Visiting Vancouver 2010 Olympic Venues

We checked out some of Vancouver’s Olympic venues and sights, and I’ve got two videos from it.

Just around noon today we decided to take transit downtown. We got out and ate at a food fair. We sat next to some Swiss people. The city feels like the Tower of Babel with all the languages.

Then we signed the electronic guestbook, and walked to see the Olympic Cauldron that Wayne Gretsky lit last night at the end of the opening ceremonies.

Next we were going to take a train up to the art gallery, which has free admission during the Olympics, but the train had what looked like more than an hour lineup, so we walked instead (about 10-15 minutes.) There we discovered that there was a several hour long lineup to get into the art gallery (we were worried this would happen). But while we were there, I took the first video.

This an arial tramway that runs from our court house building to our art gallery building across Robson Street. It’s probably one of the better advertized free things you can do, but they have lineups of over 5 hours to get on it. It looks pretty hair-raising.



So then we decided to walk up to another venue, called the Live Site, but it had a huge lineup as well, so we were walking along a stretch of inlet called False Creek (there’s a story behind that name, too) and saw a ferry dock for a small ferry that navigates that inlet, so we took it to Granville Island. Another video:



Our son works at Granville Island in a cheese shop and he actually had the 9-5 shift, but took off early, so we arrived at 4:45 but he was already gone. I checked out another venue that had East Coast Canadian Celtic music, but it had another 4-hour long lineup, so I gave up on it too.

My take-away from all this is, the venues are too hard to do, but the buzz in downtown Vancouver is amazing. Really enjoying all these people we’re meeting.