The Scope

It’s all over

The games are done. I’m on the way home now and since I followed the 5-4-3-2-1 rule (I particularly enjoy #2), I have a couple of hours to kill before my flight. Amazingly, the only place I came across without a line in Vancouver was the airport security screening. Go figure. Anyway, this is the perfect time for a recap.

In all, I was a little underwhelmed. I don’t know what I expected to find, but before leaving I read of all sorts of glorious happenings in and around the city. And while there were lots of happenings, my strong desire not to wait in line meant I saw few of them and instead spent my time wandering around like a vagrant, poking my smelly head in where it didn’t belong.

It’s got the look

You could say that these games sparked a renewed Candian pride, and yes we won the gold, but without doubt, my favourite part of these Olympics: the look. The bright greens and blues with soft, sweeping lines and textures everywhere are enough to make any man smile. (Or at least, any man that likes ice dancing.) Everything was so pretty, I’d often be walking down a street and stop mid-gait just to stare at a well-crafted “No Trespassing” sign. I especially liked anything with the illustrated sports figures. They even managed to tie in pre-existing, somewhat-related elements, like the YVR airport logo or the Canada Line trains. For those who interested, here’s a video about the creation of the look.

The festival vibe and the “entertainers”

The city, especially the downtown streets that were closed off to traffic, felt very much like a summer festival. Robson Street could’ve been festival-time George Street, what with the shoulder-to-shoulder crowds, everyone yelling and hollering, and the almost-warm-but-not-quite rain.

There were plenty of entertainers everywhere you went. Some on the street, some on a stage, and all for free. However, to see any band or performer that was halfway decent you had to wait in line. Otherwise, it was a lot of people doing relatively unimpressive acts. I was not, nor have I ever been, entertained by watching someone balance objects on various parts of their person.

Robot Elvis, however, was always a crowd-pleaser.

Dissent

Protests? I didn’t see any. Newspaper articles denouncing the games? I didn’t read any after the games started. Overheard complaints? Not a one. And I eavesdroped everywhere. I only saw one “F— the Olympics” graffiti tag. One! Either the deep-running dissent turned to acceptance during the opening ceremonies or the negativity I heard about before the games was severely overblown. (Imagine that. The media overblowing something.)

Conclusion

Everyone who was in Vancouver will have certain moments they’ll take home with them. Maybe when their country won a medal or maybe it’ll be the beauty of the city. For me, it was the night before I left. I was walking home over the Cambie Street bridge when I heard a loud bang. At first I thought the city was under attack until I saw the colours. It was the nightly fireworks display.

And as I stood there on that bridge, watching the exploding lights and their reflections in the water below, I thought that I truly was in the most magical place on earth.

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Granville Island

After a few days of frustration, I took the internet to find some free attractions with no line-ups. Thankfully, someone had done the legwork here and one thing in particular did pique my interest — the Olympic Line Streetcar. It’s a temporary streetcar they borrowed from Belgium for the games to take passengers to Granville Island. I’ve never been able to turn down a free streetcar ride. Must be the hobo in me.

Granville Island (actually a peninsula) is a small “island” in False Creek across from downtown and has a very boardwalk-y / old-town-centre vibe. With boards underfoot and water all around, it was the perfect place to put Atlantic Canada House. The four Atlantic provinces joined forces to create Atlantic Canada House, where visitors can “experience the East Coast way of life.” If they can get in.

I had planned to meet up with some friends and fellow St. John’s-ians (St. John’s-ites?) Jeff and Patricia at Atlantic Canada House but of course we were foiled by the dreaded line.

So instead, we headed to the closest place we could get into where they served beer. We chatted about the games, the city and what we thought might await the patient in the Atlantic Canada House. (Conclusion: not monsters, unless you think lobsters are monsters.)

We sat for a while in the Granville Island Brewery tap house. (Just like the Granville Island is not an Island, the Granville Island Brewery is now in Kelowna. It seems they aren’t very strict with names ‘round these parts.)

Unlike me, Jeff and Patricia came for the sports. They love them some sports. They have tickets to the gold medal men’s hockey match. This is, apparently, a big deal. They hope to see Canada in the gold medal game, but fearing that may not happen they also picked up tickets for the Canada-Germany game a few nights prior. And when I say ‘picked up’ I mean purchased from a legitimate dealer who stood outside the venue before the game began, smoking and yelling ‘tickets!’ at passers-by.

