On my first night at the Olympics, the bus driver taking me and about 35 other people back to our cars got lost. Our half-hour trip took 1 1/2 hours, and we joked that we got the "scenic route." 

On my second night, another bus driver prepared to get on the wrong highway until a chorus of Atlanta natives on the bus yelled in unison, directing him to the correct road. 

Last night, on my way to the Olympics, our bus took the sideview mirror off a merging Jeep. (We pulled over to the side of the road and sat for a half-hour while police filled out their reports.) Then, when we got on the bus to head back, an Olympics representative got on the bus and publicly asked if there was anyone who could give our driver directions on how to get to the drop-off point. On the same night, a bus driver pulled to the side of the highway and promptly quit, saying the job was too dangerous. 

The lines to get on the busses are often thousands of people deep, and I've waited as long as an hour in the sun to board a bus. 

Welcome to what is being called the Glitch Games. 

The transportation problems have gotten so bad here that many foreigners and the foreign press are calling this one of the worst-run Olympics in terms of logistics. Take a look: 

• The London Daily Mail -- "Olympic Chaos."

• Mexico City News -- "Atlanta Reels"

• Los Angeles Times -- "Bum steers in Bumfuzzled Atlanta"

• And France-Soir said: "Africa has been deprived of the Games since their creation with the pretext that African countries don't have the necessary infrastructure. After Atlanta, any country in the world can apply to host the Games."

All the literature I received in the mail from the Olympic Committee urged me to use the park-and-ride. So, on my first day, I left at 10 a.m. and went to the first park-and-ride. It was closed. A cop directed me to a second one several miles down the road. It was closed. I got directed again and again. Behind me were hundreds of other cars, being directed from one closed lot to another. 

We finally ended up in a private parking lot of a mall. There, we were charged $20 for the privilege of parking our cars. By the time I parked, it was 2:30 p.m. 

That night, I took the Marta train to the Oympic stadium station, where busses were waiting to take us to the stadium. But the busses didn't take us to the stadium. Instead, we got dropped off about 1 mile short of the stadium and were asked to walk through a very scary neighborhood. 

Imagine thousands of people being funneled through a neighborhood of abandoned homes and shady-looking people hawking wares on their front lawn. Some of the homes reminded me of the crack-cocaine shacks I've written about in the past. One man stood in my face, demanding that I buy one of his visibly warped 1970s records he had lying on his front patio. 

I ignored him, but I wondered how frightened the foreigners were as they were being confronted by people speaking languages they couldn't understand. 

Then, when Opening Ceremonies ended, the Olympic organizers decided to close the entrance that folks used to come in. So you had tens of thousands of people -- a sea of humanity -- all walking towards what we thought was the exit, only to be turned away by a man with a bullhorn, directing us to the other side of the stadium. It was utter chaos as we all banged into eachother, trying to breathe and walk. 

When we reached the new exit, there were no busses. Yep, they had decided to let us walk all the way back to the train station. It had to be 2 miles. 

Up hills. Across a bridge. 

I'm 29 years old and pretty fit, but after a long day, I was exhausted and barely making it. I was nearly brought to tears as I watched elderly people -- including one woman with a walker -- being forced to make the trek. 

Then, as tens of thousands of people approached the Marta train station, a police officer stood there with a bullhorn, saying something that astounded me. You see, the Marta is free to all Olympic travelers. Otherwise, it costs somewhere around $1.50. Well, it was 1:30 a.m. as we approached this Marta station -- all of us a part of this line of people that extended all the way back to the Olympic stadium. 

Keep in mind that it's 1:30 a.m. A police officer with a bullhorn announces, "If you're coming from Opening Ceremonies, please take out your ticket stub and show it to the attendant. If you're a local traveler, please have your money out." 

I was flabbergasted. Who the heck else would be in this sea of humanity at 1:30 a.m. besides Opening Ceremonies folks? When the police officer made this announcement, the line of people stopped moving as tens of thousands of people began scurrying through their handbags, looking for a ticket stub. Some people couldn't find their stubs and were frantically searching for money. 

And some folks who couldn't speak the language had no idea what was going on. 

Every day I've been here at the Olympics, I've faced new problems with the transportation. The busses are sometimes 45 minutes late, or they just don't show. On the Marta trains, I've stood on the podium watching train after train stop but not allowing anybody on because they were already full. 

Adding to all of these problems is the heat. We were promised lots of free water, but I've only seen free water once -- served in those little V-shaped water cooler cups. Water here sells for $1 to $3 a bottle, and Coca Colla sells for $2 in the machines (no kidding) and as much as $5 from the vendors. 

Things are starting to get better, though. Each day, the transportation problems seem to be fewer. And more signs have been placed around Atlanta, better directing people to venues and transportation. 

But the damage done to Atlanta's reputation may be unfixable. Yesterday, the Olympic organizers finally called a press conference to address the problems. But they waited until the sixth day to do so. Even worse, the local newspaper has been down-playing the problems, running stories about it on Page 3. Among spectators, though, the lack of water and the transportation problems is the number one story. 

In today's paper, a columnist made fun of the journalists who are writing about the problems and said the fans were having fun while the journalists were being crybabies. 

That columnist needs a dose of reality. Let him stand in a 1-hour-long line with 1,000 other people. Let him look into the face of children, sunburned and sweating. Let him be confronted by some hawker holding a lukewarm bottle of water in his face, wanting $3 for it. Let him try to sit down the pavement, only to jump up because it's hot enough to boil eggs. 

Let him talk to the mom who is standing over her baby in the carriage, trying to provide shade while wondering when the bus will show up. 

Let him talk to the woman with the walker.