Victory Ceremonies

One of the most moving parts of the Olympics was going to the Victory Ceremonies that they hold every night. They have two separate ceremonies one in Vancouver and one in Whistler that they hold at the same time and then patch together with TV so that both ceremony locations get to watch each other's presentation of medals. Dina and I went to two different Victory Ceremonies.

Each VC has a a different theme that was a specific province. Before the medals were presented and people were being seated, they had various entertainers from the province like dancers and drummers. They all had great costumes and put on a really splendid show. Most of the crowd was pretty indifferent since the main reason we were was not to be entertained. We were all there to stand proud and honor the athletes who had triumphed to the highest level of their sport that day.

The house favorites were clearly the canadian athletes and

the crowd was more than prepared

to sing along when 'O Canada' was being played. The entire stadium singing together in unison was so incredibly cool, I got chills from it. Maybe a few tears too. When the American anthem was sung, I sang along too, although more quietly, since it was more like a solo (not a lot of Team USA choir members out there). Getting to see the happiness on the athletes faces and the pride on the fans faces was so moving.

After the medals, they had a small concert that featured a bigger named singer. The first night we got to see Nelly Fertado, the second one was a country singer whom I'm not familiar with. This portion of the VC was kinda lame. The stage was pretty far away and only the VIP guests got to dance in front of the stage. Most people were not impressed and the crowd pretty much emptied out of the stadium after that. Dina and felt it was kinda lame and left early as well. Whistler for sure seemed to have the better VC, that one was outside and had everyone as part of the crowd and it seemed like a big party. Ski town are like that. We weren't too disappointed though, we had come for the medals and and emotion.

The Olympic Flame

There was a lot in the news about the Olympic Flame. About how during the Opening Ceremony the 4th leg didn't go up, how the real one was behind an ugly chain-link fence, only VIPs were allowed in the area immediately near it, it was elitist, the fence was far away from the flame, etc. I guess the idea behind the fence was that it was there to keep out protesters, terrorists, and everyday hooligans. Unfortunately, it also then kept out The People and the People were not happy. It was a sore spot for the city and they were struggling to fix the problem. First, they moved the fence a lot closer to the flame. Second made a small gap in the fence so that people could at least take a picture without the fencing.

Then they opened up a rooftop viewing platform so that you could get a picture with it and not have the fence in it at all. Finally they replaced the lower level of the fence with plexiglass, so that the kids could see and you could get a good picture without having to stand in line for the rooftop view.

Dina and I waited till they had the platform up and running to go see the flame and we were lucky once again that when we got there it was an acceptable wait time of half and hour (at various times during the week, it was said some people had to wait up to 2 hours). It was definitely worth the wait! The Olympic flame was just beautiful!

The View from Above

When you are going back and forth on buses to venues, you get to meet all sorts of interesting people from all over the place. I met a group of Czech-Canadian locals who on the bus back from Whistler who were great tour guides and pointed out islands and landmarks that we passed coming down from the mountains (the trip to and from Whistler is incredibly beautiful with mountains, fjords, and islands). They also gave us some tips on things to see and do while we were out and about the city. They highly recommended going up in one of the float planes that take off from Coal Harbor for an aerial tour of the city. Dina and I figured it was probably a long shot to try to get a seat on one of those tours, but figured one of the other afternoons if we got back early enough from an event we'd look into it.

I am so glad they recommended the planes! Dina and I got back from Cypress mountain on Saturday afternoon and the entire city of Vancouver was out and about enjoying the sunshine and the Olympic spirit that had infected just about everyone. It was incredibly crowded on the streets near the Olympic Flame and the Canada Place, so to escape Dina and I decided to go check out the waterfront. The float planes were right there so we hiked down to the small office that was on the dock next to the float planes. There were no crowds and no lines there so we figured we probably needed reservations, but thought we'd go ask for the availability of a small tour.

They had room on the very next flight and we only had to wait 10 minutes till it was time to board! We felt so lucky to have eluded the crowds and finally gotten to do some non-Olympic related sight-seeing. I was extra lucky and got to ride in the front seat of the airplane next to the pilot!

The views from above were amazing! Vancouver is such a beautiful city and the surrounding mountains and inlets compliment the glass skyscrapers. If you had those views you'd want to see it all the time too!

