more olympic fun. i went to the women’s 1500m speed skating event with dad and helen.

it was really exciting at the end because canada had two skaters in the last two heats. we hollered and cheered kristina groves to a silver.

it was a great race! the athlete from netherlands won gold.

raising of the flags during the national anthem.

we got to borrow a driving pass up to whistler for the weekend. it was a beautiful day to drive the sea to sky highway, and traffic was really good.

taking the gondola down blackcomb mountain.

whistler village.

miga, quatchi, sherwin, muk muk, and sumi.

at night, we lined up in the standby lane to get into the victory ceremony… and got in for free! we saw the medal ceremonies for men’s skeleton where canada’s jon montgomery got gold.

switzerland’s simon ammann getting gold for ski jumping.

you can’t help but feel really happy for the athletes, no matter what country they’re from. afterwards, we watched a “fire and ice” show with snowboarders and skiiers jumping through hoops of fire doing tricks.

i had dinner with julie and liz at milestones, where we cheered for canada’s (close!) hockey shootout win over sweden.

then we listened to the concert going on at livecity yaletown from julie’s apartment and watched the nightly fireworks! fun times.

helen and i were invited to attend a victory ceremony with jp and louisa. the line up into BC place through security was pretty efficient. they had random celebrities (jay leno) over the loudspeaker welcoming us to the vancouver olympics! haha!

it was nova scotia night featuring the Bare Nake Ladies (yeah!). they started with the medal ceremonies and we saw Mike Robertson receive the silver medal in snowboard cross for Canada! it was fun being in a sea of red and white.

finally the Bare Naked Ladies took the stage. they were really good live, funny, and played all their popular songs.

we cheered happily for vancouver and canada in our living room in chicago tonight. the opening ceremonies made me feel kind of homesick but excited to be in vancouver soon. i thought it was really unique and heartwarming. watching vancouverites sprinting alongside wayne gretzky in the rain made me laugh. can’t wait to see it all for myself!