Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the last two weeks, it would’ve been hard for you not to have been touched by the Olympic Spirit in one way or another. Whether it be that special fuzzy feeling during the Torch relay as it went pass your community, to the undying human spirit you felt when mogul skier Kristi Richards stood up and looked at the crowd after her crash, to the Mardi-gras party feeling that overflows on the streets of downtown every night, the Olympic magic is everywhere.
Although we won’t really “own the podium”, our metal counts are on target to be the best yet. But what I am most proud of is how good of a host our city has been. The whole olympics is very well organized and there is no shortage of visitor hosts anywhere you go. With all the talk about expensive hotels and event tickets, my fear leading up to the games was that this would be an overly commercialized Olympic and that the masses will be stuck with experiencing the Olympic spirit through their television tubes. Yes, it is commercialized and yes, the Opening Ceremony tickets really do costs $750 each, but a nice surprise was how accessible these games have been; from the extensive torch relay which touched more communities than any other Olympic to date, to all the great free sites and events around town. My hat goes off to you Vanoc, and thank-you for giving us a reason to shout-out our otherwise quite patriotism.
To all the Olympic naysayers out there, how can Vancouver not advance for the better after all this world attention on us?February 2010 will always be remembered as the month when Vancouver proved to the world that we are the world class city that people have rumored us to be. Whether it’s the beautiful warm weather that we had as the rest of Canada and USA are buried in snow or the serene experience of majestic mountains and ocean as you drive to Whistler, or the great hosts in all the well organized events and pavillions, these all create great memories for our visitors. Like an enticing love affair, they will go home with a longing to come back in the near future, either to immigrate or to invest here. In fact, it is estimated that the Olympic spinoffs for BC and Canada is worth 770 million dollars.
Like most people, I’ve been busy going around town to experience all the great events. I don’t remember Vancouver to be ever like this and I truly feel like a tourists in my own town. It definitely gives a new meaning to a “Stay-cation”. I’m proud as ever to be Canadian and I’m even more proud to be living in Vancouver.