UltraJulia

Aha! I discovered my picture problem, so now I’ll be uploading photos from the Olympic adventure. I’ll be inserting a few into my previous Olympic posts, as well as creating a few new ones, so come back in a few days and check out the pictures!

Smile # 1

Not only did we manage to snag two sets of ladies ice hockey gold medal hockey tickets (that’s 6 tickets if you’re counting), but we also got a men’s ice hockey quarterfinal game. That wasn’t too promising for us to see Canada play until Canada won vs Switzerland in a shootout. And then they lost against the US. Which meant that Canada had to play an extra playoff qualification game…against Germany. If they won, they were into the quarterfinals against Russia. The TV powers-that-be decided to move the game for us to the session we had tickets for.

Yes, you heard that right. We get to see Canada vs Russia in the quarterfinals!! And our seats are really good too, in the lower bowl. Can’t wait! Don’t know if my voice can take it though, as it’s hanging on by a thread. I’m going to have to go out and buy one of those cowbells that are all over the place because I won’t be able to talk in a few hours.

Smile #2

Last night we had Victory Ceremony tickets, and we weren’t terribly enthused as it didn’t look like we’d get to see any good ceremonies based on the schedule (plus the concert was put on by Billy Talent, which I’m not that big a fan of). BUT, for once, Ben Mulroney actually said something good as he & Tamara McNamara “warmed” up the crowd: “So are you excited to see Ashleigh McIvor get her gold medal tonight?” Yes, you read that correctly, we got to see Ashleigh McIvor get her gold medal for women’s ski cross. The inaugural ski cross gold medal. Very, very cool. The crowd went berzerk, we were all cheering for her as she walked up to the podium, as she got her medal & flowers, and then the coolest moment, the raising of the flags. I have never been as excited and proud as I was last night. I had chills running up and down my spine as I saw that maple leaf go up in that top position. Very, very cool.

Time for me to sign off now, as we’ve got to get ready for Canada / Russia this afternoon. Gotta get my face paint on.

Week 2 at the Vancouver Winter Olympics has officially started, and we`re still having fun! (Unfortunately I`m having difficulty uploading photos so I can`t show you all the fun, but once I figure it out I`ll add them all in.)

We`ve seen a ton of men`s and women`s curling, which has been great. I can`t believe how rowdy Canadian curling fans are! There`s chanting and stomping and tons of cowbell ringing. At one point the Canadian second had to stop his routine because the crowd was singing and chanting so loudly. Teams have had to start using hand signals because they can`t hear each other talk during the game. They`re also not used to playing in front of that many people, so it`s hard for them to adjust. And the crowds aren`t just chanting for the Canadians either. At one point yesterday we were chanting for Denmark, then Switzerland, then Great Britain, and finally Japan. We`re equal opportunity cheerers.

Last night was our first figure skating event, the ice dance Original Dance. It was a lot of fun to watch live, as I`ve never seen a figure skating competition live. The American`s Bollywood routine was pretty cool, there were a few country and western routines, and the Canadian couples did Spanish Flamencos. Very, very cool. And the Canadian couple of Moir & Virtue are in first place going into the free dance tonight! Can`t wait to see what happens then.

The trip up to Whistler last week for the cross-country individual classic sprint was good too. We had to get up at an ungodly hour to catch the bus, but it only took us about 2 hours to get there, and then we were walking in the snow and forest. Nice and serene. We had to walk 1.2kms to get there, which we thought was going to be long, but it turned out to be okay. As the weather was nice and sunny, the walk wasn`t so bad. (It was about -2C on the way in, +4C on the way out). We had standing room tickets, so we were able to scope out a great spot to stand at, on the final bend of the race into the finish line. And since it was the sprint, the races only took about 2 or 3 minutes to complete. We were able to watch all the men`s and women`s qualifying, and then the women`s quarter finals too. Unfortunately we had to leave early if we wanted to make it back to Vancouver to watch the short-track speed skating, so we didn`t get to see the end, which was apparently quite exciting for the men (there was a sprint for the gold).

All in all we`re having fun, enjoying the city and the Olympics. Next up is some aerials, more curling and lots of hockey.

On Tuesday night we headed out to a Victory Ceremony where we saw Mike Robertson get his silver medal from the snowboard cross. That was awesome. The Victory Ceremonies are pretty good because each one is dedicated to a province or territory, so they do a cultural show beforehand, then the medals are presented, then there`s a concert afterwards. And they do medal presentations in Whistler as well, and show them up on the screen in the Vancouver venue, which is also nice. We saw 5 medal presentations, which meant a lot of standing up and down as the anthems were played.

We also happened to catch Maelle Ricker`s gold medal run in the women`s snowboard cross too, as we walked around Gastown taking in the sights. We watched through the window of a pub, gathering quite a crowd with us too. So exciting.

Wednesday night was even more special as we actually saw a Canadian win a medal live, at the short-track speedskating. That was exciting, and we found out that it was Marianne St-Gelais` birthday too, so she got a silver medal on her birthday, which is a great present. There was a group of Brits near us who apparently were relatives of one of the British men relay skaters, and he came up to visit them after his race. That was nice. And THEN, there was a group of Italians who were cheering on Arianna Fontana, the bronze medalist in Marianne`s race. It seemed like they actually knew her, as they were going crazy during the race, and then afterwards they even called Italy to let everyone know (which was crazy because it was about 18:30 here in Vancouver, which means it was well into the middle of the night in Italy, but an Olympic medal is pretty exciting–I know I`d want to be woken up if a friend or relative of mine one, that`s for sure.)

If you have an Olympic event ticket here in Vancouver it entitles you to free transit rides for the day of your event (to 4am the day after your event, actually), which is nice. As we’ve got tickets for every day of the Olympics, this means we don’t ever have to pay for transit in the city. Woo!

Since we are taking transit this means that we’re at the mercy of the Vancouver TransLink scheduling, which was a pain on Sunday, but has been good otherwise. The Olympic Spectator Guide suggests bus or subway routes to get to the events, and on our first one it seemed like all 5,000 people going to the hockey game at the same time, so what should have taken us only 75 minutes ended up taking more than 2.5 hours. Ugh. But after that day we started taking the alternate routes to the events and things have been going well.