Saying so long to Vancouver

Monday was my last day in Vancouver, as I was set to depart early Tuesday for the cold and snow in Ontario. Most of the day was spent getting organized and packing. Jen and I went out for a special farewell dinner at C Restaurant. This is a fine dining establishment devoted to sustainable sea (C) food. http://www.crestaurant.com/

We had a beautiful meal with wine pairings (almost) too numerous to count, including my first raw oyster, and many other special items. I think I tasted 8 different sea creatures. Shown above was the bacon-wrapped sardine dish. We finished off with a beautiful vanilla poached pear. Our table was right by the window, directly across False Creek from the Granville Island food market building. We had lovely service and during our 4 hours there managed to recap my visit.

Jen and I spent 19 days together and got along extremely well; it was wonderful: the wine sommelier gave us a gold medal for a successful mother-daughter visit! It was great to have Emily there to participate with us for a few days; only too bad Connor wasn't also able to be with us.

During the time there, we also spent time with many other friends of mine, and friends of the girls and also relatives, making the visit to Vancouver a wonderful balance of the athletic events, cultural events, excellent meals, fun and laughter, and celebrations with family and friends.

I have looked forward to this trip so much for the past two years, but as excited as I was, I could not possibly have anticipated the wonderful winter games Canada was going to have, our excellent medal count (Go Canada!), the superb hosting by the City of Vancouver, and the warm welcome we Canadians gave to the rest of the world. Hopefully everyone there or watching got to know a bit about the qualities and values we Canadians hold dear. I certainly saw everyone treated with respect, politeness and friendliness everywhere I went. I travelled by bus and numerous times I was offered a seat by a younger person. I never saw people pushing and shoving, as busy as it was. We are a very decent lot! I am so proud of Canada and Canadians for our performance at the Vancouver 2010 winter Olympic games!

It has been a pleasure writing this blog. Please let me know if you enjoyed it. This is my last post. So long for now. Linda

Day 17 - The Grand Finale!

Today we were up early to meet cousin Jenny and her husband Dennis for brunch at Figmint in the Plaza 500 hotel. We arranged it early enough to be home for the start of the 12:15 hockey game. It was great to see them and they gave us a ride home since the subway was too jammed going into the downtown to take back. When we left home at 9 a.m., the crowds were huge, even lined up on the streets to get into bars to watch the game. It was extraordinary!!

The hockey game was so exciting, but I'm sure you all watched it like us. When it was over, people were leaving the outdoor Yaletown Livesite just down the street, so we went out on the front steps and cheered as people went by. It was such a happy moment for all Canadians to celebrate together. See almost everyone wearing Team Canada clothes and some even wearing the Canadian flag as a cape has become the norm over the past two weeks. There were some mounted Vancouver police who went by as well.

Later, watched the closing ceremonies, which had some good moments, and felt a bit of a letdown. The games couldn't have been better; I couldn't have enjoyed my time here more, but now it's come to an end.

Day 16 - Figure Skating Gala Exhibition

This afternoon at 4:30 was the figure skating gala; this was the ticket I was most thrilled about getting! We saw 5 skaters in each of the 4 types of skating, plus some gifted children and group performers. It was a lot of fun as well as some beautiful skating! The highlights for me were to see Patrick Chan, Evgeny Pleshenko, Evan Lysacek, Yu-na Kim, Joanie Rochette and Scott Moir and Tessa Virtue. Here are all the skaters in the finale.

I liked seeing the skaters skate when they were relaxed and not under the pressure of a competition.

We also watched and enjoyed seeing our 3 gold medals today, in men's curling, men's team pursuit and men's snowboard slalom!

Day 15 - Women's Bronze Curling

Friday I got up really early for my Women's Bronze curling game. It started at 9 am, so I left the house by 7:30 (whoa, I'm supposed to be on vacation!) took the subway and then walked over a kilometer in the rain to get to the curling rink. After going through security, I was inside by 8:30, so it all worked out.

This was a much smaller venue, only holding 6,000 people, so I enjoyed the smaller crowd. I was much closer to the ice and it was colder, but I again experienced this feeling of "I can't believe I'm at the Olympics!!" when I sat down, as they had the medal podium already set up to use after the gold game later today. The bronze game was China vs. Switzerland. I must say the Chinese team outplayed the Swiss and the Swiss skip looked like a deer in the headlights throughout the game. It was great to watch, constantly changing, but finished very suddenly. The score was 8-6, then the Swiss gave up another 4 points when they made a bad last shot at the end of the 8th end, so all of a sudden they conceded the game!! Shown below are the two skips.

Later watched the gold game, and was sad that we didn't win against Sweden, but it was a very exciting game to watch. Silver is a nice colour, too!

