Olympics 2010 are almost here. Tomorrow they are closing the last of the street access in my neighborhood. Tonight was my last chance to go to Costco (which I can see from my house) but I was too lazy and too tired to go. There’s nothing like working all day and being busy, then going to the gym, then going to Costco for another few hours. Tonight – I couldn’t do it. So I came home, relaxed after the gym and tried to energize for one more day of work.
As I live in an Olympic “hot zone” I thought I would take some pictures of what it is like being in my neighborhood these days.
This is a new sign (above) that suddenly appeared one day. I kept thinking they should have had something like this long ago. I hope that they will be able to change the sign after the Olympics and redraw it with the appropriate (permanent) information. These signs have popped up all over town. It would be a waste if they were taken down after the Olympics. I’m still trying to figure out where I live. I have been here for 1o years and it has always been called East False Creek, Main St, East Vancouver. I have never ever been called Mt Pleasant (that’s a whole different area). I guess, since we don’t have a name, they figured Mt. Pleasant sounded good. No map I have found today refers to this as Mt. Pleasant (that’s up the hill from here and to the east).
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Above are three of the various banners that are all over town. These are the ones on my street as I walk home. They are attractive banners, in both official languages – I see that every second sign is in French and all the sports seem to be represented. My only question is…what does the blue sign under the last banner mean? It popped up yesterday. I have NO idea what any of the acronyms represent. I’m used to seeing movie signs – and this seems to be in the same vein. It’s on a need to know basis, and if you don’t need to know…you’ll never figure it out. If you head to the left as the sign represents you end up in the parking lot beside Science World (which is now Russia House) and you are beside all the tents that are Quebec House, Saskatchewan House, Hockey House etc. If you go straight on, you can get to the media centre at Canada Place. With all the road closures, our street has become one of only two northbound streets open heading to downtown. Main St is the other one, but with the closure of the viaducts this weekend, traffic will be very interesting to say the least.
Next there are all the “parking restriction” signs. These are my favourite because they are EVERYWHERE. In this case, we are talking about a two block area. This is my walk home, north along Quebec St, and it is only two blocks. It is a block full of condominiums (five towers), and townhouses.
This is the sign right in front of my house. All the signs get confusing, but this one bugs me the most. The bus sign points to the bus stop. After 10 years of living here with no way of getting to Yaletown we finally got a bus last year. It’s a half hour walk along the seawall (which is closed for the Olympics to get here), or it’s a bus ride…the next sign is our actual bus stop.
I’m not impressed that my bus stop is no longer there. Now, I can’t go to Costco, the liquor store or the Urban Fare market. I’d like to say I’ll be so busy going to all the events around me, that this minor inconvenience won’t bother me – but that would be a lie. We all know where the tickets went (hello city hall, hello fat cats, hello government trough dwellers, hello scalpers) and we all know that nobody we know is going to any of the big events with a face value ticket. I am going to some short track speed skating, some skiing at Whistler (don’t get me started on transportation) and I do have nosebleed (and I mean NOSEBLEED) tickets to see Burton Cummings at the Victory Ceremony. I bought a package early and got lucky. For $900 I am going to 3 events and a victory ceremony. I’d like to see the opening or closing ceremonies (they were fabulous in Salt Lake) but that won’t happen unless I get lucky. The last time I checked they were going for about $800 each. So, I’m not impressed with all the inconveniences and closures, but I hope the games are successful. I just wish Canada would smarten up and actually celebrate their athletes and be proud. I know more about Russian and Australian athletes than I do our own. Why would that be? Oh yeah, all our money went into the pockets of the rich and not into promoting the actual sports represented.
I don’t mean to be cynical. It just drives me crazy that we live in a country where we have great athletes and great opportunities. I used to idolize Karen Magnusson when I was a young girl and she would teach me skating; I sat on the edge of my seat watching Kathy Kreiner tear down the hills in Calgary. Why aren’t we celebrating these athletes in the run up to the games? Why don’t we hear more “ra ra Canada” as this is OUR Olympics? No, we’re too busy trying not to offend anybody to do that.
The games are almost here – pray for snow for Cypress. It’s not looking too healthy.
