A brief pause

I'll get back to the Olympic recap in a day or two, I promise. I just have to stop for a second and breathe.

Tomorrow I'm leaving for Paris.

It felt, for some time, like tomorrow would never be ... tomorrow.

And now it's here.

Oh, and I can't wait to land in Paris. I love that final descent into a new city - looking down, seeing a whole new, unexplored place. I will never forget the first time I landed at LaGuardia, I knew I was in love.

What will this descent be like? Will I like Paris as much as I love New York? Will I be laughed out of the city for not speaking even a hint of French?

The excitement, the wonder, the, well, the everything. I have heard so much about this city, from so many different people. Will the city live up to they hype?

We shall see.

My bags are packed. The outfits have all been carefully selected, with consideration given to form over function. Fuck function - I want fabulous.

I might not sleep tonight. I'm totally ok with it. I'll sleep on the plane. This feeling is too rare to be wasted sleeping.

The rest of Week 1 - Pooped

The rest of week one was exhausting. The thing I forgot to mention was that two days before the Opening Ceremony, the company I work for was involved with a very large, very important event. What this meant was I had already worked 60 hours by the time Friday rolled around.

But fuck it - the Games are only here once, so party I did.

That made the following days more mellow. I watched hockey games with Team Vancouver, saw a live taping of the Colbert Report, did a media tour with CNBC, and just played it cool. The houses were super busy, and difficult to get into.

But on that Thursday, Jarod came for a visit. After a brief presentation, he realized I was right (as always) and that the Games were something he had to see. So he did.

That Thursday I fetched him from the SkyTrain station and we wandered about like tourists. We sat, we smoked, we gawked at the cauldron and the rings, went home and got ready to go out again. I had received a guest pass to USA House and Jarod tagged along with me.

This was the same nigh Evan Lysacek won the gold medal.

We got off the elevators and were greeted by huge group of people with their camera ready. They were disappointed it was just Jarod and I. I was totally freaked out.

We saw Vera Wang, hid out in a corner and were ambushed by a little press event. The gold medal was maybe 5 feet away from us - and we were Canadian! I had no idea how affected I would be by the medal, or to be near someone that happy. Imagine working your whole life for something, and then, just hours earlier, you achieved your goal, your hardwork paid off and you are the best at what you do.

Whoa.

Jarod. the photog, got some great pics of the medal and such. We had a fun little time. We left, went for a pint or two (I can't remember) ate some pizza, then went for third dinner at 3AM. On a Thursday.

We gorged and went home to ready ourselves for the next two days. I may have slipped into a light diabetic coma.

Day 2 - Exclusive!

On Saturday, I woke with a spring in my step. Despite the copious amounts of wine consumed the night before, I was up quite early.

There was work to do! On this Saturday, I was doing something not a ton of other people get to do - I was accredited for the Main Press Center. What does that mean? Well, the MPC is where all the officially accredited media hang out. They write their stories, attend the press conferences, run editorial meetings - basically, the MPC becomes their offices in Vancouver. 

There amongst the New York Times and USA Today was me! I was able to sit in on the first daily press briefing, where the questions focused on the very sad death of the Georgian luger, the riot that had finished minutes earlier and the malfunctioning hydraulic at the Opening Ceremony. It was an actual real press conference - with several language options and a room full of journos with their notepads and hands up. 

Cool. 

After the MPC I ran home to get all Canada-ed up. The Queen and her husband had graciously hooked Team Vancouver up with box seats to Canada vs. Slovakia Women's Hockey. Yup, the game where we won 18-0. While the game itself was one-sided, the crowd was incredibly gracious. In the end, Slovakia got a standing ovation and opened up their private pavilion because we were such gracious hosts. 

yay us!

Afterwards, Miss Sarin and I failed at getting into any houses on Granville Island, but ended up on a magical walk the brought us to the best view of everything going on - right next to Science World Sochi World. 

That's where I grabbed this shot of Sochi World. You see, the firm I work for helped to arrange for Sochi World to be at Science World. I remember putting together pieces of the pitch that made this happen!

Again, taken from my Blackberry. My good camera didn't arrive for a couple more days. 

Day 1 - Who expected THAT!?

Week 1 was intense. I knew the city was going to be crazy, but I had no idea how crazy. By the end of Day 1 I was exhausted.

On Day 1 I got to see the Olympic Torch Relay! I was incredibly excited when I was sent on assignment to work with a photographer to get some pictures of the flame as it was in front of one of my clients' buildings. So I got to go and actually see the torch!

I have no idea who was running with it at the time, all I care about is that I got to see it! WOO HOO!

I also got to do a little geeky photoshoot with all of my Canadian gear, just in case anyone didn't believe me.

I watched the Opening Ceremonies with one of my bosses at BC Canada Pavilion, just above Robson Square. Robson Square was one of the Live Sites and they broadcast the events and stuff on the side of a big white building, with the ice skating palace and zip-lining going on just above it.

At the start of the evening, the area below looked like this:

(As taken from my Blackberry)

By the middle of the Opening Ceremony, it looked like this:

Do you see the difference! And that wasn't at it's worst.

The crowds were insane. I thought the Opening Ceremony was nice - I mentioned who I wanted to light the cauldron, but that didn't happen. C'est la vie. I thought they did a good job at representing Canada, and I loved that they had an outdoor cauldron, because it was right by my work, and I got to see it all the freaking time!

The party was cool - free food and free booze and the venue was awesome. I got to see the da Vinci exhibit without all the crowds or waiting in line because the event was at the Vancouver Art Gallery. Those were amazing.

So, that was Day 1. Day 2 was super fun too!

Wowzas

The past two weeks have been a whirlwind. I will try my best to recollect all the best events, and let me tell you, there were a lot.

I can say, without hesitation, the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics rocked my socks.

I drank for two weeks straight. I stayed up late for two weeks straight. I waited in lines for two weeks straight. And I got swept up in the Olympic movement in a big way.

It has been almost a full week since the Games ended and Vancouver may never feel the same to me again. For two weeks, this city was electric. The energy was palpable and everyone was kind and good-spirited. Now, back to normal. Ugh, I hate normal.

Some general impressions:

• The Integrated Security Unit was amazing. I am generally not a big fan of cops, because they are big and intimidating, and I'm often drunk in public, but these guys were amazing. Not once were they menacing or intrusive, from what I saw. All I saw was them acting as crowd control - with my best interests in mind.
  
• Holy bridge & tunnel. I feel so elitist, but Granville Street was easily the least amusing place to be in the world - each day was like a normal Friday night. It was full of stereotypicals from the nethers. I'm not going to be derogatory, so I will stop there.
  
• I want to become an Olympic gypsy. I want to go to Sochi and work there for four years. I am in love with this feeling of community  and enthusiasm. It is intoxicating, and I am generally the most cynical person around. I received several comments on how my demeanor was so out of character. It kinda was.
  
• I was surprised with how enthralled I got with the sports. Going in, I really didn't care about the 'sport' of it all, I was all about the parties, but after a couple of days, I was watching them quite a bit. The thing that amazes me are the storylines these athletes play out - I can't even read Joannie Rochette's name without welling up. Fuck - it's happening again.
  
• I became an emotional mess. From Joannie to ever news montage with sappy music to every damn player profile. Ugh, I was constantly tearing up. Stupid emotions getting the best of me. 

I will go into greater detail, I promise, but I wanted to leave you with this:

Me and an actual gold medal around my neck. Not with plastic around it, or a show medal, but one that was handed to an Olympic champion. 

Neat right?