2010 Olympics

We drove up Friday the 12th, for the Opening Ceremonies that night. Attempting to check out the venue where the opening ceremonies were being held, we ran into a protest, and saw the motorcade whisking VP Joe Biden towards the event. While we couldn't get into the LiveCity Yaletown site to watch it on the big screen as it was too crowded, we did get to watch it on TV with some other fans while satisfying our tummies at a little Asian fusion restaurant about two blocks from BC Place, where the ceremonies were being held. That was pretty awesome. Afterward, we wandered our way back to the bus to take us to the house we stayed at - a friend of Irit's was kind enough to let us use their home while they escaped the Olympics madness.

Saturday, we headed back downtown to check out speed skating at the Yaletown site - unfortunately, we just experienced a couple hours of commercials from the sponsors - Coca Cola, Panasonic, Samsung, and Acer were all there with huge indoor tents full of activities. The Big screen, which was supposed to have the Olympic events, was instead being used to show footage of a Bollywood performance, which, while fun, was not what we had planned for. We finished the night with Wilco, who performed there.

Sunday, we slept late and had lunch at Earls before heading downtown, where we stopped at the Olympics Superstore. Jon got a hoodie and I got a workout top, with the Olympics logo on it. We wandered over to BC Place to watch the Victory Ceremony, and got to see the US win 5 medals. They began the event with a celebration of BC, which was cool, and Nelly Furtado closed the night with her hits. We walked up to a little restaurant called Jimmys, which had yummy food and a TV for us to watch more of the games.

On Monday we went down to see the cauldron, which was behind a fence to keep protesters out. Then we checked out LiveCity Downtown, which, while a lot smaller than the Yaletown site, was great b/c they had an indoor area to watch the games and comfy chairs to sit in. We rested there for awhile, watching a hockey game and some figure skating and speed skating. Then Jon and I split off from the group (Irit's friend and her children and cousin had come up for the day) for a date night. We ate sushi and then walked around Yaletown, considered going to see Matisyahu at LiveCity, but it had started raining and the line was pretty long to get in. So we walked up to Granville Street instead and shared a Nutella and Banana crepe. yum!

Today, we saw Shannon Bahrke when we went to grab a coffee before leaving Vancouver.

It's nice to be home, but the trip was certainly a great experience.