On the way home, I stopped for groceries, as there are too many events to watch to go out much over the next couple of days. Today we watched men's bobsleigh, hockey, curling, but the most exciting was the men's 500 and the 5000 relay where Charles Hamelin won two gold medals. Speedskating is so exciting, I wish that I had been able to get some tickets for it.

Yesterday and today were the only medal events I had, and Canada was not in either game. If I were to do it again, I would think about getting medal events that would include athletes from many countries, including Canada; but live and learn, right?

Day 14 - Women's Bronze Hockey

Thursday arrived and I had a ticket for the women's bronze hockey game, so while Jen went to work, I walked over to GM Place, where the Canucks play, which has been renamed for now as Canada Hockey Place. I had a great seat, at the end of the rink, and it was an exciting game, with Finland winning 3-2 in overtime against Sweden, who I had seen back on Day 2. Shown below is the Finnish team posing for a team photo. On the overhead screen is the female president of Finland, who had given a cheer during intermission. You can also see all the red Team Canada clothing in the crowd.

In the late afternoon, I met my first cousin Jenny for high tea at Secret Garden. This was the first time I've had high tea there, and it was complete with linen napkins, a tea cozy on the pot, sandwiches, scones with cream and tiny squares on a 3-tier tray. Lots of fun! I had seen Jenny on my last visit to Vancouver last July, but we didn't get together on our own that time. We made plans to meet up again before I leave.

In the evening, Jen and I watched the Ladies figure skating finals. What courage Joanie Rochette had to skate, and then winning a bronze, wow!

Days 12 and 13 - Loose ends!

Tuesday Jen was sick and I needed to take it easy, so we stayed home all day. Wednesday I was up and off to the downtown around 10:30, to make a stop at an art supply store in Gastown. Later I met one of my colleagues, Susan, for lunch at the Transcontinental in the Waterfront subway station. I then walked up to get in line at the Bay's Olympic superstore. The line outside looked long, but it only took 8 minutes to get inside. There were lots of shoppers, employees and merchandise, so it seemed a bit crazy, but I did get some mementos to take home.

I then headed over to Caffe Artigiano in Robson Square, where I've wanted to go ever since Bob Blumer went there for a barista contest on his TV show.


I had a cappuccino with a leaf design in the crema on top, and got some coffee to take home as well. My next stop was the Thomas Haas store. He is a local chocolatier, originally from Belgium, whose chocolates I first discovered at Vij's. So I bought some for gifts and of course for me, as well as two small desserts, and headed home for the latest on TV. One great thing about the Olympic events here, is that many exciting things start around 4:30 or 5, so that they can be shown live back east, meaning that the evenings are the best time to watch the Olympics and especially now, it's hard to miss anything. We saw the women's medals in speedskating and bobsleigh tonight. They are doing great!

Days 9, 10 and 11 updates - Taking it easy!

Saturday, Jen and I went to Granville Island to see the various pavilions there and also get some groceries. First thing we did was line up for the show being put on at the Altantic pavilion. We waited about an hour to see a 45 minute show, but it was a really good show, which included Meaghan Blanchard, and three other musicians from Atlantic Canada, with a beautiful slide show about life there. We later went to the Altantic, Swiss and Francphonie pavilions, but they were not too exciting. We also hit a few stores or artisan's galleries. We had snacks along the way, including the best mini-donuts ever! Finishing our day at the farmer's market, we bought a beautiful roast beef for Sunday, as well as a few salads for Saturday's dinner. We relaxed at home in the evening.

Sunday was another low key day. Jen had invited several of her Vancouver friends: Erica, Jackie and Lauren over for dinner. Erica in particular had been interested in learning how to make Yorkshire pudding. So I made the roast beef dinner with the side dishes, while Jen did some tidying and looked after dessert. We kept an eye on the Canada-US men's hockey game, shared some wine with the meal, as well as some great conversation. It was lovely to meetJen's friends.

Monday, I set off about 10:30 to meet up with my high school friend Kathy M., who came over from Vancouver Island on the ferry for the day, to meet up with me and other friends. We met at Robson Square, then walked over to Gastown to have lunch at Salt. It was great to try a few new things there, and we had a good chat, catching up on the last 13 years. After lunch we went over to the Aboriginal Pavilion and lined up for awhile, but realized after a few minutes that it was going to take too long to get in. Kathy then proposed that we have a glass of wine at the Fairmont Hotel Vancouver. It was great to get away from the crowds, and at 4:00 another friend arrived, so I left them to chat. Jen had been feeling under the weather, so I went back, made some salad for dinner and we watched the ice dancing finale. What excitement! The top two teams were wonderful, and it was so great win gold in that event - first time for North America!

Later this week, I have tickets three days in a row, so right now I am trying to relax a bit as that is going to be hectic. Plus, there is so much that is wrapping up on TV that I don't want to miss.