartment and dumping all my gear on the living room sofa, I realized I had left a guide book on Turin I needed downstairs in the car. So I grabbed my keys and headed for the door. As I pulled the door behind me closed, I opened my hand and looked at the set of keys I had taken—my home keys! Terror shot through me. I turned around and tried to use one of my home keys to get back in, as if one of those would work in a lock that takes a skeleton key. No chance.

There I stood, wearing no jacket, no identification, no cell phone—just a sweater, jeans and sneakers. I was locked out of the apartment with no way to call anyone for help. The company that rented me the flat had given me a 24-hour number to call in case of emergency, but it was inside the apartment. I had the number in an e-mail but without my ID, I wouldn’t be able to get inside the the Main Press Center to retrieve it. And even if I could call home, it was midnight back in Tampa and no one was at home or work.

With few options, I headed toward the MPC—minus a coat—hoping I could talk my way inside. I got to the security gate and the guard there was watching a movie on his portable DVD player. He let me in his little heated room and, speaking what little English he knew, figured out my emergency. So who did he call? Not a locksmith, not more security and not even the Ghost Busters. No, when you get locked out of your house in Italy, apparently it’s the fire department, known here as “Vigili del Fuoco,” who come to your rescue.

I gave the guard the address to my apartment and he told me to go wait there for the fire truck. He asked “are you freddo [cold]?” and I assured him that being from Florida, yea, I was freezing. So he gave me his coat to wear and wait for the fire department outside the door of my apartment. About 20 minutes later, an Italian fire truck comes down the street (the wrong way) and I wave them down.

Out pop four firemen in full fire gear—rubber boots, coasts and pants. All that was missing were hoses and axes. As usual, nobody speaks English but me. But I have slowly learned here that the passable French I know, along with the bits of Spanish I have learned living in Florida, is sometimes close to Italian. So up we go, four firemen and one goober American, four flights of stairs. I told them in English “I bet it’s never the first for you guys, is it?” Not a laugh or a grin from any of them. We finally get to my floor and the break-in is on.

One of the firemen pulls out what looks like a plastic x-ray sheet and he slips it between the door jam and lock. Another fireman holds a flashlight, another one starts slamming his shoulder in the door (I feared they’d wake the neighbors and then everyone would in the apartment block would be ticked at the tourist) and the fourth guy, who looked to be the top-ranking fireman, appeared to suggested different tactics on the unyielding door. Then he asked me in sign language if the doorknob turned when it closed. In similar hand gestures, I tried to tell him the door pulled closed. They all stopped to watch me, then went to work on it again.

After about 10 minutes of jimmying the lock with the plastic sheet and pounding the door, it sprung open. What a relief! One of the firemen headed back down to the truck and the remaining three went inside the apartment with me. I figured I’d just show some sort of ID and that would be the end of my ordeal. But I soon learned we had paperwork to do. “Documents?” the head fireman asks. I produce my Olympic ID, my passport, the rental agreement for the apartment and, for good measure, the international driver’s license I got at AAA. No one has yet to ask for that but I showed it to head fireman anyway.

About 10 minutes later, when they are assured that I really do belong in this place, I sign a piece of paper, they gather up their things and head for the door. Making the gesture for the international symbol of money—opening my wallet—I asked if I owed them anything. The head guy shakes his head no. I wanted to give them a Tampa Tribune pin, like the kind I had brought to hand out at the Athens Games, but I never got around to having some made before I left for Italy. So I dug into my souvenirs bag and found some Visa Turin Olympic pins I had bought last week at one of the official merchandise stores.

I had three of those pins and one pin from the Chicago Tribune group of newspapers that a friend had given me here. That pin just says “Tribune” on it and I handed it to the head fireman. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that wasn’t my Tribune on the pin because he looked so happy to make the connection between the name of the newspaper name on my ID and the name on the pin.

