Pretty Much Famous

You can't really see it but behind us is the Olympic flame.  The news crew asked us to take some pictures in front of it and they would film us doing that.  It was a little quirky but we did what we were told.  Any director would be proud to have us around!

Lynden and I riding the sky train on our way to the Olympic flame in downtown Vancouver!

Erica, Lynden and I are pretty much famous.  I contacted Stephanie Strickland when I heard that she was looking for locals up here celebrating the Olympics.  She met her in front of the Olympic flame this morning.  She asked us to get "super close" for the interview...apparently Erica felt the need to wrap her arms around me in the process.  The questions were typical...our answers are goofy I'm sure.  But it was a fun experience!  Check us out tonight on Ch. 8 at either 5pm or 6pm!

This was the best picture we got of flames.  They we HUGE and really neat to see. It was too bad that there were so many gates around it because it was hard to get a good picture.

Fun in downtown BC.

We went for the gold!

I was always destined to Alpine Ski!

Good form (my calves were totally cramping in this one!)

I jumped over Lynden to get this picture taken.  Behind me around 2,010 lanterns drawn by children of Taiwan and Vancouver.  At night they are all lit up.

Yes, that is a Japanese Olympian.  No, I don't know what sport he does.  No, I don't know who he is either.  But, he is a great jump roper which is what I saw him perform on the street right before we snagged this picture.  Whatever he's doing he's doing it tomorrow.  Hopefully the 40 times around the jump rope won't ruin his training too much. :)

Tomorrow we head home!  GO USA!

Whistler...and Women's Luge!

Yesterday we headed to Whistler!  Erica and I had no clue what to expect, we didn't even know where we were going!  We wound our way to Squamish and then took the bus up to Whistler.  The Olympic spirit was much more alive up there than it was in Richmond where we were yesterday.  The people were all dressed up and cheering as they wound their way through the village.

We were about ready to either head home or get something to eat when we noticed huge line of people waiting to get on the Gondola.  As we people watched and wondered what was going on we saw a guy holding up two tickets.  I approached him and he said they were for sale...so we jumped at the chance!  It was to see Women's single luge.  This was taken just outside the security entrance (which is similar to going through the airport!)

Women's Luge always needs more cowbell!  Thanks Marilyn!  Mine was definitely dwarfed by some of the others around! 

The Swiss really know how to get people's attention, they paraded down the middle of the street with their cowbells that were bigger than my head!

The games started at 17:00 (5pm). To the left of this is picture is Thunderbird corner...aka the corner where the Georgian Luger was sadly killed. Everywhere we have been the flags are at half mass in honor of him.

We walked up the steap hill where the athletes got off their luge and ended their race.  We were cheering next to a group of people holding an Italian flag, this athlete smiled and waved at us (I think she thought we were apart of the Italian group, either way, we smiled and waved back!).  Today we are headed to BC Place to see the Olympic torch and possibly get interviewed by Ch. 8 news!  More to come on this fun day!  Also, Happy Birthday to Kathy (Lynden's Oma), she turns a young 60 today!

The O-Zone

Today we spent the day at the O-Zone (Olympic Zone) in Richmond. We saw a lot more than I anticipated of the Olympic scene. I guess its safe to say there's more to the Olympics than the actual sport, who knew? This was a random statue we saw on our way to the O-Zone.

Before we got to the O-Zone we happened upon a fountain full of cranberries. Curious, we stopped and asked what it was all about. Apparently there is a huge population of cranberry farmers in the Vancouver area and they wanted people to know that there is more the Vancouver than just the Olympics.

Erica, Lynden and I enjoying the sea of cranberries.

This is our view from atop of the ferris wheel.  Those Olympic rings are filled with about ohhh 13 million cranberries (give or take a few).  On the other side of the field was giant maple leaf filled with floating cranberries with the Olympic flame in the middle.

Unfortunately there are no pictures of me in the bobsled simulator because at that point the camera and I parted ways.  It went to the ice skating rink and I stayed to try my hand at winning the gold. (Everyone who tried took home the gold but it was still a cool deal all the same).  There are also no pictures of the Chinese dragons that danced their way through the crowd to celebrate the start of the Chinese New Year today because at that point we were all so hungry that the largest dancing dragon in North America really wasn't important enough to photograph...oops.

Tomorrow we are headed to Whistler...no tickets to an event yet.  Tomorrow is a new day though!