This week I get to realize a childhood dream. I am heading to the Olympics in Vancouver, and I get to be a part of something I have always wished for— an Olympic Figure Skating event.
With my official HBC Olympic wear in tow, (replete with mandatory red maple leaf mitts and Canada scarves), I am ready to embrace the unbridled patriot within, and soak in the atmosphere and the magic that is the Olympic Winter Games.
If the way I cried as Canada’s contingent walked into BC Place is any indication, I’m going to get goofy. But I don’t care, as self-consciousness doesn’t exist when thousands of your partisan pals are right there along with you.
When Calgary hosted the Winter Games in 1988, I was just a kid, and didn’t quite appreciate the history that was made that winter on my home turf.
So minus the hockey, figure skating, and victory ceremonies that I get to attend, I plan to let the hair down from under my Canada-emblazoned toque, and have a great time.
To that end, I have enlisted the help of Vancouver’s Sweetspot editor extraordinaire, May Globus, to serve as Vancouver’s ambassador to the wild west. I now know where to eat, play, relax, dance and drink, as well as where to shop (!), and I plan to do it all.
So if this week’s blog serves it up a little giddy, with a side of glee, and a pinch of ‘true north strong and free’, I’m not going to apologize. We’re hosting the world, and in a couple days, I will be right in the thick of it.
Oh Canada indeed.
*Stay tuned next week when I blog from Vancouver.