Vancouver 2010 minus one week

Given the Olympic Fever that has clutched the nation and the frozen portions of the world, I figured I should take a little pause in the story of our summer and post some Olympics pictures. We heard the Olympic call (probably written by John Williams) from 120 kilometers north of us starting several weeks before the games began. Farbeit for any travel fan to not visit the site of this international event when it is so close, so we loaded up the car and went international. We weren't foolish enough to go up there during the actual games, instead we scoped the place out the weekend before. Vancouver is a plenty nice place, it's kinda quaint like a European city. Compared to Seattle though, Vancouver is the Freshman who keeps trying to eat his Cowboy Delight at the same cafeteria table as his Senior brother and the LaCrosse team. Its not like we hated the place, but it just wasn't as inviting as the metropolitan areas we've fallen in love with in the recent past. I think the strangest thing about Vancouver is that all the "tall" buildings look exactly alike. I think the problem is that no construction workers can get any unique materials into downtown because there are a total of zero freeways within a 30 kilometer radius of the city center.

I was outta the country during the Salt Lake Olympic Games, but Sara said it was much better organized and the people were way nicer...and there was actual snow. Here's an example of what I mean. After we finally found a parking space (it literally took an hour and a half), and walked across this really cool, really long bridge, we found ourselves just outside the BC Place Stadium. We weren't completely sure if this was where the Opening Ceremonies were going to be because there's a similar building close by. We asked a group of construction workers, a crossing guard and a police officer (the non-royal, non-mounted variety) and each of them said they hadn't the foggiest idea if that was where the opening ceremonies were going to be. Hello? How could you work in front of that building and not know? Weird. Sara tells me that if we had asked this same question to a Salt Laker the week before the 2002 Olympics we would have been given brochures and a guided tour in Swahili if we stopped the right person. Utahns know how to throw a party!