One week into the Winter Olympics I'm prompted to ask, are there any out there who were fortunate/unfortunate enough to be living as expats in the Torino (Turin) area at the time of the Games? I'd love to hear descriptions of what the Games and the crowds have meant to the quality of life. I'm imagining that they are more hassle than blessing.
Let's open it up to those who lived as expats through other foreign Games, winter or summer, like in Nagano, Athens, Albertville, Sydney, and others.
There's an old Spanish saying: En casa de herrero, cuchillo de palo. It means, literally and loosely, the blacksmith eats with a wooden spoon. In the broader sense, it tells of the human tendency to take care of one's own business last, or to overlook the things that are closest to us. With regard to the Olympics, or other similarly huge events at a local level, it would lead locals to miss the games for the sake of the visitors.
