Asbury College at the Olympics

Its about midnight and I am at Brandon Bigham’s apartment here in Torino with fellow Asburians Brandon, J.D. and his brother Daniel.

I left the train station this morning at about 11:00 and entered a winter world raining down huge flakes and creating ice and slush all over the place. I headed towards the IBC (international broadcast center) hoping to find a bike shop in that area where I could leave my bike during my Olympic stay.

On my way, I ran into an Italian man who had a couple of bikes himself. He brought me into a cafe and bought me a cup of coffee and a couple of pastries. Afterwards, he even invited me over to his house for dinner.

After coffee, I countinued on my way and eventually came upon the massive IBC, where I took some time to explore the first two gigantic floors of mall and a movie theater.

I then decide to give Dr. Owens a visit, who has an office upstairs in the same building. By pure luck, J.D. and I both arrived and met Dr. Owens at exactly the same time (J.D. and his brother have been traveling for about 25 days now). Dr. Owens gave us a tour of the TOBO offices and the MMC (main media center), which is another massive building that houses all the TV network’s studio space.

During that time, I got an email back from a bike shop in town saying that they would keep the bike for €15 a month. So after the tour, I took the bike to the complete other end of town to this bike shop. Turns out that they closed at noon on Saturday and aren’t open at all on Sunday. So I chained the bike up to their store and dropped the key inside their door for them to pick up on Monday and sent them an email letting them know what I did. I hope they don’t mind.

Then I bussed back to the IBC and met back up with Dr. Owens, JD, his brother Dan, Brandon, and Erin, who had just arrived. We went to a great dinner accross the street and had a good telling stories and catching up. It was a lot of fun.

And then the aformentioned group came back here to brandon’s place for the night. Everything finally came together! It really feels like a miracle to be here.