Things are a bit chaotic with this Rio trip – but bring it on. No roster change – instead – invitation for a  4 hour face to face training in the tennis arena. Please show up – oh, did I forget to mention it is in Portuguese? Yep, who doesn’t speak a word of Portuguese – moi!

No worries, plenty of sessions to pick from,right? Especially when the instructions were to come 3 days before Paralympics. Egh, 3 sessions – all in August. Nothing else. Customer service response is “we don’t see any need so far for additional sessions”. OK then. At this point, I am wondering what in the world am I going to be doing there – if anything. I may end up working from the IBM Rio office or just be a full time spectator ! Stay tuned.

I have however been doing tons of research on the blogs of the #Rio2016 Olympic volunteers who are there now. Some of them describe their experience vividly, so now I know that:

• picking up your uniform and accreditation is standing in long hot queue in Gambeo district, total opposite of the Olympic park
• The transportation works – the new metro line especially
• The other volunteers are very helpful
• The security lines to venues are super long and you can’t take anything inside

I have also been working on my spectator schedule 🙂 So far have tickets for the opening ceremony on September 7th with Lavinia and her family. Super excited to be at the Maracana stadium and see some real show!