Downtown Vancouver after Canada beat the US in Men's Hockey

And now that it has been more than a week since the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics closing ceremony, things are returning to normal. Classes have started back at UBC and the grind of assignments, lab expectations, long term projects, and midterm exams has provided a nice break from the breakneck pace of the Olympics. Moving to Vancouver in August of 2009 has yielded an interesting perspective for living in an Olympics host city. I haven’t known a Vancouver without Olympic hype, dread and emotion. I thought Granville Street was always pedestrian only. I thought that Translink was always planning to open new rail lines. I thought Canadians were always patriotic. (Although up here, it isn’t called patriotism, it is called, “Loving Canada”)

After hosting fourteen friends from the United States in our 900 sq. ft apartment over the period of 17 days, I gained a fresh set of eyes on the city I’ve learned to live in. “Transit is so good here” and so I responded, yeah it has been ramped up during the Olympics but it actually is pretty good (especially if you’ve ever been to any other city in North America). “Everyone is so young here”, and so I responded that I didn’t realize this fact until I went back home to Charlotte, NC for the Christmas holidays as was shocked at the demographic contrasts. “People here are in such good shape!”, and I responded that you realize this fact whenever you leave the United States, even if Canada isn’t that much better as a whole on obesity rates. That’s not to say I take Vancouver for granted now, I swear I never will. But all the awesomeness just kind of grows on you until you expect awesomeness. When awesomeness becomes the everyday does it ever reach the status of the mundane?

At first, my daily activities consisted of going downtown and gaping at the large crowds of people doing nothing but walking around. Sure, the street musicians were cool but what was there really to do in downtown Vancouver during the Olympics? Stores were crowded, the cultural houses were crowded and the zip line I wanted to experience so much required a 4+ hour wait. Walking around admiring the insanity of it all got old after a few nights and I decided to check out the O-Zone (lame). Around this time I was already starting to get burned out. I’m afraid Jenn and Jason suffered the most from my exhaustion as I often couldn’t do more than just stare at the constant Twitter deliveries to my phone from VANOC and Translink. I entered Olympic overload. Showing friends around in a city I didn’t really know that well had its additional problems. “Let’s go find a bar” … “everything has a huge wait and is overcrowded” … “let’s walk around” ….  …. 20 mins later … “ok here’s something”.

Walker on the drums downtown

Sleeping nine people in the apartment during one night might sound like a feat of gymnastics but was really a joy. My favorite part about the whole experience was hosting friends and showing them around, I bemoan the cost of eating out so much but revel in the fact that I got to try so many amazing places in such a short period of time. I know Vancouver’s East Side better, taking Jane to Commercial Drive for her birthday and later in the week with other friends for bowling. (Not to mention other adventures to Dan’s Homebrewing and a Cheese shop on Hastings). I think Jane was the real gold medal winner, she somehow agreed to let me host five of my old roommates at once (all guys) immediately after all the other guests. When three friends came up from Seattle for a night, she said, “sure, bring ‘em on”. Somehow I got all my assignments for UBC done on time, sneaking away to complete them.

The Olympics brought a lifetime of memories in just a short period of time. I even learned all the lyrics to “O, Canada” by heart. However, If I have one regret from the whole experience though it is this: I didn’t watch the Olympics enough. Sure, I saw all the key moments live, along with all the biggest events. But it is not taking the time to sit down for a full curling match or failing to watch the entire two-man luge that stings now. Going to more of the actual events would have been fun but the cost was prohibitive and so much other cool stuff was going on I don’t regret passing up opportunities to do just that.

So if you ask me to sum all that up, “What was it like to live in the Olympic host city?” It was basically like normal Vancouver but with a big party downtown. Outside of Downtown Van you could barely tell the Olympics were happening.

I’m not sure I’d ever want to travel to an Olympics. Vancouver is a rare bird, equal parts civil and beautiful. If the Olympics were in Chicago I don’t think the 24/7 street party down town would have maintained its rate of zero casualties. People here don’t ride around with machine guns on motorcycles like they will during Rio 2016. Vancouver was one amazing host city that far an exceed my expectations but I could never justify spending thousands of dollars on tickets to uphold nationalistic values. Apparently British Columbia has turned me into such a hippie I think the athletes should have their favorite songs played on the podium instead of national anthems. The Olympics are a great excuse to be a tourist but without all the slow paced things I enjoy about my brand of tourism: relaxing in fun restaurants, exploring cool local shops, relaxing at local music and leisurely conversations with residents. In a city I didn’t already know, all these things would be inaccessible as a one-off tourist in a foreign land. At the end of the day, I’m thinking: wow, that was a lot of fun, hope it didn’t cost too much… oh it was $8 billion?… in the US we just put that on a credit card.

I don’t want to be a cynic who knows the cost of everything and the value of nothing. The collective experience shared in Vancouver was immensely valuable. If companies can possibly re-locate here the economy will benefit. Outside of downtown, businesses saw little to no upside and will experience much higher taxes. Many artists and educators will have their funding slashed dramatically hurting the local experience dramatically for decades to come. Local transit is running a huge deficit and faces the reality of significant cutbacks or canceling much needed rail projects. How shallow is modernism that it’s pinnacle is gambling the future by throwing a massive party for a few days? Could it really all be about private profits driven through socialized debt?

Life and society isn’t always about doing the rational thing though.  Maybe after watching grown men sweeping on ice for several hours at a time I’ve realized that’s what made the Olympics so much fun.