Especially if like, if you're out at Stade de France in track, that's also like quite a distance to travel. It's an hour train ride from where we are. It's pretty tough to get to anywhere. Like you just can't get that many places in a day. It's something that I always forget. That

is very true.

Okay, were you surprised by how many celebrities have been around? You wrote a fantastic piece on Flavor Flav that we will link in the show notes. Everywhere Snoop Dogg goes, I'm so shocked by how excited people are to see, like French people are like running over to see Snoop Dogg. And I'm like, oh, okay. I guess I didn't know Snoop still had it like that.

You know, I, my interpretation of that is I don't know whether it's NBC or teams in particular think that athletes aren't enough to sort of attract attention anymore, that you need celebrity buddies, you know, Snoop Dogg for NBC, flave a flave for US women's water polo. It's like the Olympics aren't big enough. You need hype men and women to attract more attention. That was my read on it, which makes sense for a quote unquote niche sport like water polo. But if NBC needs a senior citizen, hip hop legend to come in, I don't know what that means other than I guess it's just more entertaining than usual. What

are some of the weird things culturally experienced? Something I think about a lot that you wrote is you wrote, there are a million and one cops here, big security. You are absolutely right. You were like, they're all good looking and they're all vaping all the time. We passed one the other day where I was like, your pants are so tight. You are extremely handsome for a car or like beautiful or whatever. And I'm like, and why are you just vaping? Just vaping in the middle of the street. I,

yeah, it's been bizarre. And it's, I'm not the only person who's noticed this. I've talked about it with a lot of people. The police officers are very attractive. They all look very alert and responsible, but there hasn't been a great deal of unrest and knock on wood. Nothing terrible has happened. So, you know, it's your post, you might want to pass the time vaping or stretching, or just looking real hot. Yeah,

just out there in the tight long pants, in the middle summer heat. Oh, God.

Yeah. Yeah, it's just, you know, I see van fulls of them eating their salad lunches, because you know, there doesn't seem to be crime to stop at this point, but they all look good, and they all look ready and alert. So good for them.

Really adding to the Parisian vibe here. Okay, last one. Last cultural question. Pins culture. Pins are, well, they are literal pins, but when you cover the Olympics or you volunteer for the Olympics, you work for the Olympics. In any way, you get a credential that has a lanyard around it, a big, thick ribbon lanyard, and everyone pushes pins into them, all the different teams. So team USA has a pin, I've seen team Morocco pins, all the delegations have pins. Most of the media outlets have pins. Simone Biles has a pin, Snoop Dogg has an excellent pin. Did you know about pins culture before you got here?

You know, I had forgotten about it. I feel like- You tried to move pins culture the back of your mind. There are people who are here, and the Olympics is secondary. The sports is secondary. They're here for the pins. So, you know, people, strangers will stop each other on the street and haggle over pins. And normally it's very cordial, but I've seen people sort of walk away heartbroken that they couldn't get the one pin they wanted off. you know, this Slovakian man who was a hard bargainer. I

have gotten into three absolutely full media tributes at venues by offering the person in charge of seating a pin.

A Washington Post pin?

A Washington Post pin! That's interesting. Which makes me also that I'm just like, oh wow.

So do you have the Snoop pin yet? That's what people want. I don't have it. That's the thing is

I don't ask for anything. I'm just like, oh please take this. Oh my gosh, I'm third in line. Please take this pin. Thank you so much. Do

we like our pins? I guess they're nice. They are

nice. I like that they're glittery. They have the Eiffel Tower has glitter on it. I'd have to look closer. I'm not a pin person. What can I say? I just care. It's like pin coin. Okay. Okay. After the break, we are going to talk about hospitality houses. Well, we actually came here to talk about it. So Dan, you spent several days going to hospitality houses. What are they, why are they important? Why did you want to focus on them? So

they are, I would describe them as embassy-like, party-like locations that are sponsored by entire nations, by corporations or brands, and they are spaces sprinkled all throughout Paris that you can go to for food and drink, to watch the games on television. In the case of national hospitality houses, you go there to find your country men and women, and experience sort of a home away from home, where you can get food and drink and relax and mingle, and sort of take a load off. And you followed around two women in particular, Tiffany Osman

Pope and Kaylin Balland. How did you find them? Who are they?

So I was interested in these hospitality houses and so I was looking for some sort of central database about them and I came up on this website called houseparty.blog and it was designed in a way that seemed official that either Paris 2024 was behind it or some sort of amalgam of Olympic committees was behind it. And so I thought it was an official resource for these hospitality houses. So I just, I clicked on contact and filled out a form thinking that, you know, a PR person would get back to me. And instead, Tiffany, Tiffany from Vancouver responded. Our girl Tiff. Yeah. Our girl Tiff responded. It was like, hi, this is my website. Like, you know, I'm just do, I just do this for fun. Like this is just me. I'm not sponsored. I'm not affiliated with any group. I'm just an Olympics fan who loves the sports and loves the socializing aspect of it. The

website that we've created is called the house Party Blog. It was born out of a love for hospitality houses, but no central place where you could go to find information about all of them. And

I decided, Tiffany sounds real interesting. And so I asked her, could I just barnacle on to your Olympics experience here and there over the course of, you know, seven to nine days and just write about sort of not only these hospitality houses but doing the Olympics at 1000%, which is what she and her friend, Kalen do. We've

been calling Dan our passenger princess. They're like

my two moms and I'm in the backseat of the car along for the ride.

He has water and that he's he's following us onto the metro that he has sunblock on.

This is my first Olympics so

I'm along for the ride. What's been like hanging with Dan? The best. That's our producer Ted Muldoon talking to Tiffany and Kalyn. If you had been a drag we wouldn't have said yes to this have said yes. Yeah. If you are into this kind of thing, which is to say not just sports, but like the culture, the events, the all day of it all, it is very life affirming to be here. That kind of definitely struck with me, but what did you like when you hung out with them? I

liked their ethos of just say yes to everything. Look at an inconvenience as an opportunity. You know, you are surrounded by people from all kinds of countries that you wouldn't normally come into contact with. So why not make small talk when you're waiting in line for 30 minutes for a kebab at Versailles? I

think if you're open, people will approach you and you meet interesting people and get to talk to interesting people and we found ourselves with free tickets to things and in VIP areas that we wouldn't normally have access to because we're, we like to chat with people and meet people and share some of my fries with a sweet security man in there so you don't, you just go, go with the flow.

You know, I'm sort of an introvert, I'm cynical, I sort of expect the worst of people. And Tiffany and Kaylin are the opposite of that. And so to be along with them and to just be open to experience and improvisation and sort of the joy of sport, that's what I loved about them. I loved their sort of philosophy of attending the Olympics, which really is actually a constructive philosophy of life, too.