traveling pansies: Eight Years In The Making

Since the SLC 2002 Winter Olympics us and our friends have been planning going to the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics before they even got the bid. I can't even imagine being an Olympian, the work, the wait, the energy and the mental effort to get to the games every four years. I can only imagine the excitement that we have been feeling as a spectator. We have planned and worked just getting tickets that so many Canadians weren't privileged in getting. We are sorry about that, but our excitement of being able to go is beyond.

We left four days prior to the opening so that we would have time to see things and be part of the anticipation. We sat at the airport for almost four hours and our first experience with the Olympics was with the British athletes sitting next to us. We restrained ourselves in not interrupting their pre-Olympic talk, but soon thereafter we met up with a friend from home that told us his son left a few days before to be in the ski jump. It was fun having our own pre-Olympic talk.

It seems like a two and half hour flight wouldn't be that eventful, but as we came in around midnight I swear the landing gears went down with a flat tire, it was quite a rocky landing. As we entered customs, I had a bag of popcorn that was barely hanging on my luggage and it tipped over and spread popcorn all over the carpet. "Embarrassing" Gary picked up our luggage and the handle was broke off. Our friends were so excited that they decided to drive around for an hour in the dark showing venues which we could barely see. Val kept saying that it was the warmest weather ever and here we are freezing thinking "are you sure you know what warm is."

But here we are and in spite of a rocky start we are determined to enjoy the games.

First Day:

Before we left our friend from Washington State, Jeff, showed up and Val had to work, so it was me against three guys for the day. So off we went on the sky train into downtown Vancouver.