Jeff used to live in Vancouver so I was curious to get his opinion on how has the city had changed for the Olympics. He said, “So many more people and so much more energy. And the giant hole in the ground that used to be Granville Street is gone.”

More energy and fewer holes. My thoughts exactly.

We agreed the energy was the real difference and reason anyone would come to a host city during the Olympics. Patricia described it best. “The energy in the city is absolutely amazing,” she said. “Everyone loves Canada. Normally in a big city, it’s not like in St. John’s, people don’t talk to you randomly and pat you on the back and give you a high five when Canada scores. But last night at the bar, people loved everyone-”

Then Jeff added, “I think I high-fived like ten Asians after one goal.”

So more energy, trains where holes used to be, and high-fiving Asians. That’s what the Olympics are all about.

We finished our drinks and headed back in the opposite direction on the Olympic Line as around us talk of scores and medals broke the ice between passengers.

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The Old Apartment

Something interesting has happened since I’ve been in Vancouver: I know less about the games than I did before I got here. Here, I am surrounded by Olympic-this and Canada-that, but I don’t actually know what’s happening at the venues. I don’t know who’s winning what metal or who broke what bone. The only such information I get is from the overheard conversations of drunken passers-by. This is because the place I’m staying doesn’t have a television or internet access. In fact, I’m lucky it has a door.

I’m staying at a friend’s apartment. A friend who decided to avoid the Olympic madness by hiding out at a meditation retreat. The note she left for me on the fridge started, “I hope you find my apartment an amusing adventure as I do.” Adventure? I just wanted a place to hang my (official Team Canada Olympic) hat. Instead, I pray the doorknob doesn’t fall off when pull with all my strength to close the door. I cross my fingers that I don’t hear a bang when I turn on the gas stove. A stove that I would say looks as though it fell from the back of a truck, but I’m sure it pre-dates the actual invention of the truck. Not to mention how most surfaces in the kitchen and bathroom are growing their own fuzzy sweaters. (They are in Olympic-green at least.)

And yet, I’m damn lucky to have found this place.

I get to stay in Vancouver-proper during the games for the low low price of free. Hotel room rates right now make Manhattan penthouses look cheap, not to mention they’ve been booked solid for months, if not years. I cannot imagine what some people are paying to be here right now.

Many Vancouverites (which I’ve discovered is a person from Vancouver, not a type of rock) have rented out their apartments for several times the rates they pay. Rent out your apartment for a couple weeks and you make enough to pay your rent for months and take a vacation away from the madness. Not a bad deal. And at least in Hawaii you might actually know who’s winning.

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Keep Walking

I’ve been in Vancouver for a couple days now and one thing is for sure: my feet hurt. A lot.

I walk to one attraction, walk around it, then walk to another. Then I rinse and repeat until I fall over. I eat while walking and send text messages while walking (into a pole.)

My goal for this week was to suck up as much free entertainment as I could. Yes, I could pay a thousand dollars on the official ticket scalping website (they call it fan-to-fan selling, but potato-potato) to see an hour and a half of ice dancing, but then I’d only have one arm and one leg remaining. So with guides in tow, I head to a attractions that looks … attractive … then I’ll see the enormous line and head to the next one.

Many such free attractions are at pavilions sponsored by the various provinces or countries. Last night I ventured to the B.C. Pavilion. They have taken over Robson Square, where you can watch performances on a number of stages, watch the Olympic events on a big screen, or ice skate on a Rockefeller-Center-like rink. And all for free.

What attracted me, however, was the zip-line. You can zip-line across a couple downtown city blocks. That’s something you can’t do everyday (legally) so I eagerly searched for the queue. Then I saw the following sign:

Seven hours? What’s British Columbian for “no, thank you”? (To be fair, the wait wasn’t quite seven hours when I was there, but it still extended long past my bed time.)

On my way out I caught the tail-end of a performance that seemed to have drawn a decent crowd. I want to say he was a juggler, but I couldn’t be certain because I didn’t see him juggle anything. I only saw his finale in which he got a man from the crowd to, um, stand on him. Uh, bravo?