I thanked them profusely with a half dozen “Grazie Mille” (thank you very much) and off they went, probably to help some other locked-out tourist or stranded kitten. Then I grabbed the right keys, a coat and trudged back to the MPC to give the guard his jacket back. I tried to offer him a 10 Euro note as a sign of gratitude, but he refused to accept it. So I gave him a pin, too, a USA Olympic pin I had bought.

By now, it was nearly 7 in the morning and it was getting light outside. As I crawed into bed for a few hours sleep, I wondered what I would have done if that one person had decided not to help me.  Too scarey a thought before bed. I placed my home keys out of harm’s way in one of suitcases and switched off the light and thanked goodness for the kindness of a stranger.

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2 p.m., Museo della Sacra Sindone, Turin

Today, I finally went to see the one thing most people know Turin for – the Holy Shroud of Turin at the Museo della Sindone. Some say it was Jesus’ burial cloth. Others say it is a fake. Scientists keep contradicting one another and carbon dating has proved inconclusive.

Thing is, what I saw today was only a reproduction of the shrod. The real one is kept locked up out of sight at the Cappella della Sacra Sindone inside the Duomo di San Giovanni. That’s because there were fears light and air were rapidly deteriorating the fabric. The next scheduled public viewing of the real shroud isn’t until 2025. With nearly a million visitors here for the Olympics, one would think they might make an exception and have a special viewing. But that’s not the case and I likely will never see the real thing.

Not to worry. The chapel the copy is housed in is a thing of beauty and to be able to sit and look at the magnificent fresco painted on the ceiling is enough for me.

While I was coming out, I met three Americans heading in for a look at the copy of the shroud—Victoria Haley, 24, of Boston, Jessica Archibald, 32, from Hillsborough, Calif., and Lara Rubin, 38, from New York City. Jessica was the first one I noticed because she was wearing this Martian-style wiggly springs on her head with USA stars and stripes. I thought it was odd headgear for a visit to the shroud, even if it is only a copy. I think she forgot she was wearing them. I can only imagine what the church sister thought as she came in wearing those things.

Victoria told me she had been to Italy several times before because she heads up groups that tour Italy, as well as other parts of Europe. They said they had to do something “cultural” today and this was it. Then they were headed to speed skating for something not so cultural, a sport that’s essentially roller derby on ice.

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12:30 p.m., south Turin

One of the big bonuses about the apartment I have rented here in Turin—besides its proximity to the Main Press Center—is the fact an Indian restaurant is right next door. I mean righyt next door. I couldn’t believe my luck. Indian food is probably my favorite ethnic food, dating back to all those summers going to England. I kept checking my guide books for Indian restaurants and here I get one within crawling distance of my front door. Well, I told you I would find time to eat at this place and I did. And I was not disappointed!

Call me crazy. I’m in Italy eating Indian food. But you can only eat so much pasta and pizza. I need a chance. And from looks of all the Italians inside here, the locals feel the same way.

First course, samosa (friend pockets of vegetables) and naan (bread). Next up papadans (crispy lentil chips). Then a lovely curry with peas, potatoes and caluliflower. And of course, basmati race. Dude, that was awesome. Now I can stand more pasta for another week.

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2 p.m., Bardonecchia

Check out these two dudes at the finals of women’s snowboard cross. They were there for the ladies, stylin in their Sunday best, to help out with the awards ceremony.

I thought this was a very democratic move on the part of the snowboard organizers. If they had pretty Italian girls to hand out flowers for the men’s winners of the halfpipe and snowboard cross, they should have some handsome, sharp-dressed men for the women at their events. Good thing for these guys it was relatively warm in the mountains today—just like it was a few days ago when I was here. Yes, it snowed a bit, but you could have gotten away with a thick sweater and jeans when the sun was out. Once again, I was dressed to take on Everest but thanks to a little blog advice from Rod in “Upper Brandon,” I did a better job of layering today and was able to shed a few to get more comfortable out there (thanks Rod!)

