THE driver of the shuttle bus says her name is Venus. Or maybe that's her planet of origin. Anyway, today is her first day in Atlanta. Ever seen the movie Speed? Well, Venus is to star in the sequel, Lost.
The eight foreign journalists aboard the bus don't know much, but they know that when the city skyline is receding out the back window, the probability is that Venus doesn't know where she is going. Twelve miles down Interstate 85, they persuade Venus that this is the case.
In fairness to Venus it is difficult to swing a coach around in a turn on a 12 lane highway, but she pulls it off and begins the business of dropping the petrified journalists off at their hotels. Whichever hotel Venus finds first, she dispatches a journalist there.
Towards the end of this epic space shuttle she drops a Japanese scribbler at a hotel. He hops off happy to be alive. That leaves one Irish journalist on the bus. Two hours have passed. Welcome to Atlanta.
Given that Atlanta has known for some eight years that the Olympic Games were coming, it seems odd that Atlanta should he so surprised to find the Games here. The streets are teeming, the airport is teeming, the traffic is grinding.
The transport system has had what officials describe as "some glitches". On Wednesday, shuttle buses in the south of the city went missing early in the morning after a traffic jam as buses tried to leave the depot.
Atlantans horn with their hands on steering wheels haven't been taking kindly either to the stringent traffic restrictions imposed on the downtown area. Hundreds have been furiously handing over $75 cheques to reclaim towed away cars.
Other problems, too. Three Ugandan boxers arrested yesterday for passing dud $100 bills may just have been trying to buy some parking spaces, which are on sale for $40 a day.
And yesterday in Atlanta Municipal Court the preliminary hearing began in the case of Ms Megan Mills, who is charged with taking some $1.4 million from seven foreign media companies in exchange for non-existent accommodation.
The glitches are even sapping the confidence of the host city. Three years ago, Georgia State University surveyed the population and just under half of those polled announced that they were "very confident" the city could pull off the Games. This week, with shock troops of Olympia hitting the city, that figure was down to 29 per cent.
Are you listening Gay Mitchell?