Olympic Fever

Okay, so this weekend I was on vacation. It started out with a birthday party at Sachi Sushi (say that fast 3 times) where I met Michele to celebrate her friends birthday. Now before the phone calls start to Laura, you could say that Michele is related to me. We grew up on Howland as neighbours and became related when her sister married Laura's uncle who happened to be my best friend. So now my best friend is also my uncle. You can't make this stuff up. I think it was hard for Michele to spend time with her party and also entertain me and my party of six but we all had fun trying. Of course some of us from my party where not heard from until Sunday (from the ruckus at the other table, Michele might have found the same thing), which is too bad because I bought myself a day pass to go skiing at Whistler which conveniently enough opened early. Once people found out that Whistler was to open on Saturday, they waited in line from about 5 pm Friday. I don't think I like skiing that much!

I know that skiing in the mountains is not like skiing in Quebec or Ontario. Luckily, several people that don't ski or others that haven't skied in a long time decided to back out because on this day, the green runs were challenging enough. There was alot of snow and Whistler management decided not to groom on this opening day. So basically, once the hills were skied on a bit, we had the makings of some pretty good moguls. My ski buddy Brian had also not skied in a very long time and dressed for weather on Mont Tremblant, Quebec. He was utterly soaked by the end of the day from several falls and all the exertion trying to get back up and just plain skiing in warm weather. He got pretty loose as we neared the midway station gondola to bring us back down and ended up in the virgin snow. He was leaning forward as you should on groomed runs and kind of landed on his side. He buried his pole trying to find solid ground to right himself, the snow was that deep there. This fourth picture was supposed to be a short video for Christine but the batteries on my camera died and I had to settle for a picture instead. The green run on the right was easy enough but the cliff on the left leaves new skiers wondering and doing the "pizza slice." I never heard that before but I guess it means "snow-plough." There were many skiers who were fans of downhill, but on the whole it was not as crowded as the hills in the east. I'm now looking at getting an "Edge" pass which will get me on the hill for about 30% less. I'm not sure if I will get the 5 or 10 lift pass because apparently after you use up your pass, you can still buy more lifts at the discounted rate.

I found out from Norm and Anne that their daughters would be in Whistler on the fourteenth. Now I have to tell you this story and I hope that it doesn't come out wrong. Fiona (or Ona as Kristin called her) and Catherine were Kristin's baby sitters at one time. Catherine inherited the job when Ona got a real job and the transition was seamless. Kristin loved both of them equally. So in my mind, both of these women are still the cute and well behaved teenagers. Well, one of the guys from the Bell team asked me what I was doing for the night and I responded that I had declined going out for a drink with my "baby sitters." He just looked at me and said that was "wrong on so many levels." Anyway, everybody here is amazed that even here, so far away, both Laura and I have friends that mean so much to us. Now before I get too far, I have to say that Catherine asked if I would like to join them for a wine tasting party on Saturday night. It was really a great idea, but I will admit that another night of drinking might have been too much. Although I didn't drink enough on Friday night to miss skiing on Saturday, I might have been over my limit with a wine tasting on Saturday night. We agreed to meet for brunch and I am glad that we did. I had such a great time hearing from them and meeting their friends and Catherine's fiance, Jeff. They are all such great sports for taking the time to brighten up what would otherwise be a lonely weekend.

To continue with this story, once we met up, we all got to talking right off the bat and the waitress asked us in the nicest way to order. She also mentioned that she was under pressure because she was expecting to get the Italian and Austrian Luge team in for breakfast. Now as you know, my mission is to get autographs of athletes on my Canadian flag without becoming a stalker. I asked the waitress if she would be kind enough to ask for me. She found an 8 1/2 X 11 and turned it into a card, which was so thoughtful. The picture proves that she got the signatures for me but I have to say that I didn't want the autographs for myself. One of the guys from the Bell Team (Remo) saw the Italian team practicing when he visited the Sliding venue and thought better of trying to get a photo and their autographs. All the teams are paranoid of other teams learning their secrets! Anyway, his dad in Italy is a great fan and I know it means more to him than it would mean to me.

So the topic got around to the Olympics and the locals are talking about moving out for the month. It is of course going to be traffic pandemonium. Everyone needs a permit to travel the Sea to Sky highway (I'm thinking they should change the name to Rain and Snow highway). I told them not to forget the Paralympics right after and I also mentioned that these were the exact same arguments I had heard with the Calgary Olympics. When the Calgary Olympics finally came, they turned out to be the most memorable, unifying and satisfying thing that had happened to that city. I can't recall what happened to the nay-sayers. Did they catch Olympic fever or did they truly move out for the month? I think most caught the fever because I know I did. It is the reason I considered coming to Vancouver. It is the reason Laura pushed me to come to Vancouver. I think BC and Canada will love these Olympics! The locals just don't know it yet!