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Guess what I saw in the mountains today? There was this white stuff falling out of the sky. The locals call it “neve,” which I learned means something called “snow.” As a native Floridian, I’m not sure exactly what that is but it was white and as it fell, it didn’t come straight down like rain. It drifted down slowly. Sometimes, when the wind blew hard, it went nearly sideways.

I haven’t seen this stuff since 2002 in Salt Lake. I can remember my senior year of high school in St. Petersburg when this stuff came down, too. I think that was 1977 but it melted as it hit the ground and we went back inside to listen to KC & The Sunshine Band.

Down at the venue in the village of Melezet, I watched women’s snowboard cross at the same site as snowboard halfpipe. The snowboard cross course runs right next to the halfpipe and after watching it, it’s my new favorite Olympic sport, right behind the halfpipe.

Snowboard cross is like NASCAR on snow because they run four snowboarders at a time down this winding course with jumps and anything can happen. Usually, at least one rider goes down but usually, the crashes involve two of more boards getting tangled up with each other. Sometimes, there’s a four-board pile-up.

The snowboard cross fans were just like the halfpipe crowd: into having a great time. And so are the riders. Like other snowboarders, those in snowboard cross are pretty laid-back with assorted words like “stoked” and “gnarly” and “totally” thrown into their speech. It’s a lot like the surfing crowd, only it’s on this white stuff, not water. Either way, it’s suh-weet, dude.

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2 p.m., Olympic Athletes’ Village

If you get a chance to be an Olympic athlete and stay in the Athletes Village, I suggest you jump at the opportunity—unless you’re U.S. skier Bode Miller. In that case, you stay in your RV and have your buddy cook you meals and drive you around ski resorts. Actually, that sounds pretty cool, too.

I’m not sure if Bode knows what he’s missing. OK, the beds are probably what he would call a “Euro bed,” meaning a small, single bed with a pillow as thin as a piece of toast and some dude from a place they tend not to use deodorant snoring next to you. But everything else here seems pretty nice. There’s lots of free everything: food, Internet access, barber shops and, of course, security guards.

The one thing they can’t walk into and stroll out of without opening their wallet is the Olympic merchandise store, where they’re charging 22.50 Euro for a T-shirt. That’s about $25 and I say no T-shirt is worth that much. But I shelled out several hundred Euro anyway to make sure all my homies in Tampa get a little sumfin’ from Bill in Turin. The hard part will be figuring out how to get this all back to Tampa. My suitcases were stuffed coming over, how and I gonna get 10 coffee mugs and a dozen T-shirts? Wait, I think I have it. I’ll leave some “souvenirs” behind to people in Turin, like some old socks and pizza-stained t-shirts. 

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Noon, the Lingotto, south Turin

I’ve noticed a disturbing trend in Europe over the past 10 years or so: there’s more and more malls popping up. Now I have nothing against malls in the United States, but in Europe? This is where things are suppose to be classical and elegant, with open-air shopping in courtyards and squares. Time was in Europe that you would go to one shop for one item, walk 10 blocks to another for something else and then a mile or so to another shop for something else. All that walking is why you don’t see too many overweight people in Europe. They’re always walking somewhere.

But people are people and everyone loves conveniences. And that’s what malls do, plus a food court. The Lingotto is part of the old Fiat factory and if you didn’t know better, you might think you were at Tampa’s Westshore Mall. In fact, the Lingotto has a “Teriyaki Experience” in its food court. Isn’t there one of those at Westshore Mall, or is it International Plaza? What’s next? An Evos in both places?

After lunch in a quiet little sit-down cafeteria, I headed down the mall toward the Main Press Center. But on my way, I saw this McDonald’s promotion for indoor snowboarding. It really wasn’t a snowboard or even fake snow. It was just this board on top of this motor. They were getting passers-by to jump on this thing and try to ride it, like snowboard meets mechanical bull. The operator had a little joy stick they could control the pitch and speed of the board’s rotation. I decided to hop on for a gnarly ride, dude, and pretend I’m Shaun White or Seth Wescott.

