Final Day at the Olympics

We woke up early and checked out of the house we were staying at. We drove all the cars down to the Tech college to board buses to get up to Whistler. We only had 2 prepaid parking passes, so I rode with my brother Scott and parked in the residential area near the college. When we all met up, I had left my bus ticket in the car. Scott and I ran(literally) back to the car, and decided to try and park without a parking pass. It was no problem. We all got on the bus and rode to Whistler. We had tickets for the men's 30 km race. Half of the race was to be classic style the other half is free style.

As we walked through the gates, there was a group from Sweden in front of us that all went through but one man. His ticket did not check out. The ticket taker told him that the ticket purchased was for an event held in the next couple of days. The supervisor came over, and let the man join his party for the event. Man, I love Canadians.



We walked into the venue, welcomed by sunshine and a crowd. We found a spot on a slope overlooking the stadium.

We put our coats on the snow to sit on, and got comfortable. Scott and Daimon found that there were trails to get to other parts of the course. It took a while to get to the other side, and you had to cross a few bridges, but you had a different view of the race, right near the racers.

As the race began, Carrie, Scott and myself ran to the other end to watch the skiers. I returned after watching the skiers go by once. We all exchanged turns moving from the stadium to the other part of the course.



The race was incredible, but so was the weather. We watched the Swedish team finish first.The crowd was incredibly pleasant, and people were sliding down the slope with giant smiles on their faces. On our exit, a group of Swiss fans had brought the large alpine horns you see in Ricola commercials. We stuck around for a bit, had our photo taken and had an impromptu dance party on the snow.

The bus ride home was quiet except for a few hockey fans listening to a radio and cheering every once in a while. When we returned to the cars, we decided to meet up in Washington for dinner and part ways there. The border crossing was uneventful and we met up for a decent dining experience. That night Scott and Carrie took off for Montana while the rest of us stayed near Sea-Tac airport. I drove home by myself the next day after saying my goodbyes.

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.

Day 4 (Feb 18)

We woke up extremely early to drive to BCIT campus to catch a bus to the Biathlon Venue on Whistler. We drove across town in the dark of morning, with little traffic. It was nice to be crowd free for a bit. We got to the buses, and they gave out free coffee and hot chocolate in the parking lot. The bus ride was nice, and we got to watch the sun rise over the islands of the west coast. The riders mostly slept, read, and were in awe of the scenery.
We got off the bus and had to walk about a half mile up to the actual ski venue. The walk was nice, and they had a snow sculpture and bathrooms about halfway up. As we approached, it was obvious that Scandinavia enjoys their x-country skiing. There were tons of Norwegian flags. We found a place on the hill overlooking the stadium and stood behind a french crowd for the first race, the women's 15km individual.
We watched the race from our spot on the hill, as well as from a trail along the last corner.
Each skier started 30 seconds after the next. They would ski 5 km and then come in and take 5 shots. If they missed their targets, they lost one minute on their time.
We watched a skier from Norway run away with the race. The crowd was fun. There were German's with old army helmets, robes, mustaches, and eagles. There was a French man with a trumpet who had a suit made out of feathers. It was great.
Between the races, there was a musician on the hill singing, and our group went into a warming tent to eat our lunch. About an hour later, the Men's race started. Again, the Norwegians were the team to beat. Bjoerndalen, the godfather of biathlon, skied the race 2 minutes faster than any other but missed two shots. A man from Belarus did not miss a shot and was tied for first at the halfway point of his last lap and crossed the line tied for silver with Bjoerndalen. Norwegians went for gold and silver. It was pretty incredible to see the crowd shirtless and cheering for their country.

The bus ride home, I am pretty sure everyone slept. We got back to the cars and drove home. We met my brother and his wife who had arrived at 3am the night before. They went downtown during the day and described the crowds and lines. We then had our Christmas. Not all of us were together for the holiday, so we exchanged gifts and ate a great lasagna dinner. We watched the results from the day and enjoyed some family time.

Day 3 (Feb 17)

Day three started with me and my sister getting up really early to get on a bus to catch a train to stand in line for Stephen T. Colbert. As we approached the stage, we saw that a line had started to form from the stage, going along the sidewalk to the science center. It did not appear that there were any barriers, but we were looking from above in the skytrain.
When we exited, we saw a couple of bobwheelers (bobsled on wheels)

and quite a few other characters. Our view of the stage at this point was obstructed by a hill. We were standing right in front of Science world, and the police asked us to be the corner as the line wrapped back around. We were, at the time, the furthest from the stage. As we arrived at our place in line, we stood for a bit and started chatting with the group around us. They had friends go off and get coffee as we shared stories of Colbert and discussed politics of Canada as well as USA. The coffee came back, and two of our new acquaintances decided to take a walk.

They returned after we had been standing in line for about 45 minutes and they announced that they were unsure WHY we were standing in line. There were no barriers, and seemingly, no organizers keeping order.

