We had some time to site see before we had to catch the bus to women's aerials. I took mom downtown to see the Olympic flame. Then we walked up to Robson Square where there are lots of things going on. We were hungry by then so we went to a Red Robin. As luck would have it they had the USA hockey game on. We ate slowly so we could enjoy the last period of the game. I knew Sweden was desperate when they pulled out their goalie at the end. That either works or it fails miserably like it did this time. Glad that USA pulled off the win. After eating we decided to walk past the Hudson Bay store so mom could see the big line for the Olympic store. I'm not sure why they still have long lines. There isn't much left except shirts that you can't afford. From there we went down to the Harbor Gallery Place. I was looking at things we could do and discovered that the Northern Territories House was across the street. We went to see how bad the line was and there was no line. So we went in and looked around. I officially have decided that I need to go up there and tour around. It looks gorgeous. They also seemed to be trying to convince people that it was a good place to set up a business. I'm sold. Now I just need to figure out what kind of business to start.
Me at the Northern Territories House
From we went back to the Mall to hang out until we needed to catch our bus. As I went around the corner by the elevators the person coming my way with their husband and two kids said hi to me. It took a half a second to realize I was talking to Picabo Street! I think the logo on my shirt (U.S. Ski Team) had more to do with her talking to me than her remembering me from 2007. But you never know. I was just so shocked to be standing there having a conversation with Picabo. I asked if she had been up to Whistler and she said she hadn't been there at all. She was ready to head home on Friday. I can't imagine that NBC had Picabo Street available for commentating on skiing and they never sent her to Whistler. That was probably the highlight of the trip for me that didn't relate to an event. I got to talk to Picabo Street. She is still my hero.
I can officially say that Cypress is my least favorite venue. It was even worse when we got to aerials than it had been for SBX last week. The security took forever. For some reason I set the security off for the first time. Then they had to wand me but couldn't find anything wrong which seemed to upset the kid. Finally the supervisor did a quick scan and let me go. We stopped by the merchandise tent but they were out of the aerial pins and had hardly anything good left. By the time we got to the standing area the place was packed and we had a hard time getting a good position. Plus the fog had rolled in and it was hard to see where the athletes would be flipping through the air. We shimmied our way through the crowd until we had a half way decent spot. It turns out that the 12 athletes only represented 4 countries, USA, Australia, China and Belarus. The Canadians didn't seem to mind much and were still out in full force with their flags. The Aussies really owned the night though. My camera hated the fog so the only picture I have is of Ashley Caldwell landing her second jump. I did take some video on my small camera but it is too foggy to be worth posting.
I was cheering hard for the Aussie girls once the USA was out of the medal positions. I have nothing against the Chinese but I really wanted Lydia to win the gold if we couldn't. She nailed her run and just had to wait for the final Chinese athlete to go. The last girl had the hardest difficulty of the night. The announcers said it was the hardest trick done by the women. I told mom she was either going to nail it and get gold or fall flat on her face. She fell flat. So Lydia had the gold! Most people starting leaving before the flower ceremony so we tried to get closer. We ended up next to the media area so we got to see the athletes as they walked by. I tried to yell hi to Justin Hunt when he was with Emily but he either had the radio turned up loud in his ear or just couldn't hear me. Ashley was so cute when she walked by. She was waving to everyone. I think she enjoyed her first trip to the Olympics. It is amazing to me that she made the team in December during selection events and was at the Olympics two months later. That should make rookie camp interesting for her.
Ashley making the media rounds.
Gold Medalist from Australia
If I thought getting into the event was hard getting out took forever. We realized we were in line for the bus around 9pm. We didn't get on a bus until 10pm. Cypress still hasn't figured out a quick way to get everyone loaded. A few of us in the lines had some suggestions for them. Since it had started rain/snowing on us it was a long, wet wait. It was a late return home. But on the seabus we got to watch fireworks above the skyline. My goal is to get there early for the men and hope we can get a good spot.
Waiting for results from Nordic Combined today. Hoping Billy, Todd & Johnny can bring home some more medals. It didn't look like we had great results from women's GS but hard to tell where anyone other than Julia finished based on the three line press release I saw. I was happy to read that one American bobsled got bronze. Way to go! Now I'm ready to go cheer on Speedy and Ryan at Aerials tonight!
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