Deaflympics 2007: Friday: 2/9/07

 

Today I hit the Deaflympic Store at about 10am. The store is really busy with small periods of completely dead. It's a lot of fun and I'm starting to get the hang of it. I'm still the talker but man I am exhausted. I'm getting the flu finally but it's just the portion of the experience which makes me barfy. I don't though so that's good. I have all day at the store and then another hockey game at night. It's still fun but man am I dying. It's still busy all the time and very occasionally slow. One of the volunteers decides to refold everything like the Gap, she's good.

I painted a Canadian flag on a white tshirt and get tons of questions about it, am I Canadian, why do I have the shirt, etc. It's like being famous, for my shirt....There are a ton of new orders and orders being picked up. We are closing early for a volunteer party at the Ice Center so everyone waits until the last hour before coming it. We are kicking them out the door for another 30 minutes after that. Italian guy comes back and only part of his order is in. I have a hard time communicating so he has brought an Italian to English dictionary and it's amazing. He even teaches me a little Italian. He is getting stuff for the whole Italian team and we have to ship it to them, how the hell do I explain that one? 'not here' 'mail to Italy' then he wants to know how much and it takes me 30 minutes of talking to the boss cause the order is huge. Eventually we figure everything out and he thanks me for everything. I can see the love in his eyes..... Now it's my turn to interpret again, only this time the woman is from Slovakia. Is that even a country? She loves the quilts and wants to find a store near trax so she can shop. I go over the the phone booth and get some addresses and draw maps. I'm curious about what she's going to make but now I'll never know. I should have got her email address. I did give her my cell phone number in case she gets lost though. 

After I leave the store I go right to the Ice Center for the volunteer party/get ready for the hockey game. The ice cream is awesome and some of my followers come say hi. There are a few guys who keep hanging around and it's kinda funny. After Ice Cream I am assigned to sit behind Germany and get them water and whatever else they need. There are 3 young boys sitting near me and being obnoxious. I can relate so we start talking. They are there with their grandmother and are having fun so far. Whilst handing the assistant coach some water an annoying fan comes over and tells me I'm in the way. One of them eventually says something stupid to you. Germany loses to USA, 8-1. I'm happy they at least got a point.