Yesterday morning, seeing as we were up early anyway, we decided to make an adventure out of taking the girls down to Robson Square to share in the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic festivities. Seeing as it was expected to be a busy day in Vancouver, we decided to leave the convenience of the Mtn Buggy stroller at home and loaded the twins into their Ergo Carriers and headed for the Skytrain.
And are we ever glad that we did! We got on the Skytrain at the Lakecity Station and headed in the wrong direction-intentionally. If we went the “right” way, we would have to get off the Millenium Line at Broadway and transfer to the Expo Line. This is strategic error too many people make. See once you get to Broadway, the trains coming down the Expo Line are already full. Therefore, you can look forward to massive waits, unless you travel in the “wrong” direction to begin…as we did.
At EVERY station we saw two or three people with strollers who were simply left behind because there was no way that they could get their wheels inside the train. Bad move to take the stroller. Sure it is convenient to have the wheels but, tough to get it on the Skytrain.
Also, once we were downtown we were doubly glad we were carrying the twins in the Ergos. Some have estimated that there were 500,000 people downtown. NOT a place to roll your stroller. The people who were trying to stroller through the crowds were having all sorts of trouble. Ohhh…we felt so smart!
At any rate, it was a blast downtown. So many shiny, happy people! The line-up to get into the Leonardo da Vinci exhibit was approximately two hours long. The line-up to take the zip-line (the one thing Story was begging us to do) was 5 hours. 5 HOURS!! The line-up for the washroom, for any washroom was murderous. You have never seen so many strained faces as we saw in the washroom line-ups.
The cool thing was that people were all just walking around, smiling and enjoying the energy that the Olympics have brought to our city. Robson Street was wall to wall people. So many Canadian flags, red painted faces and smiles. Smiles everywhere.
I can say that I am really enjoying the energy of the Olympics. Of course we have not taken in any sporting events or even visited any of the “Houses” or Pavilions that have been set-up in town. But just being in the city has been a very cool experience. Before the Olympics started I was feeling quite removed from the entire show. Now that they are here, I feel connected. Cool. What a great time to be a Canadian. I am so thankful that one of the greatest Premiers BC has ever had, Premier Glen Clark, decided to start the bid process. Good job, thank yous to the New Democrats for their vision!