I have to admit that being 6-2 is a disadvantage to snowboarding. You’re center of gravity is too high. At least, that’s my excuse for falling off so easily. Fortunately, there is an inflated pit to fall into. Otherwise, I’d be down at the MPC infirmiry right now. 

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11 a.m., Via Genova, south Turin

Believe it or not, I’ve gone through a couple of tanks of gas driving between Turin, the Alps and Penerolo. This Nissan is so small, it’s gotta get 50 miles per gallon. And when you see the price of gas over here, you see why everyone drives these tiny circus cars and not Lincoln Navigators, Hummers or Cadillac Escalades Besides the fact those monsters couldn’t fit down most Italian streets, it would cost a small fortune to fill them with gas over here. It’s a little confusing in Italy because the price of gas, of course, is in Euros. And the price is for one liter, not one gallons. The price per liter here is about 1.30 Euro, or a little more than $1.50. So do the math, folks. That’s about $6 per gallon! To fill up my little sewing machine on boat trailer wheels, it cost 45 Euro, or about 53 bucks—for less than 10 gallons of gas! So next time you complain about gas being $2.50 a gallon, think about the poor Europeans.

And next time you complain about some tourist not knowing how to pump their gas, think about what it would be like to see gas pump instructions in a foreign language. You’d be confused, too, if you were over here. Heck, I’m fairly certain there’s no two U.S. gas stations where the way to pay and pump your gas is the same—even with the same brands of gas. Fortunately, in Italy, a lot of stations still have attendants to help dimwitted tourists like me. At this Shell station, Gianni and Luca here helped me out and were about the most friendly people I’ve met here and Gianni even spoke some English. At these prices, I guess he does need to explain to Americans what the deal is with these Euro gas prices. Is there rocket fuel in it?

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12:15 a.m., outside NBC’s Turin headquaters

OK, so I’m walking off the little stage just now where I was doing my live shot for WFLA back to Tampa. It’s outside this big, gray, Soviet-era building overlooking about the only scenery there is available in this part of Turin, a couple of trees in a nearby park. And on the stage next to me, the branch of a tree behind it has what appears to be fake snow. You know the kind of snow I’m talking about. It was like the kind that used to come in a can in the 1970s and you’d spray the corners of the windows of your Florida home to make it seem something like a real Christmas. When I was a kid, we had neighbors who’d do that and never clean the window the rest of the year.

Anyway, from what I can tell, they had that tree branch covered in snow in order to make their TV shot look more like some winter wonderland. I could be wrong, buy why would this be the only tree with the only branch in Turin with snow on it. You see, since I got here last week, I have yet to see snow fall. And the only stuff on the ground is the leftover snow from a couple of weeks ago, which now is mostly just pushed up in corners of buildings. Hey, I’m cool with the relatively warmer-than-expected weather here. I’m from Florida. But I sorta want to see some snow fall before I leave because 1) I never see the stuff and 2) Who knows if I’ll be going to the Winter Olympics ever again? 

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1 p.m., McDonald’s, Main Press Center

As usual, I’m having to get lunch at the McDonald’s in the Main Press Center. I was tempted to go to the Indian restaurant near my apartment and I promise, I will eat there before the Games are over. But the clock’s always ticking and there’s always about 17 different Olympic events going on here. With all that action, a sit-down meal seems like such a needless luxury here.

So into Mick D’s. They’ve been a regular at the MPC since the Athens Olympics. They invite some of their friendliest employees from all over the world to come work at this one restaurant during the Games. But the majority of servers seem to be Italians. And like most of the Italians I’ve met here, their command of English is about as good as my Italian.

This afternoon, I was greeted at the McDonald’s by Anna Acri and Rosalinda Lettieri, who said “Good morning!” when it was clearly in the middle of the afternoon. And then they said something to Italian to each other. I told them it’s “Good afternoon” and they said for them, it’s always “Good morning.” I wasn’t sure what they meant by that until I looked in my Italian phrase book. According to this book, when an Italian says “Buongiorno,” it can mean morning or afternoon. That sort of explains why they said “good morning” in the afternoon. They must have figured it’s the same with English. Either that, or they are so tired from working in a windowless place in the MPC (like my work area), they don’t know whether it’s day or night.

