Received 09/02/2004 14:47
The pictures!
Check them out @ www.bart.la/gallery/athens2004
11/30/1999 
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Recent posts
Received 08/29/2004 17:57
Live report from Athens Airport
Time: Monday 2AM
Location: Athens Airport
What an awesome Closing Ceremony! It was worth paying 100 euro(cheapest seats), a great show with amazing fireworks and a party athmosphere only Greeks can create!
Three hours left before my plane takes off... back to work tomorrow, life goes on!
Bye Athens, bye Olympic Games, cya in Beijing 2008!
Received 08/29/2004 08:20
Closing Ceremony
Time: Sunday 4PM
Location: Bits & Bytes - Internet Cafe Athens
YES! I will make it to the Athens 2004 Olympic Games Closing Ceremony. At midnight after the Ceremony I will take the metro to Kifissia station where my host will handover my laggage so I can take the bus to the airport. If everything goes well, I will be back in Brussel at 7.15AM
Yesterday evening I managed to buy an A class ticket for the women volleybal finals at the Peace and Friendship stadium. (face value 120 euro, I paid 50 euro only!) The bronze medal match Brazil-Cuba was not really exciting compaired to the gold medal final Russia-China. The five set game was great, China won although I supported the Russian team!
Russia - China volley action!
Received 08/28/2004 09:08
It's almost over...
Time: Saturday 5PM
Location: Bits & Bytes - Internet Cafe Athens
Yesterday, I managed to get to the Titania hotel after crossing the anti-US Iraq policy demonstration which took place in downtown Athens. I didn't expect it to be easy to get in the hotel, but suprisingly I just walked in and took the elevator to the roof garden of the hotel. At least fifty people were present, including some Belgian athletes and Patrick Janssens (major Antwerp). A few interviews took place for Sporza (Belgian sport television), we watched the Woman's 4 x 100m Relay Final (Belgain team finished 6th) and we had some overpriced Belgian beers, stella @ 4 euro! Anyway, we had a nice time together volunteers, athletes and officials.
Going back to Monastiraki square now to see if I can buy some cheap tickets for one of the remaining sport events. I still need to figure out if I can make it to the closing ceremony, I have a ticket but I need to catch my plane at 04.45 on Monday morning, so that's going to be tricky.
Titania Hotel Lobby.
Received 08/27/2004 06:39
Radio.Zillion.Be makes me feel home
Time: Friday 3PM
Location: Bits & Bytes - Internet Cafe Athens
I have just been coming to the internet cafe to listen to radio.zillion.be, the Ibiza Mixes are so great! I'm so happy FOU69 rescheduled the MFMPP4 party to 11.09 instead of this weekend, since I would have missed it.
Back in Athens, tonight I will meet Chris, a lady volunteer working for IOC Relations and Protocol, translation services. We'll meet at Titania, the hotel where the BOIC members stay and Sporza(Belgian Public Sport television) broadcasts from. It should be fun to meet all the Belgians there! Maybe I'll visit the Holland Heineken house too, just to meet some more Dutch speaking folks.
Nice fencing action!
Received 08/26/2004 06:47
Back to the Olympics
Time: Thursday 3PM
Location: Ar2k - Internet Cafe Mykonos
Two hours left before my ferry leaves to Athens, back to the Olympic Games. Three more days to go, I have a ticket for the closing ceremony, but I will try to buy some additional tickets for other events too. I've only seen swimming, waterpolo, diving, tabeltennis and football live at the world's greatest sportevent, so I should attend some this weekend.
Here at Mykonos, I have visited the three main beaches Paradise, Super Paradise and Elia. Elia being the biggest and nicest, with watersky, parachute, waterscooter, music and nice beach bars. Took some nice pictures which will be published next week on my personal site www.bart.la
Received 08/24/2004 13:29
Mykonos
Time: Tuesday 9PM
Location: Ar2k - Internet Cafe Mykonos
Internet cafe's, you find them everywhere, even on Greek party island Mykonos. When we arrived here at 2.30pm today, we were welcomed by at least 50 people offering us accommodation and transport. Fortunately I had read the Mykonos chapter of my Lonely Planet, it reported the Mykonos harbor as the biggest accomodation scam of Greece. Except some locals, all tourist accepted one of the offers. We just walked off and five minutes later we were on a 90cent busride to the center (Hora) of Mykonos. The Avis car rental office was out of cars, but gave us some helpfull advice on accommodation, the way to the hotel booking office. We finally ended up at Philippa, a 70 euro/night hotel recommened by Lonely Planet. By walking through the streets of Mykonos we realised that a car was not the best option for transportation, no parking spaces and too narrow roads. A motorbike rental shop provided us with the prefect way of getting around. After buying a big beachtowel and picking up sunscreen we immediately rushed to the world famous 'Paradise beach', it was packed! Lot's of gays, but also a lot of pritty looking girls, let's hope the're not all lesbians!
