OLYMPIC (mis)ADVENTURE - Tamar

Go Canada Go!

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The Olympics are finally here, and last Saturday we left, not bright and early, but cloudy and early, to find some Olympic excitement in Vancouver.

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Despite warnings by VANOC of hour-long line-ups for buses and sky trains, we enjoyed a sit-down ride on a nearly empty Canada Line to downtown Vancouver. It was nice to see the streets turned into sidewalks filled with lots of people - here there were definitely signs of something wonderful happening. I think everyone had the same purpose as we did, so we just followed the sea of red jackets past the Vancouver Convention Centre to the Olympic Flame. Everyone was as disappointed as we were to discover the Flame was burning brightly behind a six foot Olympic security fence, with one 3-foot wide space cut down enough so people could get a look-see.

The official reasoning is because the Flame is in the vicinity of the Conference Centre, which has become a tightly-secured Media Centre. I just believe they are afraid someone will go poof the fire out.

The next item on our agenda was to head for the Irish House, which is supposed to be the biggest party place in Vancouver. It already had made the headlines for all the noise it was producing, keeping residents awake all night long. So we headed up Granville Street, which was full of displays celebrating the Chinese New Year Festival, for a damp 25-minute walk.

Irish House is a humongous white tented structure, which was sprouting a line-up at 11am, so we joined the end around the corner. After waiting for about five minutes, we heard someone ahead explain, "There's a ten dollar cover charge, and you get a free drink ticket..."

Well, we certainly didn't mind the ten dollar charge, if we had known about it already. But since we went travelling with a debit card, a MasterCard, and about $25 in cash, and Olympic venues only accept Visa or cash, and we didn't want to spend all our cash money just to enter and not be able to buy anything to eat, we slipped out of line. Needless to say, neither of us were very happy, but since I had had nothing to eat all day, not even breakfast, I wasn't willing to spend eatin' money on two alcoholic drinks for my husband.

The day wasn't going real well up to this point - if daddy's not happy, nobody's happy - so we decided to head back to Richmond. As in,

"Well, what do you want to do now?"

"I don't care."

"F..k it, let's just go back home."

So, another non-crowded ride back to Richmond, where we dined on A&W at the Richmond Centre, then took a raindrop walk to the Ozone for a visit to the Heineken House at Minoru - after a stop at the bank to withdraw some cash (just in case.)

Joining the lineup to enter the Ozone, which is Richmond's Olympic Party Headquarters, we realized that big umbrellas, like the one Howard was using to keep dry, are banned from the premises, along with backpacks and weapons.

Needless to say, it was a silent bus ride home.

So our first Olympic adventure was but a learning experience. Next Saturday we're going to try again. Wish us luck.