Apart from the official competition, there was a ton to do around town during the Olympics. As you can see from the picture above, there was much celebrating!

Russ and I went out one weekday to enjoy a slightly quieter day at the Olympics. Many countries and provinces had pavilions promoting their regions, spread out across downtown Vancouver, as did many organizations. Below you have Russ waiting in line at The Royal Canadian Mint. This was a very popular pavilion, as you could, by waiting twice as long, hold an Olympic medal. Russ and I chose the shorter, medal-less line, as I've held my grandmother's Olympic medal several times, and the medals didn't hold too much mystique for Russ. I believe we still waited close to an hour to get in, though everyone was in such a great mood throughout the Olympics that the wait wasn't too taxing.

There was basically a Mint museum set up inside, with various Olympic coins from over the years, as well as other Canadian coins:

We checked out the museum, posed in front of a million dollar loonie, and picked up a bar of gold. Then we headed over to the Olympic Cauldron:

To me, this thing looked like something out of Superman's Fortress of Solitude, but it was a very popular attraction. It was also a very controversial attraction, as there was a wire fence erected around it to prevent anyone from sabotaging it (I took this picture by shoving my camera through the holes in the fence). To get a really up close picture you had to stand in line, climbing up behind it on a winding set of stairs:

You can see, above, that the line snaked all the way across the photo, then back, then down another set of stairs, all the way to the sea wall.

Everything was done up, Olympic style. This barge in Coal Harbour featured a set of rings, and every time a Canadian won a medal the colour changed to reflect the medal won:

Russ and I miraculously found a spot to eat, then headed up to Robson Street, which is a main shopping thoroughfare downtown. It was turned into a pedestrian mall throughout the Olympics, and featured street performers, and of course, shoppers!

We did check out a few of the national and provincial pavilions, but they all had lengthy lines, so we just enjoyed the activities on the street, then headed home. Below you can see the view back towards downtown, featuring BC Place (the white roofed stadium on the left) where the Opening and Closing Ceremonies took place, and GM Place (the smaller arena on the right), renamed Canada Hockey Place, for obvious reasons, during the Olympics.

Now, standing in the exact same spot, but pointing south-east, you can see The Olympic Village (In the top right corner of the picture):

As much as I would have liked to have brought Murphy out for one last Olympic celebration, it just wasn't feasible, especially on the last night of the games. Earlier that afternoon Canada had beat the US for men's hockey gold, in overtime. Here you can see Murphy celebrating the win:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXmMXayV-44

This win set off one of the biggest nights of parting that this country must have ever seen. So many people streamed into downtown to celebrate that they had to shut down several bridges, as cars could no longer safely navigate the streets. Carrie Ann and I hopped on the Seabus, which amazingly was still ferrying people into downtown, and met Russ and Tim to enjoy the night.

We managed to find the guys in the sea of people (thank God for cell phones), then looked for somewhere to grab a bite to eat. Most places were packed, but Tim directed us to a pub in Coal Harbour. Unfortunately the door was locked...or so we thought. As we were walking away a bouncer stuck his head out the door, confirmed we weren't a drunken mob, and let us in. Below you can see some of the celebration inside:

We watched a replay of the closing ceremonies on their tv, had some drinks, and headed out to check out all the activity. Here is a sampling:

The streets were literally packed with tens of thousands, if not more people. It was standing room only through out downtown, on what are usually very busy streets. Lots of flags, hockey jerseys and high fiving. Also, a ton of police. At one intersection I counted a dozen police officers within about 10 meters of myself:

Now, that being said, the police were incredibly friendly through out the games, even doing stuff like playing street hockey with pedestrians. One police officer motioned me over to him with a wag of his finger. I'm never in trouble for anything, and was just standing there taking in the crowd, so I wasn't too sure what I'd done. He reached into his pocket and gave me this:

A Vancouver Police pin! Since he was being so friendly Carrie Ann asked if he'd pose for a picture:

But my favourite was this display on the side of the Sears building, featuring Nike tag lines written by Canadians:

We wandered from Dunsmuir, to Robson, past Granville, to Yaletown - all packed with people:

At the end of the evening Russ and I walked over the Granville Bridge (also closed to cars) back to his place. And the Olympics were officially over!

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Meghan

Here's the link to the next update: Spring 2010
Here's the link to the previous update: February Part 2

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