A quick update on what happened the last two days. I can be short about Paul Van Dyk @ 'The Venue' last Sunday: a rip-off party with the worst warm-up dj in the world, a 40 euro entrance fee and 10 euro 15cl drinks... Paul's set was not that great, so let's just forget that expensive night out. On Monday afternoon I picked up the tickets for Mykonos and watched Track and Field Athletics at a local bar, didn't want to spend 90 euros on a ticket. Went to bed early, had to wake-up at 5.30am this morning.
Tonight, I'll be checking out the nightlife in Mykonos, lot's of clubs here!
PS. Found a funny article here (in Dutch) about the BBC swimming reporter, Sharron Davies. I met this lady several times in the main swimming pool, and I need to admit she was always sexy dressed!
Received 08/22/2004 10:02
Hot
Time: Sunday 6PM
Location: Bits & Bytes - Internet Cafe Athens
Here I am again, this time with my msn messenger switched on, radio.zillion.be blowing my headphones and a Starbucks Frappuchino to keep me chilled while it's 38 degrees Celsius outside!
On Friday night we ended up at a club, of which I don't remember the Greek name, in the Glyfada area. We had a tabel reservation for twelve people including two bottles of liquor at the price of 260 euros. You would expect to get treated well for such an amount of money...not in Greek clubs. If your not Greek, then don't expect a decent table, at least that's the explanation our Greek host gave why we got the worst table in the club. After one our of discussion to stay or leave to club, I decided to just enjoy the nice view on the sea with an Absolut Wodka coke. Some nice tracks hit the decks, but each time we started dancing, the DJ blowed it by playing Greek music. Tonight, we'll check out Venue, a club located 60km from the place where we stay. It will be packed, since Paul Van Dyk is playing the decks. I hope we'll get in...
Enough about nightlife, back to the Olympics. I woke up late on Saturday, 3pm I think, had a swim in the pool at the backyard of our house to recover from my Wodka hang-over. There was not much time to recover, since we had tickets for soccer. So did 27.600 other people for the Karaiskaki Stadium near Faliro metro station. The quater final Mali vs Italy was great fun, Mali players entertained the spectators, so 90% of the crowd supported the Mali team. Extra time was needed to decide on the winner, and unfortunately Italy scored in the 27th mintute of the 30 minutes additional time. We had souvlaki (Greek eufemism for junkfood) as dinner and some Icecoffees afterwards to keep the food inside at a nice bar called "?" near the Chech house in Faliro.
Here ends my blog for today, need to find out when I can take a boat to Mykonos, the Greek Ibiza, for a few days of fun. Btw The last swimming event at the main pool took place on Saturday night, so I switch to 'tourist' mode for the rest of the week. ;)
Justine Henin-Hardenne (Tennis) - First Golden medal for Belgium!
Received 08/20/2004 09:30
Jean-michel Saive & Olivier Rochus
Time: Friday 5PM
Location: Bits & Bytes - Internet Cafe Athens
On wednesday evening me and Arren(an Aussie) decided to check Glyfada, a nightlife area situated along the coastline of Athens. After taking bus, metro and two cabs we ended up at Balux, a higher class nightclub in open air with a huge pool and nice dancers. After hooking up with two lonely girls (and paying a 15 euro entrance fee), we managed to get in. We enjoyed the Gordan's R'n'B party and I saw a guy wearing a Bikkembergs t-shirt, not a common thing yet in Athens. When we left the club we struggled to get a cab to get us back to Thrakomakedones, more than 50km away. Fortunately we were not alone, Jean-michel Saive & Olivier Rochus were looking for a cab too! After a short coversation with Jean-michel & Olivier(my French is terrible) I managed to stop a cab and the four of us were on our way to the Olympic village, which is near the house were I stay. I only managed to speak a few minutes with Olivier and Jean-michel, because the felt almost immediately asleep. After a 40 minute drive with a big smile on my face, we arrived at the Olympic Village entrance C. Olivier first wanted to pay the time (40 minutes) displayed on the taxi meter instead of the actual 14 euro fee, which was quite funny. Thanks for paying the taxi Olivier, I owe you one! ;-)
On Thursday morning we welcomed a new Belgian guest at Sofia's house, Bart. I took him out during the afternoon to show him around in downtown and to help him to find tickets for the sold out Tennis games on Thursday evening. An easy job, at Monastiraki square you can find plenty of brokers selling tickets for sold out events at face value! At 4PM we started the preparations at Sofia's house for the volunteers party (www.athens2004volunteer.com) Although I had put 7PM on the invitation, most guest only showed up at 10.30PM Forty volunteers out of eighty on the guestlist were present. We had a great time together and enjoyed the music, drinks and Souvlaki. Again, also for this event the pictures will be published on my personal site (www.bart.la) during the first week of September.
