A Tale of Two Cities
In the midst of Boulevard, the big kick off for Festival du Voyageur 2010, I found myself thinking about what life must be like right now in my old city, Vancouver. Since I moved here a year and a half ago, I’ve often thought of the friends and colleagues I had there, but I never really thought too much about how the city was doing, aside, of course, from being glad I wasn’t there for the chaos I was sure the Olympics would bring. Last night, that changed a little bit.
Decked out with our macarons and our voyageur sashes (I couldn’t find my prized Clou’Donc glove in time), we had enjoyed the live music on Provencher, checked out this year’s Festival merch (the beard t-shirts? awesome!), had a little pea soup, and taken in the fireworks (I’d never seen fireworks in the winter before – pretty neat!). Counting dogs wearing clothes along the way (Vancouver doesn’t have a total monopoly on that!) we made our way down to Garage Cafe, where we planned to catch the Johnny Cajun show. Alas, we were way too late: the place was packed and the chances of us getting a table were nil.
As we stood there, mulling over our options, our eyes were drawn to the TV tuned to the broadcast of the 2010 Games opening ceremonies. Laurel and I were oddly captivated. From there, headed to the Parc du Voyageur to check out the Snow Sports Bar, where we knew they’d be playing the ceremonies, too. The Parc was buzzing with excitement and good music rose into the night. Sure enough, the outdoor snow bar had a massive screen set up, and lots of people were watching intently or not-so-intently. Ice cups of caribou were everywhere. (We were all abstaining, for one reason or another, so no caribou or Fort Gibraltar lager for us… boo!)
After having explored all the tents and checked out some of this year’s snow sculptures, we realised we were tired and decided to head back home and see if we could catch the end of the opening ceremonies. Back home with our boots and mitts off, we caught the last hour or so of the ceremonies. Watching the elaborate and impressive show, I felt both proud and disconcerted, in a way. Proud to be Canadian, proud to have once called the host city home. Proud of our musical and literary talents and our sporting heros. Proud that Canada had the opportunity to wow the world, and didn’t fail!
But also disconcerted: the amount of money that must have been spent on this one event is staggering — with the nation’s poorest postal code just blocks away, and the devastation in Haiti still fresh in our minds, one can’t help but think of what that money could be better spent on. And after a celebration of Canada’s diverse culture, it was hard not to notice that the Olympic flagbearers and torchlighters were all caucasian. Seeing footage of Georgian luger Nodar Kumaritashvili’s fatal accident on the news afterwards had me feeling solemn and uneasy as I headed to bed.
Watching Gretzky travel down the streets of my old stomping ground, memories of my five years in Vancouver rushed back. For as much grumbling as locals had been doing ever since the host city was announced in July 2003, just months after I’d made the city home, it must have been an amazing night for everyone who found themselves on the streets of downtown Vancouver. Earlier this week I’d received an email from my old boss, who said that the office was really getting into the spirit of things, with theme days, prizes, and flexible work schedules to accommodate everyone. From her window, she said, she could see the zipline that had been installed over Robson Square, and they were having fun watching the aerial view of organizers testing it out. It seems that despite everyone’s worst-case thinking, the Games had actually arrived, and everything was actually pretty cool.
Something I thought would never happen, happened: I found myself thinking, “It wouldn’t be so bad to be there right now.” But I was also thinking how if I were there, I wouldn’t be here, in Winnipeg. This city that throws a half-outdoor party in the middle of winter, that celebrates the snow and cold with music and food and fun and games. And it throws this party every year!
The world’s biggest party is in Vancouver and British Columbia right now, and I’m glad I can tune in to the coverage every now and then (a Winnipegger’s gotta watch her curling!). But I wouldn’t miss the party happening in my own backyard for the world.
Based on what I experienced staying in downtown Vancouver for 3 days, I’d miss it living in the peg.
It’s ok to miss “home”
I was thinking the same thing! It would have been nice to experience a little bit of the spirit of the relay race and the energy of downtown. Someone compared it to NYC and while I’m not a big fan of crowds, I LOVED the energy of the city.
Really nice reflection, Emma. I find it interesting how the Olympics has generated so much buzz on both pro and con sides. A curmudgeon myself, I feel oddly drawn to the pro side now that it’s here.
I wish I could witness a Festival du Voyageur though! I’ll have to settle for Nanaimo’s Maple Sugar festival (http://www.francophonenanaimo.org/festival/fest_en.htm).
Vive le Francophone!
Plus, you can participate in Le Festival without having to take out a second mortgage. But I’d still like to have gone to Vancouver to see these games, or at least some of the non-sporting stuff. It’s probably gonna be a long time before the olympics come back to Canada after all. And when they do come back, it’ll likely be held in *shudder* Toronto. Oh, I just threw up in my mouth a little bit at the thought of that.
The energy of the city during the Games was amazing. In fact, it kind of reminded me of Winnipeg, my hometown in a way. People were acting very small town-helping strangers navigate the city, smiling, laughing and chatting with one another in lineups, standing in the streets watching events on the big screens and cheering together. It was like everyone came out of their big city shell and embraced one another as neighbours and friends.
I can’t tell you what an honour and privilege it was to be right in the midst of it (I was a Blue Jacket, at the Stadium, involved with the athletes for the ceremonies) and to feel the love and patriotism that rose up in our hearts and spilled out onto the streets. It was like nothing I have ever seen before. It was as if suddenly, we forgot to be quietly patriotic. People wore the flag on their backs, painted maple leaves on their faces, donned anything red and flew flags from the balconies or the windows of their cars. The city was awash in the Olympic spirit.
I just walked down through the seawall area of Yaletown today and there are still remenants of the Games lingering about. It brings back so many good memories. I wouldn’t have missed this for the world!
Oh and BTW, I blogged throughout the games, so if you want a bit of a recap, just do a search on my blog and you can see it through my eyes. (Paralympics too!)