Foodies in Vancouver

Going to so to many Olympic events leaves you with very little time for the other very important activities that are going on in the city of Vancouver such as sight-seeing, shopping, eating, and partying. Dina and I had very little time in between our events, in fact we were so busy we had to have our entire schedule displayed on a color coded spreadsheet so we would go to the right place at the right time. The efficiency of our time was actually very impressive in itself. There were a few night we got back from our event at like 10pm, went straight to dinner, then had to get home around midnight to sleep so we could greet the sun at 5am in order to get on the next bus. It was pretty hectic. Luckily, Dina and I were both of the philosophy that you can sleep when you are dead (or on the bus). Dina was used to walking everywhere since he recently had been hiking the Pacific Crest trail, I was fine as long as I had gotten enough food in me.

The city of Vancouver has amazing food. They have a huge asian population from an array of countries, so the variety of traditional and fusion foods is phenomenal. Some people have argued that its the best in the world (even better than their country of origin). Dina and I had some of the greatest Thai food I've ever eaten while on our trip. On our first day in the city we ate at Charm Modern Thai in Yaletown (the hip section of town where all the good bars and urban are), they had a great lunch plate that included crispy prawn wantons and Tom Yum Soup with your entree at a great price. Later in the week we ate at Thai House in North Vancouver which was ranked in the restaurant magazine at the condo as the top rated traditional Thai food in Vancouver. I was told by locals that the Indian food in the city was equally fantastic.

Dina and I also ate at one sort of fancy place in Yaletown for lunch that was recommended to us by our hosts Ken and Nancy, Capones Restaurant and Live Jazz Club. The food here was just as fun to eat as it was to look at. Dina is a Salmon fanatic and had to have that dish while I had the Pan Seared Halibut with haricots verts, enoki cream, fresh herb oil, butter poached potato, and almond brittle, it was really filling and the beans were cooked just perfect I love a good blanched green bean!)

Gastown is another fun section of town that we walked through and shopped on the way back to the condo after an event. The historic old gas light section of the city has the original romantic old buildings and cobblestone streets. The shops are filled with the works of local artists and the crowd here is definitely more laid back. Dina and I ate at Pourhouse, the 1920s styled classy bar and restaurant. I had a great espresso braised beef shortrib that was served with purred carrots and browned sweet potatoes (notice this is the second restaurant to call things that are fried as 'crispy' or 'browned', it must be the new trend to pretend things aren't fried). This section of town was also where we found a huge collection of Olympic pins and clothing that didn't require us to go to the insanely busy Olympics superstore located inside the downtown Hudson Bay department store. The Bay was originally only open till 10pm, then midnight, and by the end of the week they had given up and decided to stay open 24 hours a day since at night the line outside the door was over an hour long.

When Dina and I got out of an event pretty late in the evening, the place we went to was the Yaletown Brewery. They have a large bar section as well as a huge restaurant section that has a full late night kitchen open. I usually don't go to the same place twice, but the timing and needing 'real food' instead of the frozen pizza and assorted fruit and granola bars we had at the condo had us go out there. They have a great potatoe wedge appetizer that had sourcream, onion dip mixed with very large bacon chunks. Mmmmmm, bacon. Dina said the locally brewed beer was pretty good as well.

Several times on the way back to the condo we got to walk through the city's Chinatown. This area had a beautiful chinese gate at the beginning of the area and a few blocks up there were lively chinese restaurants and markets as well as the street had the dual english/chinese character names on the signs. We ate at a place recommended by Yelp called Goldenstone Bakery and Restaurant. They had this great BBQ pork sweet bun that I had as we waited for our meal to arrive before we had out quickly for another event. Dina's rice noodle with veggies, chicken, and pineapple hit the spot before we had to run.

All of the Ethnic Houses and Pavillions had great food. Some of the food was pretty typical/not very exciting, but very delicious after you have been walking around and waiting in line to get in. Dina enjoyed the the brats while I ate a very decent blueberry strudel at the German fan house.

The best pavilion food I felt was at the Swiss House.

Instead of the usual tent, the Swiss had rented an actual restaurant on Granville Island called 'Bridges', so they had a leg up. We had a giant pot of Kasefondu (swiss cheese fondue) and crusty bread that I devoured the night we partied out there. It was so good! The Swiss know something about cheese!

