Olympics, part deux

…and we’re back!  When we last met our heroes, they had just braved the dark underbelly of the Granville Bridge in search of women’s curling tickets.  What will happen next???

Well, let me tell you!  After securing our tickets we spent the remainder of the evening absorbing the excitement of downtown Vancouver. The whole city is basically a sea of red and white—although interestingly, Canadians seem to be able to pull off “national pride” with a lot more tact than the Americans.  Of course, not everyone is happy about the Olympics and their commercialism, but we managed to avoid the protesting and vandalism that’s been going on (we did stay just ahead of a protest of Obama and the Iraqi war—not relevant to Olympics, but whatev).

The one thing that I reeeeeeally wanted for my Winter Olympics experience was a cowbell.  And then I saw everyone wearing these red mittens and I wanted those too.  We headed to the Hudson Bay Company’s Official Olympic Superstore, and oh my goodness.  The line to get in stretched an entire city block.  Uh, no.   I had to wait until the next morning, but eventually got my mittens from a Bay store in West Vancouver.  I really had no idea what a "must have" item the mittens were, but apparently they've been in demand in Canada since October, and it sounds like shortly after we left Vancouver was sold out.  (Don't worry, I got my cowbell at the curling match!)

 

We didn’t check out much of the Olympic entertainment pavilions because to do anything you had to wait in security lines forever.  We did walk by the Irish hospitality tent, which basically looked like a giant pub transplanted to Canadian soil (as if they didn’t trust the Canadians to throw a proper party).  Our last stop of the evening was to check out the Olympic flame.  Now, with all of the time and planning and money they spent on everything else, a chain link fence is the best they can think of to put up around the flame?  Lame.  Lame Flame Shames Game.

                                     

It rained all Monday night, and since our room was a cute little attic room in an old house the rain was loud and pleasant as it pounded away all night.  We woke up at 5 am to the smell of bacon.  We weren’t getting up until much later, but drifting in and out of sleep to the smell of bacon is pretty great.  The downside is that we were pretty disappointed when there was no bacon at breakfast.  Turns out that the bacon was for our hostesses’ husband… but we did get the most delicious French toast topped with lots of fresh fruit and jam. 

Tuesday was dedicated to one thing: Curling.  Curling was on the other side of the Grandville Bridge and involved a bus ride, subway ride and a whole lot of walking to get there.  We ended up being very early, assuming that there’d be shops and vendors to browse in the area.  Nope.  Just a line up for security.  It was actually pretty short when we got there since we were so early.

The security was pretty tight.  All bags went through the x-ray machine, and all people went through a metal detector.

And when you cleared security—yey!  Another line!

This is when I had an epiphany:  The Olympics are a lot like Disneyland.  Short bursts of fun interspersed with a lot of line waiting.  I took some pictures of the Olympics banners to pass the time (just like everyone else in line).  Actually, they did have a quartet of singers and a magician entertaining people in line, and most people were happy to chat, mingle, and kill time, so it wasn’t so bad.  Well, the fact that it wasn’t raining probably helped too…

Another thing about the Vancouver Olympics.  They must have got a great deal on those plastic lifeguard chairs (often with oversized beach umbrellas) and megaphones.   They were on street corners, next to transit stations and at the start of lines, always with someone perched on them, yelling instructions futilely into a megaphone over the din of thousands of people.  I wonder what they’ll do with all those chairs after the Olympics—have the best patrolled beaches in the world?

Annnnnd finally we get inside.  I waited in line for-EVER for my cowbell, but made it back to my seat just in time to see the competitors march in—with a pipe band, just for Scott!

It is worth noting that Ryan and I don’t actually know much about curling.  It’s somewhat like shuffleboard on ice, I guess.  There’s actually a lot of strategy involved, as well as finesse.  Someone shoots that 41 pound rock down the ice toward the target, or “house,” and the sweepers sweep with different pressures and intensities to melt the ice and cause the rock to slide and curl.  The skip stands down by the house and directs the rest of the team.  The rock nearest the middle of the house scores, but rocks are also used to set up shields around a particularly good rock, or to knock out a competitor’s rock.  The house, with a few rocks in play:

The floor of the curling arena.  Four matches are going on simultaneously and each playing area is called a "sheet."

The women’s American curling team is relatively well-known, particularly the skip, but I think the Danish team is way better dressed.  Check out those cute little skirts and black leg-warmers!  And honestly, I think it would be easier to lay yourself out on the ice Spider Woman-style in a skirt and leggings than pants.

And oh man, Canadians, they love their curling.  The crowd was way, way into the games.  The session was sold out, and cheers of “go, Canada, go!” broke out sporadically.  I particularly enjoyed the big screens that prompted the crowd to “make some noise” in both English and French.

It turns out that even though curling is indoors it’s very cold.  I know, there’s ice, so this shouldn’t really be a surprise, but in curling the integrity and surface of the ice is even more important than in ice skating or something.  What WAS surprising was how dry it was.  The entire arena was air conditioned to preserve the integrity of the ice, and after a couple of hours my eyes felt like they were going to dry out and fall out of my head.

We left before the end of the match, but on the way back over the Lionsgate Bridge we were treated to this gorgeous view:

And when we came home, guess what Google's daily Olympic banner was?