Confession time: I think I might hate the Olympics. This in
no way means that I dislike sport. On the contrary, I have participated in
every sport short of camel racing at some point in my life, and I would
probably give that a go if I could be guaranteed not to come away smelling like
the back end of a Tasmanian devil. Or the back end of a camel for that matter.
I have simply never
enjoyed the sly insults and international rivalry that it inspires. We are
told that the Games are supposed to bring the world together in a way that no
other sporting event does because no matter what the Americans try and tell us,
the Olympics IS ACTUALLY THE REAL WORLD SERIES OF EVERYTHING. All of this comes
together to create a dilemma in a town such as Stavanger, where every other
person you meet is from somewhere else.
So what’s a gal to do when she is a visitor seated in the
home section? I just knew that I would not be able to escape the Olympic fever
in Norway. Norwegians are annoyingly
good at winter sport so how could they fail to be obsessed by the successes and
defeats of the world’s best winter athletes? I knew that I would have to show
some kind of interest in this spectacle and probably have to talk some “smack”
about how Canada was gonna take Montenegro down in something I am sure is
called Super G slope style short track speed curling. This enthusiasm would be
expected of me since my native land, Canada, also takes its winter sport
seriously. Well, we take one sport seriously.
That sport would be hockey, or when that doesn’t pan out, hockey
fighting.
As the Olympics approached, I could feel a sense of unease
creep over me. One thing I love more than anything else about Stavanger is the harmony
that seems to exist amongst the expats and Norwegian community. I know not all
Stavanger residents would agree with me on this, but my experience has been
that expats and Norwegians work and play quite well together in this sandbox we
call Rogaland, and I hate the idea of anything upsetting that fine balance.
Then the stinking Olympics had to come along.
On the day after the Games began, I noticed a strange
silence fall over our office. I must state, for the record, that my office is
quite international, and boasts 10 different nationalities amongst a group of
20 people. We were all on high alert for the first person to strike. Would it
be the American, who would most certainly be eaten alive by just about every other
nationality for being over-confident or boastful? Or would it be our hosts the
Norwegians, who may have every right to be as confident as the Americans, but
could be over powered by their sheer lack of numbers?
It was day three before the insults really started flying,
over e- mail and office communicator at first, and gradually escalating to an all
-out war of words on how certain teams were getting certain parts of their anatomy
kicked. By the end of week one, pretty much every nationality in the office had
been battered, bruised and served up a big plate of you guys suck. What had
happened to the sweet little multi-cultural utopia of Stavanger?
Maybe she will return once the final medal count is done and
the last closing ceremony fireworks have been extinguished. At that point, it’s
possible we can all come together once again and be friends, without any of
these petty clashes or the cut-throat
competition. The unity and peace we once had here can return.
Unless Canada loses at hockey, of course. Then all bets are off.