If you are a serious foodie, you should definitely think about heading out to Vancouver. Dina and I didn't even begin to eat since we ate so much of the time at the venues, but the food we did get to try was worth the wait!

Day 10: Ladies Aerials

On Saturday the gorgeous sunny weather continued and we headed out for another day of enjoying the sun and warm weather at Cypress Mountain. We had general admission/standing room tickets for this event and were lucky that they weren't cancelled due to the warm conditions and the slushy snow. Some previous events held at Cypress Mountain had to have their general admission tickets cancelled due to the safety issues of deep slushy snow and possibly shifting hay bales, so we were quite fortunate.

Public Service Announcement: if you have a Baby, and you

choose to bring them and their enormous stroller, which will inevitably get stuck in the said foot deep slushy snow, and the baby will inevitably be surrounded by loud cheering fans with cowbells at the event, you are not not allowed to complain. Mountain events occur in the snow, not on the sidewalk outside your house. You are an idiot. Leave the Baby at home. Public Service Announcement is now over.

This day I decided to mix it up and have clam chowder with my sausage and o.j. for breakfast. The clam chowder was really quite good. I have actually been really impressed with the Olympic food fare at all the venues. Even though I have talked mainly about the junk food I had for breakfast, they did have healthy options at the venues such as bran and carrot muffins as wells as fresh fruit cups and fat-free yogurt. . . . I was the typical tourist and choose the fun food. . . . .With all the walking and dancing and the fact that it was vacation, I figured that calories don't count at the Olympics.

The Aerials is probably the least traditional Winter Olympic

event. While we waited for the jumping to start we learned a little about some of the history and the athletes. It's part of the freestyle skiing discipline like skiercross and moguls, where its not only about time, its more about getting big air and doing tricks. Most of the athletes in this particular portion aren't real skiers, they are ex-gymnasts, and a few of them don't even like winter (isn't it sacrilegious to be in the Winter Olympics and not like winter?!) I am completely amazed that people can possibly do multiple flips and rotations and land perfectly on the 25° slope, while wearing giant skis.

The ladies in this qualification round were all really solid. There were very few falls or even hand touches on the ground when they landed. Dina was very impressed, he had been a bit disappointed by all the falls in the halfpipe event, so he was happy to see clean runs and big scores. The Americans and Canadians aren't big leaders in this sport, so I had to find a new person to cheer for. My favorite turned out to be Alla Tsuper from the Ukraine but representing Belarus. I loved her for two reasons, first her name -it has the word 'Super' in it; how fun is that? And the second reason was that she lived up to the name, she was a super great jumper! She ended up receiving the top qualification score and was the leader going into the finals that are to be held a few day later (Dina and I were bummed it wasn't an all day event like snowboarding and moguls were, but I guess they need to spread out the wealth for the spectators).

The finals should be a great show to watch since everyone is jumping so strongly; hopefully the ladies keep up the confidence! Go Tsuper!

Day 9: Super-G!

On Friday we had yet another early morning of getting on the bus, this time we were headed further north to the Whistler Creekside for some Men's Super-G action. This was the one big ticket event Dina really wanted to see that we weren't able to get through the ticket lotto system. So we bought these tickets (along with the half-pipe) through the scalper site Stubhub (or as they put it, 'where fans buy and sell tickets'. . . . right. . . . .) We had stadium seats for this event so we had a great place in the centre of the stands to relax and enjoy the gorgeous alpine scenery of the Whistler resort while basking in the sunshine that warmed the fans from the chilly night. I started the morning off in my snowboard pants and jacket and by the beginning of the race I was down to my turtleneck and Dina was down to a T-shirt. That morning I felt like it was a sausage and o.j. morning with side of twix, I'm starting to get used to this ridiculous junk food breakfast! Luckily with the amount of walking Dina and I have been doing, I haven't been very concerned. I love cold weather and how you can eat a ton :)

The Men's Super-G, which stands for Super Giant Slalom is one of my favorite events in the alpine series. It's the combo of speed and gates. When I was a racer in high school I loved racing the Giant Slalom, but for whatever reason I was better at the regular slalom. I would have loved to have this event in the high school series (I'm guessing that we didn't have enough 'mountain' at Mt. Brighton to stage such a race).

