The Olympics

The Winter Olympics just ended 2 days ago in Vancouver. I wasn't totally sure what to expect, but have to say that the city did an amazing job, and I say to any person around the world, that the Olympics spirit is truly something that everyone should experience. The idea of the Olympics was to promote peace and unity through sport. Now I won't say that watching the athletes has inspired me to try and unify the world (in fact, I think I became highly biased towards a particular country when watching a sport), it was wonderful to see people of different colors, races, genders and cultures come together in one city, for no other reason than simply to get together and celebrate. In that respect, the Olympic ideal was very much successful in Vancouver, 2010. Each person who was here will have their own 'moments to remember'... here, in no particular order, are mine:

1) Watching 'Sid-the-kid':

Lets face it... it didn't matter how many medals Canada won, the one that really mattered was in Mens Hockey... GOLD. After 60 heartstopping minutes, the game was forced into sudden death overtime... everyone in the country was on the edge of their seats... the stage was set, the circumstances couldn't have been more perfect, as Sidney Crosby rose to the occasion and became a Canadian legend for the ages by beating Ryan Miller shortside to send the country into a state of pandemonium. You couldn't have scripted a better ending to the Olympics.

2) Livecity Yaletown

Sadly, due to laziness and lack of money, I didn't actually get to attend any of the sporting events in person. No matter, as there was plenty of other free events going on throughout the city. The Olympic Cauldron, Robson Square, Street Parties on Granville Street, The Art Gallery, Livecities Downtown, Richmond and Surrey. Of all of them, my favorite was the site at Livecity Yaletown. The Coca-cola pavillion and the Panasonic pavillions were here, along with a huge stage, and live music. at 10:30PM every night, there was an amazing highlights show, with fireworks, which was shown on two humongous screens and projected onto a fountain of water streaming out of False Creek. You had to see it to really appreciate it. Two big thumbs up to the organizers at this site.

3) Steamworks Brewery

For some reason, every night we went out we seemed to end up here at the mouth of Gastown for a drink (or two). It is ridiculously expensive, but was still loads of fun getting together with different groups of friends and then heading home ridiculously late at night. Avoid the prawn tempura though... ;)

4) Canadian Nationalism

I read an interesting article describing that Canada woke up on Monday morning with a 'sense of ease' about itself. I think that was a very good way to describe it. To some extent we definately have a complex about our neighbors to the south. Consiquently, we tend to get swept up into their identity and forget about our own. It was wonderful to see so many Maple Leafs flying everywhere, all the smiling faces, people randomly breaking into the national anthem, high fiving and hugging for no reason. Canada was patriotic, without being crass. It is at ease with itself knowing that it has the capacity to compete and succeed with the rest of the world without having to dominate the rest of the world. Best of all, Vancouver proved that it is truly multicultural... I saw people from every community, Persian, Indian, Chinese, Caucasian, African, Latin, etc, all celebrating being Canadian proudly.