Vancouver 2010 #1

I've been procrastinating on doing this blog entry because there are some pictures on my parents camera that I wanted to include. I have lots here though so I'll just write it with what i have. Monday, February 22nd I skipped Dance and Mom, Dad and I took the sky train in to Vancouver so we could soak up some Olympic atmosphere. Our first stop was at the cauldron. It was beautiful at night. The line to go up on the viewing platform was only about 25 minutes so we waited and enjoyed the view out across the water.

From there we popped in to Canada Place and got up close to to Sails which have Olympic images projected on to them. Very cool. Speaking of cool, it wasn't. Cool that is. It was actually really mild. Warm you might say. Yes I was wearing a winter coat and scarf but I had my Olympic mittens with me but it was too warm to wear them! It was dry that evening which was a bonus. It was quite a lovely evening weather wise.
We didn't really have a game plan on what we wanted to see as none of us had made it to the city before this night. We wandered up Granville Street because it was pedestrian only and quite well lit. We found the Canadian Mint Pavillion and enquired about the wait. It turned out that the line to see the medals had been closed off hours ago but the line to see the rest of the exhibits in the pavilion was only ten minutes so we queued up. It was really interesting in there! There was a real gold bar, a million dollar coin, brand new Olympic quarters that you could buy for 25 cents and more information about coins and the minting process than I could really properly take in. The picture of me is supposed to look like I'm standing on a big pile of coins :)

We continued up Granville taking in the sights and sounds. We stopped in at the Sleep Country store because they had lots of Olympic stuff on sale. I got to pose with these mascots as well :)

All the pictures in the world can't capture what it was really like to be in Vancouver during the Olympics. The whole city was charged with excitement. We were walking down the street when one of the gold medals was won. It was really easy to tell it had happened. Everyone was cheering.

I had met Mom & Dad right after work and we went directly into Vancouver so I didn't really have dinner. We popped in to Earls later in the evening and had some appetizers. When we came out the nightly show at Robson Square was in progress. I didn't get a really good view but we did get to see the fireworks which only added to the excitement.

This picture is kind of dark but it's the best one I have that shows both the cherry blossoms on the trees and the artwork on the Vancouver Art Gallery. Someone forgot to tell Mother Nature that it was the WINTER Olympics and instead she chose to decorate the city for spring and give gorgeous weather so the world knows why we love living here LOL

That's about it for my first time in. I'll add more soon.