When I was a kid, one of my ski heros was the italian, Alberto Tomba, who whenever he raced, it the crowds went wild and it was known as 'Tomba Time'. There must have been some sort of human interest story about him, since his name sticks in my memory so vividly. I believe it showed him partying, skiing, a little motorcycling, and basically whatever else he wanted. Even as a kid that ski bum lifestyle spoke to me. . . . . . . .

I also have great memories of Tommy Moe and Picaboo Street at the Lillehammer games who really influenced my ski race efforts in high school. There is something about alpine racing that really brings out the competitor in me; there are days even today when I go skiing that I just get the itch to do some gates. I'll usually beg whoever is skiing with me to go do the little NASTAR race course at whatever hill I'm at just so I can get my racing fix. One of my great everyday dreams is to live near a ski area again and race in a wednesday night beer league (aka: race some gates, then go back to the chalet and eat and drink and talk about how awesome you were that day on the hill). Watching the athletes do the course inspection really made me want to race.

Since Dina and I got to the race a bit early, we had plenty of time to do the spectator

sport of people watching. The clear fans (other than the Canadians), were the the Swiss, who had a strong showing that included a group that carried giant bells complete with bell supporting lederhosen harnesses. When they rang the bells they had to rock their entire body and the bells created a really different sort of drone clanging noise that was very distinct. You could really tell when a Swiss skier was on the course. Another strange fan was this crazy women who was dressed as a goat woman? Apparently she as some sort of animal interpretive dancer, very weird (but oddly I think I've seen her at some other sport event I've been to. . . . )

The race itself started with the commentators talking about two sections of the course called the 'Toilet bowl' and 'the Weasel'. The toilet bowl came first and had the skiers pick up some speed and it seemed to really toss the skiers around. It then fed into the Weasel section which was a hard turn to make if you weren't is perfect control coming out of the bowl. A lot of skiers lost their chance of a completing the course let alone going for a medal. An early time was set by the American skier Andrew Weibrecht, which wasn't touched until the 'reformed bad boy' as he is now known, Bode Miller came down the mountain and edged him out for the top position. At this point it was a wait-and-see period for Team USA to see if the rapidly warming snow would allow anyone else to go faster. And the the big Norwegian, Aksel Lund Svindal took the lead by 0.28 seconds. The Norway fans went crazy as the time held for the Gold and the Swiss fans (the event favorites) had to endure the disappointment of being shut out of a medal by the Americans.

About 10 skiers after Aksel, there was an unusual accident at the very bottom of the course (most competitors if they went out did so in the Toilet bowl or Weasel) with a Swedish skier and the course had to be shut down for about 45 minutes. During that time, the course warmed up and all the slightly soft spots at the top and the entire bottom of the course seemed to melt and become fat-kid slush snow. Everyone who went after the accident didn't have a chance on the spring snow conditions that plagued the course. The leaders were sent to hang out in the athletes' tent to wait for the others to run the course. There was no fear of an overtaker as the times climbed at the temperature did.

Dina and I stayed for all 64 racers and decided to stick around for the flower ceremony even as other fans started to leave. Canadian medal hopeful Erik Guay was 4th, so the Canadian fans were a bit disappointed. I was happy for my boy Bode and the little known Weibrecht. As we were leaving we walked around a bit and I happened to be in the right spot at the right time to get a chance to get a picture of the Champion Askel Lund Svindal. Right at that moment I decided I had a new boyfriend. I mean seriously, look at how cute and tall he is!

Downhill skiing events are one of those things that I think is almost better to watch at home than at the event. While in the stands we only saw the last 5 turns of the race, most of which was an easy tuck home. The rest of the time we watched a big screen that showed the upper parts. Dina speculated that we should have just gotten ski passes for the mountain and tried to watch somewhere along the top of the course where you could see the difficult Weasel or Toilet bowl portions and then been able to ski the rest of the day since we were up there. I had to agree, although how would I have gotten to sit in the sun and eat junkfood all day? Skiing Whistler myself will have to wait for another day and another adventure. When can I get back there? I want to be like Aksel :)

Day 8: Ladies Half-Pipe Throwdown!

