The Scope

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.

Welcome home ... if you can get in.

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.