Day 3 – Beautiful Weather and LiveCity Downtown

February 14, 2010

A beautiful day in Vancouver! I’ve always heard about them but personally have never experienced one. We started out with red mittens, toques and scarves and pretty soon were putting all that away. It was Spring in February! No wonder people go out there and never come back.

We made our way over to the LiveCity Downtown site located at Georgia and Cambie. At 10:30 am there was already a line up to get in. It was Chinese New Year and a parade that winds its way through Vancouver was going to end up at the LiveCity site. While we waited for it to arrive, we checked out the Canada and Manitoba pavilions. The Canada pavilion was a bit disappointing. With all of our history, culture and art I was expecting a lot more. There really wasn’t anything explaining Canada’s history or athletes’. It was a lot of TV screens, some displays of older sporting equipment, a hockey jersey from Wayne Gretzky and that was about it. I hate saying that I wasn’t impressed but I really wasn’t. If there is a line up for that pavilion I would advise you not to waste your time. It is a shame because there is so much more that could have been done with it. Anyway, on to Manitoba pavilion where they very proudly explained to us the Canadian Museum for Human Rights that is being built in Winnipeg and scheduled to open in 2012.

Mounties at the Canada Pavillion (left). Manitoba Pavillion on right.

From there I headed to Robson Square to check out what was happening. Tons of people were out on the street. People standing in line to wait for the zip line ride apparently were there for 5 hours before getting their turn. I’ve done zip lining before and it is great fun but it is not worth a 5 hour wait to me. There are so many other things I can do with that time! There was a performance by an Aboriginal group that actually got audience members up and dancing, surely not an easy thing to do! Close to there a large TV screen was set up and people were sitting on steps watching Olympic coverage. Behind that was a CBC telecast booth, where they were in the process of doing an interview with someone. When the person was done their interview they turned around to face the crowd. It was Jenn Heil, Silver medalist in the Freestyle event. People started standing and cheering and she very graciously thanked us for our support. She looked a bit embarrassed by the attention; we Canadians are always so modest. No doubt everyone in the crowd felt her performance the day before was worthy of a standing ovation. Another lesson to self to not ever put my camera away, by the time I dug it out she had turned away and was leaving! Dumb me. I have to find a way to attach that thing to my hand.

See the red jacket? That is Jenn Heil. I know, you'll have to trust me on this one.

After that I had to head back to Tomarra’s to get my stuff together to go home. I was excited to spend the flight watching the Olympics on those little TV’s West Jet has but they weren’t working! I’m trying to feel any animosity towards West Jet but seriously you are picking up people from the Olympic city! Some of them (me) obviously would be interested in keeping up with what was going on. It wasn’t to be. When my Dad picked me up in Toronto he gave me the news of our first Gold medal won on home soil. Congrats Alex!

You can see all the photos from Day 3 here.

I look forward to returning to Vancouver on February 19th.  It is going to be a great time.

Canada Medal Results:
Kristina Groves – Bronze in 3000 m Speed Skating
Alex Bilodeau – Gold in Freestyle Skiing