Day Two of the Olympics was exciting with
Jennifer Heil's silver medal in the women's moguls. Yeah Jen! Go Canada Go!!! This is a pic of Jen from the 2006 Turin Olympics, where she took gold.
An interesting thing I discovered about Jen is that she is the
Ambassador for Birks, Canada's historial jeweller. She even has a line of silver jewellry designed in her honour (how fitting!). Read all about it from this
tweet from Jen on Twitter. Birks has a special place in the hearts of Vancouverites with the famous Birk's Clock, pictured below. I remember my mom telling me that when she was a young woman, she and her friends would say "meet you at the clock". If my memory serves me well, I believe the Birks clock was also frequently seen in pictures from the era, as the street photographers would often set up there. The clock was recently restored and reinstalled at Hastings and Granville, just in time for the games -
here's the story.
So, the rest of my day two of the Olympics. I decided to walk over the Cambie Street bridge to get a view of the Athlete's Village. As I walked along Broadway, I was struck by the enthusiasm by with so many of Vancouver's retailers are getting into the Olympic spirit with their store windows. Whether it's a simple flag or a truly creative display, it's nice to see the involvement. This one caught my eye and I snapped a pic (forgot to capture the name of the store, will do that at some point and come back and update this):
The bigger retailers are, of course, totally in the spirit and, although their displays are generally predictably grander or flashy, it still adds colour and energy to our city. The kind of stuff that makes me proud to be a Canadian. So, I was expecting to see a few biggies as I went on my walk. And, there it was, a huuuge flag was in my direct view as I headed down Cambie.
Now here's another company getting in the Olympic spirit. If the picture looks funny, it's actually not a blended Italian and Canadian flag... it's two huge flags flying back to back. I'm guessing the developer is Italian. Love the "I'm cheering both" spirit!
As I was crossing the bridge, I was passed by a crew of about a dozen cops cycling to their posts downtown ;-)
I did get a bit of a look at the entrance to the Olympic Village, but it was really just the car entry point. I want to come back another day when it's brighter and clearer to get more pics... but cool to see nonetheless.
Stopped by the 2010 ticket booth down near BC Place and discovered that everyone needs to stand in line to get their tickets. Heh.
If you are looking for the ticket booth, look for this tall gizmo that changes colours:
It was wiiiiiidny out!
LOVED these lights that a Yaletown resident had hung up to welcome all our visitors!
I found myself walking by the Bell Ice Cube on Beatty Street, and as I was cold and a little wet, and the line seemed short, I thought I'd go in.
This is what it looked like inside. Oh, and it's not a place to go if you want to .get warmed up. They call it an ice cube for a reason. They actually refrigerate it and all the staff were thick white coats. It does add to the atmosphere, and it was nicer than being out in the rain, but expect a chill. In temperature only. The people were plenty warm.
There are interactive displays on Canadian athletes, and plenty of big screen TVs that you can plug your free Bell headphones into if you want to hear the play by play. They are also cool to play under if you are one of the little people crowd ;-)
The biggest bonus of all, was a free performance by Naturally Seven. If you've never heard of them, do yourself a favour and do a little search on YouTube. AWESOME stuff. These seven hip geniouses make their music with their voices.... fab, fab, fab!
Emailing friends from the big screen down at Robson Square:
Musicians and ordinary folk dancing down at Robson Square....
Dudes dancing alone, you just don't see that every day...
Proud Canadians showing their love for our country at the ice skating rink down at Robson Square:
These guys weren't really street performers, I think they were marketing a play or something, but were fun to see nonetheless.... and I love what that one guy has done with his tail! ha!
On Robson at Seymour there is a big board where people can write messages to the athletes, it's fun to get up close to:
American cheeseheads at women's hockey at UBC. I don't mean to be mean, they were Americans and they were wearing cheese on their heads. Quite happily, I might say ;-)
I've been doodling all along, and finally got some more posted - enjoy!:
