Fridays with Mr. Milk - Events of Olympic Proportions!

In case you haven't heard, we are hours away from the opening ceremony of the 2010 Winter Olympics here in Vancouver, Canada. It's been an amazing experience to live through the entire preparation phase, from the announcement in 2003 that Vancouver would host the Olympics, to the day the massive countdown clock in city square shows "0 days". I've been thinking about how I felt in 2003 when the announcement was made... At the time, I was working for Best Buy Canada head office and I remember all employees gathering in the cafeteria to watch the announcement live. Little did they know that with everyone's jump of joy and cheers for the successful Vancouver bid, came a 50-60% increase in their home's value, and $77 billion of taxpaying dollars towards organizing the two-week show and face-lifting the already beautiful city. I remember thinking "wow, who knows where I'll be in 2010". It just seemed so far away!

I can't believe we are here now.

And what a ride it's been. Chocolate Lover and I are happy to be in the heart of all the excitement. Our friends from Cyprus are commenting about how awesome the city looks in the segments promoted in international news. Let's ignore the fact that they had to haul snow from 237 km away since this ended up being the warmest winter on record! The week before it all began CL and I kept driving around the city late at night when the crowds had exhausted their curiosity and when there was fewer road closures in the downtown core. The city looks like out-of-the-box new.

This is exciting. I think it'll give us a chance to immerse ourselves into something else and take a bit of a break from it all. There's definitely a positive vibe in the air. 

Here is a quick glimpse of the English Bay lights show, shot with my phone a couple of days ago.

Until next Friday, this is Mr. Milk, signing off.