On Thursday I got to go to the sport that is a more recent passion of mine: Snowboarding. I have no ‘when I-was-a-kid-I-dreamed-of-being-a-snowboarder’ type story for this one, mainly because when I was quite young, the sport didn’t exist in the mainstream. One Christmas my parents had gotten us kids one of the early snowboards that resembled more of a mono-ski with a tip in front (no metal edges) than anything like what you see in today’s modern boards. I think it was mainly used as a makeshift sled when all the other better sleds were in use.

My little sister Katriina (Triina) was the first one to reject the amped out ski race

culture that I was all about and give the more laid-back and chill sport a try. Triina is the one who got the passion of the board in me. I was back from college for the holidays and was helping her make an elephant piñata for her high school Spanish class. Triina had made plans to go snowboard that night, but was not done with her project as she had hoped and her friends came to the house trying to persuade her to come out. My mom, who knew the value that the piñata had on Triina’s Spanish grade, insisted that she stay home and finish the pachyderm instead of going out. She was however willing to compromise; she sent me with them as a substitute. Triina’s friends taught me to board that night and I’ve been hooked ever since.

I’m not much of a rider, that is Triina’s domain, and I don’t have the free-ride passion for doing steeps or back-country riding like I do for skiing. My snowboard focus is the Half-pipe. I just love the thought of doing jumps and spins while going down the mountain pipe. If I were a kid today, that is where you could find me on the hill. (FYI, Best kiddie half-pipe to learn on? Crested Butte, CO)

So when it came time for Dina and I to put ticket requests in the lottery rounds, it was my number one pick: Ladies Half-pipe. This also happened to be just about everyone else’s top pick too, as we lost every round of the ticket lottery and didn’t get any in our attempts. This was one of the few big ticket items I was ready to pay the scalper fees to go see.

The Thursday morning that we went out to Cypress

Mountain was a sunny glorious morning with clear skies. All fears of the warm weather that had been plaguing some of the other events were put to rest; the clear skies meant the night had been cold and the pipe was solid. Dina and I had a late night over at the Swiss house, so he was in rough shape and I went ahead of him to the event. I had my now usual pizza and o.j. breakfast and just relaxed as I watched the girls take their practice rounds before the start of the qualification round.

Our seats were worth every penny of the scalper price. We were almost directly center and right next to the reserved seats that were for the athlete’s families (Team Bleiler was right across from us). And the Ladies? They were amazing! This was my first time seeing a half-pipe competition in real life and was amazed how high they got up in the air for all the jumps.

The qualification round was by far the best part of the competition. All the girls did amazing routines that contained a collection of frontsides and backsides and grabs and crazy rotations with numbers going well into 2-3 revolutions. I was so pumped up! I felt just like a little kid and I wanted so bad to get out there and try some myself! The qualification round had the top ladies that I was cheering for: Kelly Clark, Hannah Teeter, Gretchen Bleiler, and Torah Bright all in the top five. Those girls went straight to the Finals while the remaining ones had to fight it out for the remaining 6 spots that

would be decided in the semi-finals. It was literally an entire day dedicated to the half-pipe.

The semi-finals had the Canadian’s hometown girl, Nicole Mercedes

boarding that kept the fans pretty happy. In addition to Team Bleiler, there were quite a few American fans out there to support our ladies as well as Torah Bright’s whole family that came to support here. It was so fun being so close to the families and see all their banners, and flag, and bibs, that they had to support their athlete.

The Finals were the only slightly disappointing part of the competition. It seemed like the excitement of the Olympics got to everyone and there were a lot of falls. I love the fact that so many of the girls were going all out and

going big, but when you fall, it knocks you out of the running for any of the medals. It’s the catch-22 of the sport. Go big and possibly fall or play it safe and go home with a medal since everyone else fell. . . . . . Dina was more upset about the falls than I was, but that is part of the philosophy of snowboarding that I love. Snowboarding is a throwdown. Its not about the medals, its about going out and spitting out the biggest, sickest, most gnarly run possibly and hope it pans out. Sometimes you go big and lose it like Gretchen Bleiler did. And sometimes you hit it perfect like Torah Bright. She brought out all her best tricks and came down a Champion. I love a good throwdown! Congrats to the Aussies! Oy! Oy! Oy!