Greetings and salutations from event planning HELL...

This most likely be my last email for a while...things are getting quite busy, and my free time (actually it's not free, I just have time to pee and than back to work) is becoming more and more limited. Tonight when faced with the choice to go to dinner or back to my room to rest - I went to my room just be away from people for an hour and decompress. My dinner last night was Oreo's, cashews, dried soybeans, and tea.

The learning is still unbelievable...however I take something back. When I first came here I thought this company was "different"...but they're not - they're just like the rest of us...chasing it - not always having all the answers, and just "winging it". They use phrases such as "all scheduled no matter how well planned are subject to change". Bottom line all day long you fitting square pegs into round holes....my solution, get a bigger hammer!

To my MDM family, I almost died yesterday when one of the directors stood up and gave the "swim like duck speech". I damn near fell out of my chair. I started to laugh and thought oh geeze, here we go.........paddel'in our asses off underneath the water.

The city, airport, restaurants, hotels, streets, etc are really starting to fill up - you can tell the games are only days away.

The airport for example is ridiculous...just and FYI when the Olympics decided to come to Beijing air carriers did not increase any of their flight schedules to accommodate the increase in travel. Reason being, when a carrier adds a flight to its schedule they have to committee to it for 3 years. This wasn't worth it for the carriers so they left it status quo...therefore ever flight that arrives is packed with tired, excited, nervous, people.

What needs to be reminded is that this is a packed city to begin with. And even though the Olympics are here folks still need to function...and here in lies the problem.

Some fun facts...or maybe not so fun -
All locals are extremely punctual for work - they actually show up 30 mins prior. As much as this sounds like good thing it gets annoying after a while...we've started lying to our hostess (translators) and giving them later times to be here. Don't really have thins problem in Florida.
Here's a good one - taxi cabs don't have to take you if they don't want to. What happens is you get in a taxi and the translator tell him where I wants to go...if he doesn't want to go there (it's too far away, too close, rush hour, etc) he will scream NO! and point to get out of the car. First time it happened I was quite shocked, but now I'm a regular - when they scream at me at just roll my eyes and get out of the cab and wait for the next one.
Where ever you shop...grocery, walmart, etc. you have to pay for your plastic bag that your goods go in. It a very interesting concept - I think America should do the same.
One thing that I have realized while being here is how America is the 800 pound gorilla. We are viewed as wasteful people to who abuse all our luxuries...and you know what - I tend to agree with them.

Just found out the other day that my hostesses who live at the university do not have power after 11pm. This is a gov't regulation. At the university they turn the power off at 11pm. And can only take hot showers every other day.
There are over 32,000 journalists here. We have been told that this is the single largest gathering of journalist ever.
800,000 stories will be written about the games and the 10,000 athletes who are here competing.
At the opening ceremony there will be more than 90 heads of state in attendance...can any way say "road closures

The food situation is getting out of control...to say the least I'm over it and don't care if I ever see chinese food again.

My most recent cravings are:
Cheese it's
Salad - Actually Olive Garden Salad (a note regarding salad (when you can order it)..the ONLY dressing they have is thousand Islands - gross!)
American Bar-B-Q...hot dog, hamburgers, baked beans, corn....

Lastly, I keep getting asked "what are you doing over there"...here's just a little insight:
We will be moving 60k people around Beijing, in years past - it was never more than 20k
Managing 540 sedans, 310 buses, 900 staff, 650 host/ hostesses (translators), 700 drivers (who not speak English)
400,000 background checks
90,000 police and 600,000 security volunteers
Our company alone has 110 coach buses going to Open Ceremonies
Managing 3,500 hotel rooms, 65,000 room nights (note one 5 star hotel we have guests staying in was schedule to open on Friday and pushed back there opening until today...it's still not open)
Food & beverage: 200,000 meals, dining at 33 different restaurants, 2 major hospitality villages (one being the village for the entire Olympics committee), 22 hospitality suites through out the city.
Program includes over 5,000 guests. That's 5k guft bags, 5k room drops, 5k luggage pulls, 5k dailies, 5k everything.
OKay I'm outta time - back to work.

Until next time....