A Night to Remember

Outside the Vancouver Art Gallery, Vancouver 2010

Being of an adventurous nature we decided to go and see the Olympic hoopla in Vancouver with our own eyes. We have been glued to the TV since the games began last week. Fortunately I only get Canadian stations at home thanks to the swanky antenna Mark brought us. Amazingly CTV has completely pre-empted their schedule in favor of wall to wall Olympic coverage. So far it's been great, even the snow situation has worked out okay. While we have not gone to the trouble and expense of seeing any of the events in person we did get to see the Russian Ice Dancers practice for free in Abbottsford. It was pretty cool and tonight we saw the competition they were training for.

On Friday night we went to Robson Square to take it all in and boy oh boy was it worth it. The excitement level in the city was off the charts. The streets were packed with revelers, some a little crazed but most just taking it all in like us. We had a nice glass of wine on the balcony of the Art Gallery overlooking Robson Street while people sailed through the sky on the zipline above us. Mark's mom, sister and brother in law joined us. There was event coverage being projected on buildings above us, there were lights flashing and circulating, lighting up the square. It was so pretty, the building facades were all lit and even though there was not a lick of snow it felt wintery and quite magical. We walked down and saw the Olympic cauldron in Coal Harbor. There was quite a crowd but everyone was well behaved, taking turns to take their place by the fence to get a look and take pictures. My sister was with us too and between the three of us we took turns holding Pearl's hand. I am a bit nervous in a crowd with her and I wanted to take pictures with my new camera so it was great to have a little help. Throngs of people don't quite describe how many people were out, it was a throng times ten.

I am impressed with the job VANOC is doing. The city looked great with tons of sculpture and all the buildings wrapped in images and ads. The scale of it was incredible. We rode the Skytrain in and out which was also a great urban experience for Pearl. She has ridden 3 subways now, New York, Montreal and now Vancouver. There was a moment in a big crowd where Pearl felt a bit scared but Mark and I played interference and all was fine. She will no doubt remember this night for a long time. She got tired and wanted to go home but I could see she was fascinated by the young people, flags draped around their shoulders dancing and singing their way down Granville Street under the neon lights. It was wild and beautiful.