They were "just being good Canadians and creating order." They told us they would hold our place in line if we wanted to walk. Gabe and I walked to the top of the hill and noticed that there were maybe 3 volunteers, and no barriers. We went back to the line, but decided as a group that we would try and get closer.

As we stood on the hill, we saw a group dressed as polar bears with an anti-global warming message.

We decided that we should get a photo, and we moved closer to the stage. After we took our photo, we realized there was a crowd (25 people) around us. As we stood there, a guy on a bike asked if there was a reason we weren't closer. he then rode his bike to meet with volunteers in charge. They simply asked us to stay off the field. He rode back to a certain point, but stopped right below the hill. We all moved up to be near him.
A man then got on his cell phone and told his friend, "we are having a weird red-light, green-light game going with the volunteers." As they turned their backs we moved forward slightly, and then stop. AS we stood there, a truck pulled up and the volunteers began to unload traffic gates. They then set them up against the line on the sidewalk. I don't think it would happen in the US to see the barriers being put up after the lovely line formed.
Eventually a woman came over and announced to no one in particular, that "would you please get off the field, there is a line over there." The same man on the cell phone called his friend. "A woman came over and politely told us to get off the field, we were too polite to move, and she was too polite to tell us again." In about 10 more minutes, they opened the front of the line, and my sister and I ran to the front of the stage!!!

We were front row. We then stood there for 45 minutes getting to know the people around us. We got to watch the crew finish setting up the stage and watched a video about Stephen's ride to the olympics.

We then watched Michael Buble', Mike Eruzione, and Bob Costas be interviewed. I was the only USA chat starter in the crowd. During the Bob Costas interview you can hear my voice when Stephen asks if he is impartial or not. Pretty exciting.


We watched filming from 10 - 11:30. We then walked back to downtown and met up with the family. We ate sandwiches agian and then I went with Daimon and Kirsten to Granville Island, and my sister went with our parents to Stanley Park.

Granville Island is a small area that has a public market, and lots of specialty shops. During the olympics, there were lots of tents with food and drink and information. We wandered around and found a lot of different types of art. There was a crazy mime through a window, two welders dancing, an art studio in operation, and murals.

We walked around and shopped, found food, and listened to some music. We also found some tvs to watch the days events with a beer in our hand.

As the sun went down, we found our bus and went home. We had an early morning to catch a bus to the biathlon venue.

Day 2 (Feb 16)

We started the day a little later then the first. We had tickets for a Finland-China women's hockey match in the evening. We decided our first stop should be the olympic store. The line had been rumored at being over 2 hours in the afternoon. We figured we could get there early enough to beat that rush. We stood in line for about 1 hour. Right about the time we were thinking we were at a standstill, my sister got out of line for a coffee. Almost as soon as she left, we were let in. We then watched her walk to the door and walk in, in front of all the patient shoppers in line. We stayed in the official store for about an hour and a half. We were also impressed at how quickly the store pumped people through the checkout line. All of the people in the store were polite as well. It was a different shopping experience.
When we finished shopping and headed toward the hockey stadium and the Saskatchewan pavilion. We looked for a bathroom and the nearest out of our sky train stop was in a mall in china town. The mall had a stage set up for Chinese new year, and we sat nearby and ate a quiet lunch.

We then headed outside to beautiful sunlight. We walked right by the hockey stadium just as a Canadian game was ready to be let in. The crowd was impressive. We then walked around the stadium and landed near Science World. They changed the Science world into Sochi world for the next Olympic games in Russia. We walked into the Saskatchewan tent and found a tv showing the games.

We watched the female snowboard cross in the tent. It was fun again to watch in a crowd. We then walked into the food and music tent. We weren't too impressed, but I did get my photo with some mounties.

As we exited, we saw the flags of the olympic village.

The security was pretty tight. They put up apartments for the athletes for the games, and they will sell to people after the games. We then found the stage where Colbert was filming the next morning. We then made our way to the train station and made our way out of downtown, back toward the University. We got on a bus and headed to the hockey game. As we approached the stadium, the crowd buzzed. We had to exit the bus a few block from the venue and walked. There were great volunteers the entire walk to tell us where to go.

We all had tickets but we were not sitting in the same places. I was in the highest seat on the edge of the side of the rink. I was sat next to a group of college students who came from Toronto for the game. They were great fans. They had their beers, they picked their teams and only yelled encouragement. In the US, if we had a drunk baseball crowd, I would only expect negative yelling and jeers at the ref or the players that do not play up to expectations. These guys( and girl) were true hockey fans and only cheered for a good game.
We watched Finland own the puck. They put 43 shots on goal to China's 5 for the game, but the score was 2-1. It was fun.

We then headed home. My brother, his wife and I decided to try and find a bar and watch some highlights. We found a nice little pub with a great burger and brew special. We ate and laughed until closing. I then headed home for an early morning getting ready for Colbert.