DATELINE / LILLEHAMMER : Accommodations Are Plainly Nice

The sign says “Vormstuen, “ and it marks the new apartment complex on the outskirts of Lillehammer where many of the 8,000 journalists are staying while covering the Winter Olympics.

New, but hardly plush. In fact, the word utilitarian springs directly to mind.

The building housing Times troops is typical. There are three bedrooms and two bathrooms downstairs, four bedrooms and two bathrooms up, a small common area on each floor. Decor is stark white, unpainted wallboard. Each room includes an army-style bunk, a desk with clamp-on lamp, a small bookcase, a chair and a free-standing metal closet.

There is electric heat, with a control knob, praise be, in each room. There also is a framed crayon drawing with an Olympic theme, courtesy of the schoolkids of Norway.

The seasoned European traveler soon learns not to expect shower curtains around the tub area. Here, though, they have reversed that concept. There are shower curtains, but no tubs. The shower head is mounted, but can be snapped off and hand-held in a corner of the bathroom.

There’s no real shower stall, only the curtain and bare floor with a drain covered by a hard-on-the feet plastic grid. A long-handled squeegee is provided in each bathroom and the bather is expected to tidy up the place after his shower.

Downstairs, the common area is comfortable--short couches facing one another across a coffee table. Upstairs, for some reason, the lone couch faces across the coffee table to a stunning view of the bathroom doors, scant feet away. Oh, well, nobody said it would be perfect.

Actually, the digs aren’t bad. The rooms are warm, the bunks comfortable. There are no blankets, just a great comforter that could warm even an editor’s cold, cold heart. There are clean towels every day--bring your own washcloth--and clean bed linens every other day.

When the Olympics are over, some of the units will remain here as housing for students at a school, which is what the main press center--up the hill, over the bridge and through the tunnel from Vormstuen--is scheduled to become. Some other units will be taken apart and shipped to other parts of the country, there to be reassembled and used as housing at other schools.

As cold as the nights are here, let’s hope everybody is issued a comforter.