Tonight we'll go to Destijl, an other nightclub in the Glyfada area. Tomorrow evening we have the last swimming event at the main pool, wondering if we are going to jump in the pool with all volunteers as agreed before... :-)
I'm going to buy some tickets for beach volley too...
Received 08/18/2004 06:50
Day five of the Olympic Games!
Time: Wednesday 2PM
Location: Bits & Bytes - Internet Cafe Athens
I'm back, sorry for the delay in the updates. The internet cafe I prefer is 1u30min away from the place where I stay and cellphone email updates are awfully expensive. What have I been doing in the past three days?
On Saturday night we had dinner at a traditional Greek taverna, you can compare it with a tapas bar, but with Greek plates of course. I remember we had an interesting discussion about the behaviour of Greeks, especially Greek women. There's a huge difference between the behaviour of Belgian women compared to Greek, I can tell by experience! ;-)
Sunday was a lazy Greek Sunday, I took a day off to hang around in the house until 4pm. Since it was 'name day' and Sofia's birthday(my host), we decided to visit her father in law, who lives in Marathon. The one-hour drive from Thrakomakedones to Marathon took us along the Olympic Rowing Center and the Marathon lake which was heavely guarded, since it has a huge dam and it's the water reservoir for Athens city. Spyros(husband Sofia) father has a beautiful house located on a hill at a bay. Spyros grandparents and uncle live on the same hill, so we all joined up for Greek coffee and sweets. Memories and stories from the past were shared between the family members, the real Mediterranean family atmosphere! Back in Thrakomakedones we had suprise cakes for Sofia at midnight and went to downtown to have a drink.
On Monday I had the late shift at the main swimmingpool. It was going to be a great swimming night, all seats were sold out and 500 VIP's were present. Ian Thorpe(AUS), Pieter Van Den Hoogenband(NED) and Michael Phelps(USA) competed for the gold medal 400m freestyle. Thorpe beated Hoogenband in the last 50 meter, you should see the video I made, the crowd went crazy!
Lot's of press people were talking about the 'Race of the century'! After the race we enjoyed one of Athens' most exclusive bars, Istioploikos near Faliro. We didn't expect to just walk in with our Athens 2004 sports uniform, but it worked! People wearing Gucci, Versace, Dolce, Longchamp, Louis Vuitton to show off and still they were beated by our Adidas uniform ;-)
Tuesday, an other day off since I had to catch some extra sleep, we only arrived home at 04.00am you know. I discussed with Sofia what needed to be prepared for the volunteer party on Thursday. I'll host a pool party for more than 70 international volunteers at Sofia's garden...let's hope everything works out fine!
I met Susanna and some of her friends in the afternoon and went to tabel tennis at 6pm. Unfortunately Jean-Michel Saive, our Belgian player, lost his game against the Chinese Lin Ju (4-2).
All eyes are now on Tim Maeyens (final rowing), Justine Henin(tennis), Aagje Vanwalleghem (gym) and Catherine Jacques(judo) for the next days. Of course we are happy with the two bronse medals the Belgian team already won.
Wednesday, today, I had a short morning shift (9am-12pm) with only heats, so no spectacular events. I think I'm going to enjoy the sun for the rest of the day, some shopping, and maybe waterski at the Marathon Bay...
Justine Henin @ work!
Received 08/14/2004 09:25
The first swimming games
Time: Saturday 5PM
Back from my first competition shift at the main swimming pool. American swimmer Michael Phelps was the fastest on the 400 meter freestyle this morning. He will swim the final tonight at 07.30PM
I managed to take a picture of Tony Blair when he arrived at the pool VIP entrance. I have an upgrade pass which allows me to access the IOC Protocol and Relations area. I'm doing my best to make as many friends as possible in this area. ;-) Yesterday evening I guided the National Olympic Committee of Kuwait through the metro stations to get to the Olympic Station for the opening ceremony. The had first row tickets, but still they were nerveous if the would have a good seat, can you image? A 950 euro ticket! We exchanged business cards to get in touch, in case they wanted to attend a swimming event or if I wanted to visit Kuwait. :o) Tonight I'll go to a traditional Greek taverna to have dinner with my hosts and the volunteers of the villa where I stay.
Yesterday evening, what a great show!
Received 08/13/2004 10:35
Tonight: Athens 2004 Opening Ceremony!
Time: Friday 6.30PM
Location: Bits & Bytes - Internet Cafe Athens
Tonight it's all happening, the opening of the Athens 2004 Olympic Games. Everyone is nervous as hell, except the Greeks, they're still fixing things last minute. Since I don't have tickets for the opening ceremony (they go +500 euro for a class C ticket), I will watch the ceremony on Sofia's super large flatscreen tv. Sofia and Spyros(my hosts) are hosting twelve volunteers, so it's gonna be an other great party night. Make sure to watch the show!
