Travel Log; RIO Summer Olympics 2016
The life of a massage therapist, Maryla has been able to tell us a little bit about each day she experiences in Rio during the 2016 Summer Olympics. She’s only a week into her volunteer and has another week and a half to go! Stay tuned next week for another week entry of her travel blog!
“Day four in Rio. Not much activity before my shift, except food shopping where we tried to figure out Brazilian produce and vegetables. Did I tell you that I love to try all kind of food? Being abroad is so much fun because of that. After few days here I can tell you that Brazilian people don’t eat healthy according my standards. Sorry to report but average person here eats way too much carbs, drinks too much beer, and smokes too much…ok, back to my Olympic experience. I feel like we, the medical team, constantly on the stand by. We have to be ready for any accident and the same time we happy that nothing bad happen. Today was women’s finals and we all were under more control by officials and more excited to see who wins the competition. American team was in the lead from the beginning. Unfortunately I could only watch a bit of warm up the rest on the screen however I was able to take a picture with Team U.S.A. Olympic Gold Medalist Gabby Douglas 🙂
Working at the Athletes’ village today. Should be very exciting and different experience
Day five in Rio. We had very slow start today. No excitement in the first half do to the rain and just overall tiredness. Afternoon, on another hand, was amazing. I worked at the Athlete’s Village. Wow, wow, and one more time wow. What an unbelievable experience I had. 7 massages in 8 hours. I thought, I got back to work at Morefit, lol….I saw lean muscles everywhere. I saw and touched highest human energy through all afternoon. Surreal, just surreal experience. Thank you all who made this happen. Thank you all of you who had a faith in me and my ability to help the greatest and strongest of us humans. I feel humble and privileged and will never forget this experience… Ok, more details of today. On the way to the clinic, I met young, polish guy from Pennsylvania who volunteered as a nurse technician at emergency room 🙂 woo, some native blood with who I could exchange a few words in Polish. I also met a lot of massage therapists from all over the world. One of them knows Richard Testa 🙂 we just talked about small Olympic world at the Olympics and then I massage a swimmer, runners, a cyclist and an official from all over the world. How cool is that! Unfortunately I couldn’t take pictures with them. No time at all for photo shoots today. However, I had an opportunity to walk through the village, during my dinner break, and capture few pictures then. Enjoy
First stop – Archery competition. That’s for my lovely driver
Day six in Rio. Ohh, I’m soo tired that I don’t even know where to start to recap my day…. Maybe I should start with the very beautiful sunrise, yes I thought that our day should continue smoothly and I was ready for advantage of Rio de Janeiro. Today was my day off and I planned to see many sites in this incredible city. I have to admit, I saw the beautiful, the good and the ugly of it. I think we saw every possible corner, we had so many stops and saw so many corners that the words cannot describe. It’s so hard to explain the atmosphere of this unbelievable city. You need to come and experience this yourself, this city is even more fascinating than New York. Those who know me, know that I don’t like big cities. I can repeat again; I love to live in my small East Haddam. I wish I had a view of the ocean there however, view of the woods is even more satisfying after today’s adventure. Although, I have to admit, I would never be able to run into the best basketball players of the world in our East Haddam however, I was able to do it here in Rio, so that’s the beauty of this city. Famous and ordinary, beautiful and ugly, young and old, we all belong to one nation – human nation, and this city is proof of that, especially during the Olympics. This day was another experience of the lifetime for sure!
Day seven in Rio. I cannot believe we have already week behind us and I’m just getting use to the life here. We had another rainy morning here. I guess this is the Brazilian winter and we have to get use to this bad weather. Despite the bed weather we managed to get to the beach and I could have my yoga session there my afternoon was busy again today. Five massages in seven hours. Tennis player, handball player, two runners and synchronized swimmer on my table today. Love my volunteer position! I had time to walk through the village today also. Took few pictures of working out athletes and apartments buildings with country flags hanging out. Just one building didn’t have flags out, I was so disappointed when I found out that is USA athlete’s home. Don’t ask me why they didn’t feel like to be proud to represent their flag….so, I decided to find Polish people and take picture with them …it was another successful day in Brazil. Boa noite.”
Click the link below to view ALL of Maryla’s photos of beautiful RIO and her grand adventure!!
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