Vancouver – Olympic countdown: 0 days !!!!
It’s finally here. Vancouver is suddenly in the midst of a giant Christmas-morning buzz, with people walking around with stupidgrins on their faces and talking in that higher-pitched, excited tone usually reserved for large groups of women at a sample sale. Even water cooler talk has gone from “can you believe what happened on Survivor last night?” to “Who’s going to officially light the Olympic cauldron tonight?” In six hours we’ll finally know for sure when the 2010 Olympic Opening Ceremonies get underway. And from the scuttlebutt, it’s going to be huge, with Bryan Adams, Celine Dion, Nelly Furtado and the Canadian Tenors, amongst others who’ve managed to elude the media thus far, and all the pomp and pageantry and showmanship we know and love.
Woke up this morning in time to see Arnold Swartzenegger (that well-known Canadian) wade through the masses of people on the Stanley Park Seawall on his leg of the torch relay. That torch has already done incredible things to unite us as a city and a country, with much larger crowds than expected turning out both to see it run past and also for the concerts and parties surrounding it every night. Yesterday it was really cool as it was running just blocks from my home and, later, just blocks from my work. One of my co workers hopped on the Canada Line Skytrain on her coffee break, saw the torch run past, and got back to work in time. Sweet.
The city already has an electricity that I’ve never felt before, and I think downtown Vancouver buzzes on a normal day. On Tuesday night, before anything had actually started, I was blown away at the vibe the city was giving off already. It felt like Christmas, with more Christmas lights out than there had been in December (I guess a lot of downtown businesses are lighting up to show their support, too) and the city just sparkled. Okay, so I’m a little biased, but I think we have one of the world’s prettiest cities anyway, but combine that with the festivities and it’s incredible. One of the exits of Pacific Center Mall has become a giant Igloo, complete with polar bear statues, and Robson Square is lit up like a rock concert with lighting and pyrotechnics highlighting it’s new ice skating rink and zipline. Man, I would love to do that zipline right through the heart of the city. I don’t think I’ll be able to, the lineups are supposed to be epic, but that would be so cool.
So cool. That pretty much sums it up. As of today, we’re officially an Olympic city forever, and the huge-ass party to end all huge-ass parties kicks off. I can’t wait. We all can’t.
GO CANADA!
Related posts:
OMG it starts tonight. Party time, thats for sure. GO CANADA GO is the chant for the next 17 days.