About a week ago, my little brother and I decided to make a last minute weekend trip up to Vancouver to take in some of the Olympics live and in person. We have been saying we should go for since the city was awarded the games, but just never really made any plans. So, we said “lets do it” and we hit the road. We had no tickets, no place to stay and just a couple of days to plan. I made some calls to some photographer friends who are shooting the games to get a feel for how to get tickets and where to stay, etc. (Click the jump for more photos)

My brother flew up to Portland from San Diego and we hit the road. We went online before leaving and found some tickets to curling and a hockey game. other than that, we had no idea what to expect.

We got to Vancouver around 3pm on Friday and the city was nuts. People everywhere. We drove around downtown for a bit and finally found a place to park at in a hotel parking garage. We would mnake this our home for the next 36 hours, sleeping in the bed of my truck. That night we walked about 6 miles, checking out the city and the sights and all that is going on. We had some dinner with Sol Neelman who is shooting the games for Corbis and then took the subway over to BC Place and bought an awards ceremony ticket off a scalper. Then we walked around the city to the different celebration sites. The place was a party. We wondered into one area, miles from any venue, where a few hundred drunk Canadians were singing “Oh Canada” in a subway tunnel. If you didn’t already know, Canadians love beer and drink a lot of it.

As I mentioned, we slept in the truck and woke up early the next morning and headed over to the curling venue. I’ve never watched curling in my life, but let me tell you, I am a curling fan now. That sport is cool. We sat with a bunch of Canadians that were way into it and they explained all the strategy and terminology to us. It was way more fun then I thought it would be. We waved our flag and chanted “USA, USA” during the USA vs. Sweden match that went into overtime. The American’s won it on the hammer (final) throw in OT, knocking 2 Swedish rocks off the button (bullseye) to take it! I never in a million years thought I’d lose my voice at a curling match! Here is my brother holding his flag…

…and a photo of the USA throwing.

After curling we went to Slovakia vs. Latvia hockey. We decided to root for Slovakia because they had former Portland Winterhawk and Milwaukie High School alum Marian Hossa. Glad we did because they scored 5 goals in the first 22 minutes of the game (including one by Hossa a minute into the 2nd period) winning 6-0. Note: The only thing Canadians like more than drinking is hockey.

After the hockey game, we went back to the car/hotel and headed up the Sea to Sky Highway to Whistler. We lucked out again and found a spot in a parking garage near the lifts in the village. We went and checked out the scene there and again it was chaos. People partying everywhere. Tons of fun. We slept in the truck again in the parking garage. The next morning we got up early, bought some lift tickets and heading up to the Men’s Alpine Super Combined. The Whistler events are cool because they have public viewing areas where you can watch the race without a ticket from the ski runs (see top photo). So we watched the downhill portion of the race, including gold medalist Bode Miller’s run and then hit the slopes the rest of the day before heading back to the States.

The funny thing is, NBC sucks so bad that we were home in time to watch the same Bode Miller run on TV that we saw live in person that morning! So glad we were there, but was happy to have a shower too! If you have a day or two, it is worth the drive up to check it out, even if you don’t go to a single event.

This entry was posted on Monday, February 22nd, 2010 at 1:46 pm and is filed under Editorial, Other, Sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.