Well up to now I've been pretty supportive of this whole Olympic thing buttoday my attitude took a 180 degree turn for a few hours.

After visiting Squamish I arrived home to my place at Creekside, and was told that I needed aspecial pass just to access the parking lot where I live. Right away my bloodpressure went way up.

At first I blamed everybody but I soon realized that Vanocand the whole Olympic thing were not the cause. Once I started to enquire aboutthis pass from my neighbours they also had no clue.

It turns out that ourdisorganised municipality were supposed to mail out these passes. Secondly mystrata council mailed out our parking pass but passed on no information abouthow to obtain access to the parking lot.

So I had to fight traffic into the village, scroungefor a parking spot and then stand in line just to get a pass that wassupposed to be mailed to me.

On a more positive note we went toSquamish to see the Mona Lisa. This is the cruise ship that was brought in as atemporary residence for volunteer and paid staff.

The Mona Lisa was built in1965 in the port of Clydebank, in Scotland. She was built as a combined oceanliner/cruise ship. Since her maiden voyage she has also sailed under the namesof; Kungsholm, MV Sea Princess, MV Victoria and the MV OceanicII.

Presently she has room for 790 passenger and a crew of 417. Allcabins are equipped with satellite televisions, safe boxes, etc. She has eightdecks, four elevators, two outdoor and one indoor pool, a 300 seat theatre and afull-on fitness center.  Not a bad set up for a few weeks.

She has arich and colourful history. More recently she was chartered for use as a hotelship in Doha, Qatar for the Asian Games.

After her Squamish deployment she willreturn to Sweden and in late 2010 will be restored to her original design andlook by entrepreneur Lars Hallgren. He plans to use her as a floating hotelin the port of Gothenburg.