mongolian-in-paris-2024

[mongolian-in-paris-2024]

Week 1

My first week in Paris started off with me getting my accreditation and going to the NOC Service Center of the Olympic Village.

I waited in the rain for maybe an hour, but I guess it was my fault for not going to the right place for volunteer accreditation. Still got it end though.

I called Victoria, my supervisor, a couple of times before figuring out what I was supposed to be doing or where I was supposed to be going. Anyway, after about 2 hours of hassling about, I got into the village. At the time things were still being set up and a lot of the countries' delegation hadn't arrived yet so things were surprisingly calm. Damien gave the volunteers there a quick rundown of what we do and a tour of the village for us. (Thank you, Damien)

I quickly realized how much stuff I had to learn if I was going to be useful at the information desk. The NOC transport guide alone was over a 200 page pdf.

Here's how it looked on that day.

Tried some kebab as a small celebration because I love kebab back home.

Pretty good, but less sauce and vegetables than I was used to. The fries were great though.

There were some surprising things I noticed about Paris. The people really do place an importance on small talk (saying bonjour, merci, etc.) Otherwise you get kind of weird looks.

Cars actually stop for pedestrians, which was a surprise that led to awkward encounters when I would wait for a car to pass first, like I would in Mongolia, just for the car to wait for me to cross. Then I kind of had to do a half-run to show I respect their time.

And there were some things that reminded me of home. Like the fact they smoke anywhere outside or piss on the streets at night or jaywalk constantly. The jaywalking I understand since there's not much cars around in the first place and there's really no reason to wait for a car that's not there. But the smoking and the piss reminded me of my home city, Ulaanbaatar.

On Day 2, went to an E.Leclerc to buy some stuff to make sandwiches. The baguette there was ridiculously cheap, only 0.38 euro.

In general, the cheapest food I could get that wasn't from a supermarket was the 5 euro deals at fast food chains like McDonald's or KFC. Which mind you is still expensive for Mongolians. I kept thinking I could get 4 pirozhki or khuushuur or mantuun buuz for a little over 2 euro. And 2 of those things could easily hold you over till dinner.

Then on day 5, I went out to see the Eiffel tower, and Notre Dame de Paris. Got lost in the city center and actually enjoyed myself being lost. I'll be honest, I did not think the Eiffel tower was that big. I could still see it after going like 2 or 3 kilometers away from it. Got some of the better shots of the tower from those places since there weren't too many people there.

Notre Dame de Paris is my favorite musical (I must've watched and listened to it over a dozen times), so seeing the actual building was pretty special for me.

On day 6, I made cinnamon rolls and bought some more stuff for sandwiches. The cinnamon rolls didn't turn out great because apparently French salted butter is salted to high heaven. So instead of being a nice caramelized sweet roll, it became a salty bun.

Tried pain au chocolat and baguettes here for the first time as well. In the evening went out to a place for an international speaker meet-up. Met some friendly people there and ended up doing karaoke with them until midnight.

On day 7, came to my position late, couldn’t wake up that early (slept late like an idiot). Went to a chess café which I heard about from the night out before. Met an American dude that made music and was a chess coach. Got my ass handed to me by everyone, including him, but one person I did manage to beat. Played 3 minute games OVB (over the board) for the first time. Surprised myself with how I was managing my time decently.

The following is the general layout of the village. It really is like it's own little village with all its different service centers and its own public transport. The athletes were only allowed stay for the duration of them actually competing, so as the games continued the athletes changed. At some point the average height of the village increased because the basketball players came. Saw the American team there for a bit when they visited. Unfortunately not a huge fan of basketball so their presence was not as big a deal as maybe it should've been according to a few of my friends.

There was a Volunteer center, NOC center, Sports Information center, Fitness center, the different lodgings for the different countries' athletes. And that's not even mentioning the kitchens, dining halls, and recreational zones.

[mongolian-in-paris-2024]

Getting there

So my journey to the Paris 2024 Summer Olympic Games started with me applying for the Volunteer program all the way back in the Spring of 2023. I'd been looking for an opportunity to volunteer abroad and one of the options that came up was the Olympics. I found it the most interesting because 1. it's the Olympics, and 2. it was in France and that would allow me to visit my family and friends in Germany afterwards. I may be a Mongolian citizen but I was born in Germany, so getting to visit my birthplace was definitely a plus.

After a couple of months, I was given an offer to be a Information Desk Team Member, and I hopped on the opportunity. It wasn't after a few months after I accepted the offer did I have to do anything. I got some online training, applied for my visa, got my plane tickets and was set to go to Paris.

For my 18:30 flight I decided to leave my apartment in Ulaanbaatar at 10:00, expecting there to be a lot of traffic on the way to the airport as there usually is. Turns out I was wrong. My dad and I had time to go to the center of Tuv Province, grab lunch, get medicine, and we still arrived 5 hours before the flight check-in.

With all the extra time we decided to weigh my luggage and carry-on bag just in case. My luggage was safely below the maximum weight, but turns out my carry-on bag was...for lack of a better word, dense. It didn't look or feel heavy but somehow the scale was reading it was 9 kg when my allowed weight was a max of 5. Which was surprising since I only packed my clothes in there. We immediately got out the airport and back to the car to start taking out anything in the bag that could be heavy. Turns out the few clothes I washed the day before hadn't completely dried and was moist as hell. So what did we do? Well we started drying them in the parking lot like a couple of hobos, of course!

After taking out my bedsheets, stuffing my body towel inside my hoodie (like I was smuggling something) and drying everything out, we were miraculously able to lose 3 kg.

After that, there were no problems, though interestingly, while I was waiting in the boarding area, what appeared to be a Korean man came up to me and gave me a couple thousand Mongolian Tugriks (MNT). Couldn't say no to free money so I took it and was on my way to Beijing International and arrived there at around 21:00.

What was surprising when I landed in Beijing was over the intercoms it was announced that the outside temperature was 33°C...at night. I hoped that the inside of the airport would be cooler, but I was mistaken. I spent quite possibly the sweatiest night of my life in that airport. And I spent two years near Houston in Texas.

So after getting a bit of moist sleep and waiting for 7 hours, I got on my 11-hour flight to Paris. I sat next to the window which I was kind of happy about, but sitting next to me was an old couple and I felt pretty bad about having them move out of my way whenever I needed to go to the restroom.

To deal with the 11-hour flight from Beijing to Paris, I tried to do the best potato impression I could. I spent the entire flight practically merging into my seat while watching 9 hours worth of movies and TV shows. More specifically, Haikyuu, Les Misérables, and Guardians of the Galaxy while sleeping the rest of the time.

Anyway, I arrived in Charles de Gaulle airport's Terminal 2 safe and sound, though maybe a bit tired.

One thing of note is that the airport was confusing as hell to get through. The whole terminal is built like a cylinder, without any elevators, which meant that to get anywhere it seemed like I had to go round and round for forever. I must have taken an hour just to get out of the maze of red tape. Mostly because I found the way the signs were labeled confusing. Thankfully, the staff were nice enough to redirect me where I had to head though, so all was well at the end of the day.

After getting out of the terminal, I also got lost trying to get to the metro station to get to where I need to stay for the night. After all that was over though, I was finally able to get to my apartment at around 22:00 local time. I dearly needed rest since the trip took 2 days in total and my volunteer work was set to start the next day at 14:30.