Olympic (-sized) Post #1

Here we are coming at you from Vancouver.  Be warned, this post has a lot of photos and perhaps a lot of text.  Peruse at your discretion.

We arrived on the 15th, and let me tell you - the Vancouver airport is really nice.  I made Liss take a picture of the tiles in the women's bathroom:

 

(The whole bathroom was beautiful, but I thought having Liss take photos inside would be a little...awkward).  I imagine we'll have more time to explore the airport on our way back, but as someone who has traveled a lot, this looked to be one of the nicest and best equipped airports I've seen.

That night, our lovely hostesses D. & S. took us to the Sha-lin Noodle House - they make their own noodles right there.  It was amazing yummy and cheap, which is good since we seem to be spending all our money on food.

Before:

After:

 

Tuesday was a free day (hence the lack of posts as we only went to our first event yesterday), and yes, another crazy meal:

 

That's my grilled cheese sandwich at Burgoo - mozarella, swiss, emmenthal, & cheddar - and no, I didn't eat both sandwiches by myself.  I gave Liss half of one (hah!) because all she had was this monster French onion soup:

Finally yesterday, we went to our first event - men's halfpipe snowboarding.  

  

That's the mogul run behind me.  We had to walk a km or so from the bus just to the check-in, but that was nothing compared to the 282 stairs we had to navigate whenever we wanted or needed food or the bathroom:

It was crazy and epic.  Here we are in the classic digital camera self-portrait:

 

(uh, we forgot our sunscreen - duh!)

Liss interjects: here's the long shot of the venue in the daytime!

The boarders did practice runs before each heat (two qualifying rounds, two semifinal rounds, and two finals).  Oftentimes they really opened up and tried all kinds of crazy shit - it was great.

 

 

(close-up of a boarder)

Liss says: And replays on the giant TV - everything is better with TV.

 

I'm not particularly nationalistic (American, Canadian, or German), but Shaun White was off the hook and totally in a class of his own.  It was crazy to see him ride the pipe.  The crowd went nuts.

 

Today we're off to see women's 1,000 meter speed skating and then Canada's men's hockey team take on the Swiss.  FYI - going to the Olympics is fun.

Stay tuned - we'll have more photos up tomorrow.