Day 3, Downtown, Torch and Figure Skating Pairs

Sunday we left home around 10, it was a beautiful sunny day. We walked down to Robson Square. We tried to go to the Olympic store at the Bay, but they were lined up outside, with about an hour wait to get into the store (Seriously!!) We then got in a much smaller line up for the Vancouver Art Gallery, free during the Olympics, and where the BC Pavilion is also housed. We passed CTV, who is broadcasting from the middle of the street.

After the AG, we watched people ziplining across Robson Square, then we walked with a large crowd to the waterfront to see the torch. That was a bit disappointing, as it is behind a tall fence, so if you stand back, you can just see the flame. This photo shows Jen, the fence and the top of the cauldron.

We then caught the bus about 2 to go to our venue in Burnaby, the Pacific Coliseum. Lucky we left early for the 4:30 event, as our very full double bus has to be rerouted because of protesters, and so we cut through Chinatown during the Chinese New Year celebrations, and that was no quick shortcut. We got to the venue about 3, and since we hadn't had time for lunch, were forced to eat the venue food. It actually wasn't bad, and only $4 for a water bottle and $9 for a sandwich. The food was actually decent though.

Our seats were laughable. We were on the side of the rink, in row 26, the VERY LAST row. These were the cheapest seats, but they were still over $100 each. Since we were higher than the control booth and the lights, we could only partially see the big screen. Going up and down those big stairs with no railing was a huge challenge!!
This photo is taken from our seats and shows the loooong trek down to the ice.

We had a great view of the ice, sort of like from an airplane, and enjoyed the event very much. There was some beautiful skating! The team in first place skated first out of 20, so by the end, I could really remember them, and it was hard to compare what they did to the other great skaters who were at the end, but I sort wished the Germans had been first, with Send in the Clowns. Too bad Dube fell, it ruined their medal chances, but otherwise our two Canadian pairs did an excellent job.

During the event, the girls beside us got a text that we had won our gold on the men's moguls, so that was very exciting.

Afterwards, they had a lot of buses waiting, so getting back wasn't too bad, and we went home to watch more Olympics on TV. We learned that the gold medal would be presented on Monday night to Alex Bilodeau, and guess what??, we happened to have tickets to that victory ceremony. Talk about dumb luck!

We had been thinking of not even going, as we did not think the concert that night was going to be great. We would then be able to watch the pairs long program on TV, but then at the thought of watching Canada get their first gold ever in Canada, a historic moment for sure, we knew we had to be there....