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4:15 p.m., Pinerolo

Here’s my new second-favorite sport of the Winter Games: curling. And like my favorite, snowboarding, what I like most about it are the unpretentious athletes and fans. For the USA vs. New Zealand match today, I sat with family and friends of the four U.S. players, Pete Fenson, Shawn Rojeski, Joe Polo and John Shuster. Also in the stands was Lynn Baird, the wife of alternate Scott Baird, who at 54 is the oldest person competing in these games. Lynn, was easy to spot. She was the one wearing a hat shaped like a curling stone, which appeared to weigh slightly less than the maximum-allowed stone weight of 44 pounds. She’s also the U.S. team’s unofficial historian and a wealth of knowledge about the sport.

How cool is this? Fenson owns a couple of pizza parlors back in and around his hometown of Bemidji, Minn. In fact, all of the U.S. curlers are pretty regular guys with normal lives and no big sponsors or agents. They just love to curl and now they get to do it in the Olympics. I think we should have a little more democracy like this in the Olympics with more regular Joes and Janes. Hey, why not bowling? Or darts?

What really surprised me about the sport was how fit most of these guys seemed to be, especially the U.S. team, which was sporting these form-fitting lycra shirts. I was half-expecting some pudgy folks out there but once I saw how active they are throwing that stone and then sweeping the ice like crazy, you see how they can burn some calories over after a few hours of playing this game. Fenson said he thought about trying to make the Olympics in a summer sport. He loves to cycle in the summers and looks as fit as Lance. But he says he’s 37, has two young boys and a business to run.  Besides, he’s made the Olympics in the winter version and got to be in an opening ceremonies. What else could you want?

Fenson’s wife, Roxanne was here with their two boys, Alex, 11, and Graem, 6. They and the U.S. fans had some of the best cheers I’ve heard since mylast soccer game in England. This was sung to “Take Me out to the Ball Game”:

“Take me out to Torino,
Take me out to the Games,
We love the team from the USA
We know that they can go all the way,
So it’s root, root, root for the USA,
If they don’t win it’s a shame,
Let’s go John, Joe, Shawn and Pete,
Let’s go USA!”

They also had one sung to the tune of “Jeepers, creepers, where’d you get those peepers,” where they replaced “peepers with “sweepers.”

Pretty catchy, huh? 

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2 p.m., Curling, Pinerolo

About an hour outside of Torino is a little town called Pinerolo. It’s home to the curling competition and, like a lot of places around here, including Turin, it’s a bit on the grey side.

Besides the sometimes gloomly look to this part of Italy, there’s one thing the people of the Piemonte region seem to share: no one seems to speak much English. Of course, I don’t help much by speaking almost zero Italian. But I’m not hosting the Olympics, either. And the two official languages of the Olympics are French and English. I mean, they’ve known they were going to be the host of this thing for what, 6-7 years now? You’d think organizers might have asked the volunteers and police to learn a few words of English like “Hello” or “You’re Welcome” or “Did the Bucs hire a new secondary coach yet?” What would’ve really helped is if they had learn this one phrase when being asked directions: “Sorry, I don’t speak English.” Instead, when you do ask directions, they respond in Italian, knowing full well you don’t speak Italian.

I got a little turned around coming to curling and asked directions to a Olympics volunteer at a parking lot near the venue. He asked if I spoke German or French. I said I spoke some French and he told me “follow that road, turn left and then right” in French. It was the first time I understood anyone’s directions since I got here, but we both had to speak a different language to understand each other.

Then is just my anecdotal observation, but the Greeks at the 2004 Olympics seemed to speak a lot more English than the Italian hosts of 2006. And the Greeks seemed more excited about being hosts. That’s just my gut feeling after a week here. I could be wrong, but I got a feeling I’m right. Problem is, it’s hard to find out for sure when so few people here speak English. 

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