This is me.

This is me, above, on the bus home after a 14-hour workday, writing this blog entry.

This is me, below, working so late that I missed the cafeteria dinner and had to settle for a cup of yogurt.

(And they had no spoons or forks left, so I drank it out of the cup.)

This is me on a relatively light day covering the Olympics.

And it’s only Day 1.

I have received this assignment twice before, at the 2010 Winter Games in Vancouver and the 2014 Winter Games in Sochi, Russia. As a result, I know quite well how I will likely, over the next few weeks in Rio de Janeiro, redefine a “normal workday”.

(I even wrote about this very subject six days ago in my blog post previewing this trip.)

And yet, on this first full workday of the 2016 Summer Games, I still got caught off-guard by the variety of surprises.

If you have ever traveled to a foreign land, you understand the adjustments that take place when you arrive. It’s not a “culture shock” but a “culture shift”. You wake up at unusual times, adapt to different modes of transit, and exert much more energy than you likely would at home.

Those changes only multiply when you throw in the Olympics, especially during the first few days. We arrived nearly a full week before the Opening Ceremonies, and we are not the only ones trying to find our rhythm. The Olympics staff is doing the same. So, for example, our bus driver Sunday night made a wrong turn that delayed our return to our hotel by 5-10 minutes. But he had just begun driving this special Olympic route a day earlier. The drive was only slightly more familiar to him than it was to us.

Things also move much slower here – not in Rio necessarily, but at the Olympic venues. We go through a lengthy (and much-appreciated) security check-in each day when we arrive at the Olympic Park. We pass through another checkpoint to get to our work space, and we must exit through it to go to the bathroom. In our first two days, we have spent roughly 90 minutes combined just waiting for buses.

It all adds up … and it could, under different circumstances, make for some frustrated journalists. Occasionally, it even does.

But not usually.

Not at this glorious spectacle surrounded by enchanting scenery.

Not at a career highlight of an assignment I have been so fortunate to receive three times.

Yes, the images above are all me. But so is this:

This is me, doing one of my first stand-ups in front of one of Rio’s many picturesque backdrops. This is me in the midst of a day spent roaming the Olympic park, checking out the new venues, and producing some exciting stories for our audience back home.

This is me.

And this assignment, in so many ways, is extraordinary.

Matt Pearl is the author of the Telling the Story blog and podcast. Feel free to comment below or e-mail Matt at matt@tellingthestoryblog.com.