That Olympic Spirit

We drove down today from the Sunshine Coast (north of Vancouver) to Point Roberts (south of Vancouver) but failed to catch the Olympic spirit.  There are, of course, no signs of snow; what there are are drifts of daffodils here and there blooming profusely.  The crocuses are practically on their way out.  Everything is weeks ahead of time, except for the winter which we seem to have missed.

The trucks are still bringing snow into Cypress Bowl (which is the venue in the mountains just north of Vancouver and much lower in elevation than the Whistler venues), and have now been joined by snow-delivering helicopters, not to mention lots of dry ice.  The dry ice, according to the news, is buried under the moguls...suggesting that it might turn out looking like a misty day in May.  The organizers are saying, 'No Problemo!  We are right on top of all this.'  But 75% of Vancouverites think the whole thing will be a financial loss to, largely, Vancouverites, I suppose.

Up on the Coast, the torch bearers came through and took the ferry over to West Vancouver.  It was a special ferry; not the one we usually get to take the peasants back and forth from the Coast to West Van.  It was one of the newest, biggest, fanciest ferries that normally ply the Vancouver/Vancouver Island route.  It sailed a practice route to make sure it could get into our dock, and then it sailed a special sailing in order to bring the torchbearers and several hundred of B.C. elites who are somehow connected with the Olympics from point A to Point B, even though most of them had to be carted to Point A from Point X before the ride began.  The talk is that each of these sailings cost about $75K.  If they'd all gone on a regular ferry, they could have done it for about $8/person.  But, then, there's the security concerns, and the additional concern that the folks couldn't manage a 45-minute ferry ride without having a salmon/halibut/prawn and truffles treat table.

I think in Greece, way back when, the athletes just came and competed and everybody had a pleasant few days.  But nowadays, everything has to be 'world class,' for some reason, and a lot of everybodies need to be made to feel a great deal more important than they actually are (which is to say 'not very important'), everybody needs to grab a piece of some strange pie that has nothing to do with them except that it's all over the 'news' paper, and the burning questions are whether the event is making money for somebody and, if so, for whom.  The public we saw today, however, seemed to be taking this all outside their stride.  Very few cars were sporting Canadian flags...just enough so you realized that the vast majority were not.  There were no delays at the Lions Gate Bridge.  Traffic was minimal.  We sped through Vancouver, bereft of Olympic spirit, I'm afraid, but happy to be south of the border.  (In the photo above there is a flag flying over the house, but it is barely visible.)