Our Day at the Olympics!

Yes...we made it to Vancouver! My friend, Shelley, her two kids, my youngest son, Justin and I left early Thursday morning and drove up to Vancouver to take in the sights and sounds of the Olympics! It was a little less than a three hour drive and fortunately, the border wait was minimal. And, as you can see in that top photo, we had an absolutely gorgeous day! We decided to drive into the city and parked the car near all the activity. And then we walked....and we walked....and we walked! ALL DAY LONG! It was a tiring day, but we had so much fun! Our first trek was down to the waterfront to see the Olympic flame. It is so pretty, but unfortunately they had to put a chain link fence around it. The have the little "cutout" for pictures as you can see in the photo below. And to go up to the platform to get an unobstructed view meant waiting in a LOOOOOOOONG line! We liked the view just fine through the hole in the fence! LOL!

That's my son, Justin. From there we walked and walked, looking for Robson Square. That is where most of the action is. After finding a mall and a food court first, we decided to have lunch. Then we soon found the ONE AND ONLY official store for Olympic souvenirs. It was Hudson's Bay Company. We kept passing entrance after entrance, all with signs on the door saying "This is NOT the entrance to the Olympic store". After walking a full city block we finally turned the corner to the entrance to the ONE AND ONLY official store for Olympic souvenirs! And this is what we found!

This was the line waiting to get IN to the ONE AND ONLY ....! You catch my drift! The entrance was located at that far upper left corner. And this was not the whole line. My camera couldn't get all of the line. Actually, I'm taking the picture from across the street from the end! Well, we HAD to have our Olympic souvenirs, so we plopped in the back of the line. Fortunately, it moved pretty quickly and we were inside in less than fifteen minutes! The line to get to the cash register was just about as long! But it moved pretty fast, too!

With bags and souvenirs in tow, we finally found Robson Square! Lots of exhibits, street shows and fun stuff. All the MAJOR fun stuff had long lines, like the zip line running over the Square and the exhibit for the 2014 Russian Winter Olympics.

But we still enjoyed the sights and sounds! This is my son in one of the art exhibits.

She looked just like a bronze statue, until she turned and winked at you! LOL!

I had to get a shot of this coffee shop just catty corner the Starbucks. Do you get it?

We finally found a place to have a nice sit down dinner and waited for the sun to set. We were able to watch the Canadian and Swiss hockey game on the restaurant screen and enjoyed the atmosphere of the locals, especially since they ended up winning. We had to stay until dark so we could see the flame at night, as well as the rings out in the water. It was beautiful!

It was a LONG and TIRING day, not to mention how sore my whole body was from so much walking! And even though we didn't see any of the events, we had a blast just being in the thick of things! I can officially say I've been to the Olympics! Woohoo!
Go USA! ~~Annie