To start out, I have to say that it was a B-E-A-utiful day! The weather was amazing. I took the bus (a double-decker bus, in fact. Who would have ever thought there would be a double-decker bus in Squamish? hahaha). It didn't take too long to get to Whistler either. Before the Games started, all the locals were concerned that there was going to be so much traffic because of all the tourists and VANOC employees but the bus got there in the same amount of time it would normally take if I was driving.
Just as I reached the steps of the village after getting off the bus, I heard this huge cheer. I rushed down the stairs,
almost tripping over my feet, to see if there was an event happening on Whistler Mountain. When, I ran past the ticket booth, I saw a crowd of people cheering....at a tv. hahaha. There was a huge bigscreen tv right next to the gondola showing the games. They were all cheering for there fellow Canadian Maelle Ricker who was competing in the Women's Snowboard Cross event(she ended up taking the Gold yay). It was a funny sight to see for sure. :)I got there about noon, thinking that the village would be packed with people, just as I saw downtown Vancouver. But to my surprise, it wasn't at all. There were still more people than there normally would be in the middle of the day on a Wednesday but not nearly as much as I had imagined.
While walking around the village, I passed by many tv's showing different events. CTV had a booth where they were interviewing some of the Canadian athletes after their competitions. Me and my friend actually got to be in the background of one of the interviews. If I find it on youtube, I'll definitely post it. But OMG, we were complete dorks! We were making funny faces and trying to act like starstruck tourists. It was a lot of fun. hahahah!During the day, there wasn't that much going on. We just walked around the village, watching the events, and enjoying the nice weather. While walking around, we bumped into a group of French tourist, all dressed up all patriotically. We made sure to get a picture with them. J'aime France!
The real excitement started to happen when The Barenaked Ladies took the stage. I had no idea that they were planning on playing at the Olympics,
but it was a fabulous surprise. And best of all, it was FREE! Yup, I didn't pay a dime. They are such funny people. It was great. They were making fun of the name "Whistler". Wow! I guess there are just one of the many free concerts going on during the Olympics. You can bet that I will be spending much more time up there in the next few weeks. hahaha.Just following the concert, Ian and I were lucky enough to get free tickets into the Victory Ceremony. That's right...FREE! :) I found out that every night, there are standby tickets where people can line up outside the venue and if there are any available seats, they will give them to people for free. It was awesome.
The Victory Ceremony was AMAZING! Of course my camera's battery died just as I was taking the first photo so I had to settle for the camera on my phone. And it was perfect, the first ceremony was for the Ladies Downhill Skiing, in which gold and silver went to the USA. So I got to hear my own national anthem. It was really cool. I also got to hear the Canadian and Russian national anthem for the other event ceremonies. At the end of each of the Victory Ceremonies there is a concert by a big-named band to finish off the night. When I was there, it was Our Lady Peace. I didn't stay very long because the event that I had been waiting all day to see was going on at the same time.
One thing that a lot of people don't know about me is that I am a HUGE Shaun White fan. Who is Shaun White you ask? Well, he is only like the most amazing snowboarder in the World. His nickname is The Flying Tomato hahaha. Anyway...he was competing in the Mens Halfpipe Snowboarding event at the same time as the concert. So once the Metal Ceremonies were finished, we ran through the village to the closest tv showing the Halfpipe Snowboarding. We got to one just in the nick of time, for Shaun White went on just 3 minutes after we arrived. And OMG, let me tell you....SHAUN WHITE WAS AMAZING!!! I was so proud! He blew everyone away and took Gold without any hesitation. It was like he had no competition. It was a great way to end the night. I only wish I would have seen him compete live. Oh well. It was fun standing with a group of people (mostly guys hahaha) cheering at the tv screen.Overall, Whistler was loads of fun! It was definitely a great day. I saw the list of concerts going on for the next week and a half up there and I know I'll be going back up at least two more times (for The Fray and OneRepublic....both from my home town of DENVER!).
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