What happened yesterday night and today? Last night we spent some time in downtown Athens, met the complete Rusian team and saw the place where the olympic torch arrived. Today, an other day of training with more new volunteers, we are now more than 50 for result distribution at the main pool! The real stuff starts tomorrow morning at ten o'clock with the Men's 400m Individual Medley... I hope the African athletes won't forget to bring their swimsuit and goggles. (believe it or not, a trainer of an African team asked today, where to get swimsuits and goggles for his team!!!)
Franziska Van Almsick at the main pool.
Received 08/12/2004 13:01
Greek parties
Time: Thursday 9PM
Location: Bits & Bytes - Internet Cafe Athens
Another day of training today - Since a whole bunch of new volunteers joined us today, we had to go through the same stuff again... I decided to sneak out with some of the 'experienced' volunteers to check how far we could go with our accreditation pass. We managed to get to the seats next to the diving pool and we were just sitting there next to the athletes and trainers.. what a great feeling, although it only took 5 minutes before we were escorted out again by security, since we are not supposed to sit next to the athletes.
Yesterday evening after dinner, a spontaneous Greek drinking party started. We finished a complete bottle of OUZO and enjoyed the greek belly dancing of Sofia and Spyros, our hosts. I took some cool videos and pictures which will be posted when I'm back home in September.
Here ends my blog for today, I need to join the other volunteers and buy tickets for the different events I want to attend.
Received 08/11/2004 09:10
Training at the Aquatic centre
Time: Wednesday 5PM
Location: Bits & Bytes - Internet Cafe Athens
Just back from my first day of work at the Aquatic centre. Well, 'work' is maybe not the correct word, I would call it more 'hanging around'. The training I got today was limited to checking out the different desks and pools at the Aquatic centre. I have access to the Press Areas, Broadcast areas and the Competition & Athletes preperation area. Lots of activity going on at the three pools, the Japanese and Canadian teams were training at the Synchronised swimming pool, perfect shaped athletes at the diving pool and of course a lot of press at the main pool to see a glimp of Ian Thorpe, the Australian 'Thorpedo'.
I also got my work schedule today. I need to work almost every day until Aug 29. I have the 'early' shift, 8am till 4pm, some days I need to start at 7am. Since I need to take the bus and train to get to the Aquatic centre, a trip which takes 1h15min, I will need to wake-up real early... on top of that, Greeks don't go to sleep before 2am... I already swapped three of my shifts for a late one, to allow me to attend some parties ;-)
Received 08/10/2004 17:22
Final rehersal Opening Ceremony
Time: Wednesday morning 1AM
Location: Bits & Bytes - Internet Cafe Athens
We're back, sorry for the delay in the updates, having a busy time here. I'm just back from the final rehersal of the Opening Ceremony. It's amazing, you really need to see this on Friday. The statium was packed with volunteers, at least 40.000 people were present and everything was done like it will be on Friday, including a performance by DJ TIESTO and Icelandic singer Bjork.
What else have I been doing in the last 24 hours? Well, after we got our accreditation and uniform, we went to a local school where we spent 1 hour to convince the Athens 2004 employees to provide us tickets for today's opening ceremony rehersal. We had dinner at Syntagma square and afterwards we went to see the Olympic Complex, it's awesome! The architecture is great, so are the light effects and the fountains.
Tomorrow the real work starts, I need to be at the Aquatic centre by 10am, so it will be an other short night...
PS: Check the newspaper 'Het Laatste Nieuws' of Tuesday August 10 on page 5.
Received 08/09/2004 08:03
Standing in line to get accreditation and uniform
4pm Queuing for 2 hours now at the Athens 2004 headquaters, although the invitation letter said it would only take 45 minutes... a good time to meet with the other volunteers and to be interviewed by newspapers.
Received 08/09/2004 02:49
Touch down! Athens here we are.
10.40am local time The internatiol airport is one big Athens 2004 ad, not that crowded, but lot's of 'hospitality' employees... Got to go, there's my lugage already!
Received 08/08/2004 23:17
Brussels airport
6am Ready for take-off! Had to wake up way too early...what ever...I'm finally on my way to Athens!
Received 08/08/2004 05:02
Finally packing my bags
I'm a lastminute guy, in less than 24 hours I will be on my way to Athens, and still I have not yet packed a single thing. I hope I've everything I need, since the shops are closed today.
Let me tell you some more about myself, I'm a 24 year old Belgian guy (in fact, I will be 25 tomorrow, since it's my birthday on August 9th) and work as a Systems Engineer at the IS department of a petrochemical company. Last year November, I signed up as a volunteer for the Aquatic Centre, after visiting Athens for the first time. I'm wondering how different Athens will look compaired to last year, when it was one big construction yard.