I left there and, after waiting about half an hour to buy a sandwich, made my way to the Olympic cauldron. (That’s the big fiery thing if you were, like me, unsure why there would be an Olympic soup pot.) Mercifully, this was something you could see without waiting in line, as long as you didn’t mind peering through a chain-link fence. They actually responded to complaints last week and moved the chain link fence closer to the cauldron. Hey, there’s a good idea. Let’s let the crowd get closer to the giant open flames.

After that I walked home, apologized to my feet and called it a night.

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Welcome, Bienvenue, Willkommen, Bienvenidos

Walking around in the ten-degree (relative) warmth with the sun shooting down, it’s easy to forget how cold it is on the other side of the country. Or that this is the Olympic Winter Games. Signs lining the streets depict skaters and skiers, yet it’s not hard to find someone walking right below them clad in shorts and/or flip flops.

People, people everywhere

When I first arrived, I didn’t think the crowds were all that bad. There seemed to be more security than people. But as the day grew later, more and more people filled the streets to the point where you envy sardines. Several main streets around downtown have been closed to traffic so people can party outside. Crowds gather around televisions in the windows of shops to watch the events. Even grocery stores in the area have screens inside so you can watch the post-game interviews while shopping for celebratory cheese. I stood outside Alberta House watching the Canada-USA game and I couldn’t help but get caught up in the cheers of “Go Canada Go!” The energy is infectious.

On Granville, one of the closed streets, you can have your picture taken with a man dressed as Batman. Or Superman. Or a Smurf. You can get a free hug or strike the pose of an athlete in giant cut-outs. Or you can sit and watch as everyone files past, screaming the name of their country. Or at the very least wearing the flag as a cape. (A very popular fashion choice here.)

The N-word

With so much to see and do in Vancouver, it was only fitting that I try to see and do things. That, however, was when I was met with the dreaded n-word that sums up at lot of my exploration attempts here in Vancouver: no.

Can I go in there? No. Hello restaurant, do you have a table? No. Then how about you, corner pub, can I have– No. Then there are the seventeen other ways my exploring was turned away, including my personal favourite, the guy who stood in my way again and again as I tried to move around him, not saying a word. He was either mute security or just really rude. Generally though, everyone is really nice and helpful, even when they are telling you what you can’t do.

What you can do, however, is wait in line. Want to take the subway? It’ll take you a while to get a ticket. Want a t-shirt? Well at The Bay, there is a multi-hour line to get into the Olympic apparel superstore. Want to get into the Canada Mint Pavilion? The average wait is four hours. Four. This one baffled me until someone told me that inside you can touch the medals. Now, there are a lot of things I would wait four hours to touch, but Olympic medals don’t make that list.

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The Scope Goes To The Olympics

Years back, when I heard Vancouver had won the Olympics Winter Games for 2010, I didn’t take much note. When tickets went on sale to the events, I didn’t put my name in for any. Because sports and I are not exactly best friends. Never have been. As a kid, sports would set me up to be picked last and force me to expose my skinny, pale legs to girls I was trying to impress. (Thanks a lot, sports.)

The Olympics, then, never meant much to me. But one curiosity remained: what’s it like to be in a city as it hosts something this huge?

I was in Vancouver a couple years back and one thing in particular stood out. It was a road sign about a giant hole in the middle of downtown where they were constructing the Canada Line, an addition to their transit system. The sign read: “Construction. Expect delays from 2006-2009.” Yes, expect traffic delays. For three years.

So while the Olympics may only last 16 days, it’s the result of years of building and over a decade of planning. It goes ahead in the face of protests and budgets that spin out of control. People from everywhere come to see it and cram themselves into every corner of the city. The scale of it blows my mind.

And all that, for sports.

Curiously did eventually get the better of me, so today I arrived in Vancouver. I’ll be checking out free concerts, hunting down Newfoundlanders who are attending the games, all while pretending to understand the events. (“Wait, curling is on ice, but they don’t wear skates?”) I’ll be blogging as I go, so check back here to be kept up-to-date about what’s happening at the Olympics. Unless of course you want to know about the sportings, in which case, I dunno, Google it or something.

Here is a picture I took while flying over the Rockies.

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