Day 5 (Feb 19)

We woke up with some time to chat with family, and then Dad, Scott, Carrie, Gabe and I took off to catch a curling match. We followed a giant crowd and made it into the Curling Center. We sat in the smallest seats I have ever sat in. All of us were touching shoulders and hips, but it was still very polite with the people in the same row. None of my group was well versed on every rule, but the people around us were very polite ot answer our questions. The Canadians love their curling. We were able to watch China vs. Denmark, US vs. Russia, and Great Britain vs. Germany. The three games went on at the same time and the crowd would cheer for all three sheets at once. It was fun.


Scott and Carrie left part way through to catch a bus up to Whistler to watch the Skeleton. As the games progressed, China defeated Denmark 11-1 in a shortened match. They ruled the ice. Great Britain defeated Germany with 3 points in the 9th end, and the US -Russia match came down to the last throw. The crowd erupted when it left the skip's hand.

Dad, Gabe and I returned home to pick up Mom and travel downtown. Daimon and Kirsten were traveling to the curling center to watch the Men's afternoon match. We traveled downtown and immediately noticed that the crowd was larger. We hadn't been downtown since Wednesday, and the crowd was twice as big. Each line was 10-15 people longer at least, but it still was polite.

We walked to the Native pavilion and listened to music and looked at art. We also watched some preliminary skeleton races. As we continued to walk downtown, we decided to go back toward the flame. We walked through the edge of Gastown and toward Robsen Square. On our way we found a "Green Living" type booth. It had games to help teach about energy conservation as well as a dance floor that was powered from the dancers, and a tent with comfortable reclining lawn chairs with a big screen.

We watched some skeleton and then decided to walk to the library and wait for Daimon and Kirsten to come downtown.
We found our way back to the library and found our way back to the pub we were at the on Monday. We had some drinks and appetizers to help us watch speed skating, and hockey on the screens. We met up with Daimon and Kirsten and we thought about moving toward a LiveCity place for another concert and night cap with fireworks.
We decided that it wasn't worth standing in line for hours and one had already started turning people away. We then walked to Gastown to find food. We wandered the streets and found some more olympic shops and shopped for a bit. We eventually found a great deli and watched some ice dancing as we ate.

We walked back toward the flame. From there we made our way back to the Green living place with the comfy chairs. As the TV switched from ice dancing to skeleton, we also played some of the games and won blinking lanyards.

Mom and Dad finally decided to go home. We stuck around downtown to find fireworks. We made our way to the water and found a brewery tent. We watched the end of the days curling matches on TV and tipped our glasses with the locals.
We all walked toward downtown to finish the night. We saw a few fireworks, but also were shoulder to shoulder in a giant sea of people. We decided to try and catch a bus, but waited for 40 minutes. We then decided to walk toward our house, and each stop was full of people. After an hour or so we finally found a taxi to hail. All others were packed. It was an incredible amount of people trying to get downtown to party with the crowd. We got home and packed for an early departure. We had to get back to Whistler for a cross country ski race.