Olympiaaaaa!

Today is January 12, 2010.  "What is the significance of this date, Matt," you ask?  Well, savvy Internet person and/or Googlebot, in one month from today the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic Games will open!

Yay!

Right?

Yay?

Mostly yay, but the Vancouver Olympics are not without controversy and strife.  Why?  Because this is Vancouver.  No matter what some whack-job does in this city, there is always some bigger whack-job complaining about it.  When I first moved here, I remember being flabbergasted by an actual newspaper article about people's reactions to ten trees being moved at UBC.  Recently, two fires destroyed a couple of fairly cruddy commercial buildings in Mount Pleasant (near Main and Kingsway).  The rubble isn't even cold yet, and we already have local whiners worrying about the neighbourhood "losing its cool".  Just to be clear, the main feature of the first building was a breakfast diner with abysmal service; the biggest tenant in the second building was a Mexican restaurant.  This all despite the fact that the last time a fire happened there, the new building wound up being pretty nice.

I'm not going to discuss or link to any of the politicized Olympic controversies because they've been done to death.  If you want to read about what certain groups are griping about, you know where Google and Wikipedia are.  Some complaints are valid, some are open to discussion, most are just standard Vancouver-style short-sighted whining.

Instead, I will focus my Olympic blog posts on what things are like here for Vancouver residents, what the Olympics mean for our day-to-day lives, and hopefully give non-locals an idea of what it's like to live in an Olympic city in the post 9/11 world.  (Side note: I already hate myself for using the phrase "post 9/11 world", but it had to be done, and you will see why.)

I grew up in Calgary during the 1988 Olympics, which means unless I walk in front of a bus in the next 31 days I will be in the fairly unique position of having lived through two of these things.  Granted, I was only nine years old in 1988, but I do have some memories of that time along with anecdotal evidence from my parents. The main thing that I can gather comparing the two is that the Calgary Olympics were waaaaaaayyy less painful than these ones.  I remember no strife or ill feelings whatsoever, and neither do my mom or my dad.  My dad drove to work like he always did, was unimpeded in his day-to-day activities, and even got to meet some athletes downtown (a pair of Norwegian skiers were buying towels).  Overall there was a fun and friendly party atmosphere in the city, and everyone in Calgary looks back on 1988 fondly.

A lot has changed in 22 years, and Vancouver today is a much, much bigger city than Calgary was in 1988 (2.5 mil vs. 700 k).  Driving to work during the Olympics?  Heeeellll no!  Driving downtown in rush hour is bad enough as is.  It's only going to be worse with all the extra people in town.  Couple this with the epic list of road closures and the presence of "Olympic lanes" (like an HOV lane with extra restrictions) on many of the major roads and I'd be amazed if any motor vehicle moves more than a few feet an hour in this town.

"Big deal, you giant baby," you say.  "You take transit to work like a responsible urbanite.  The Olympics won't affect your commute."  Oh really?  I draw your attention to a statement from Translink telling us to expect delays of up to two hours at some Skytrain stations.  Two hours!  It's a long friggin' time, but not outside the realm of possibility.  All those people who ditched their cars in frustration probably aren't going to wander around the city beating the crap out of people like Michael Douglas in Falling Down (though I wouldn't blame them if they did).  They're going to be taking the bus or the Skytrain.  Thus, not only will we have a bajillion Olympic tourists staring confused at the map in every station, we will also have half a bajillion first time transit commuters getting off at the wrong stop and wondering why the hell they're in Burnaby.  Come to think of it, maybe I'll be the one wandering around the city with an Uzi.

On the subject of people wandering around the city with firearms, probably the biggest difference between Vancouver 2010 and Calgary 1988 is the obsession with security.  Post 9/11 world, remember?  A certain amount of security is understandable and expected, but when they do things like close the Roundhouse for the entire month of February for no tangible reason, I get a wee bit annoyed at the whole exercise.  There's a fine line between doing something because it will legitimately help, and doing something so it will look like you're trying to help.  I feel a lot of the security measures fall into the latter category.

My last comment today is about weather.  Anyone who lives here or has visited here in the winter knows that Vancouver is not a typical Canadian city when it comes to climate.  There are no cold, snowy winters (except 2009, the year Vancouver weather went off the rails).  You don't see people wearing scarves and hats, sipping hot chocolate from a Thermos while they lace up their skates at the outdoor rink.  No, here you have people wearing raincoats, holding an umbrella and a Starbucks cup while they walk to yoga.  It really seems a bit surreal to have a Winter Olympics here.  This week, for example, it's pretty rainy and actually not cold at all.  To be fair, the places that need snow for the events do actually get snow, and yet today Cypress Mountain had to close down because the rain and warm weather washed all their snow away.  In case you didn't know, Cypress is where all the snowboarding and aerial skiing events will take place.  I'm no expert, but I think snow is pretty important for those.

Don't worry, Internet.  It's not all bad news.  Even if you don't like winter sports that may or may not take place in the snow, there are still tons of concerts and other cool things going on here this winter.  I think once people get past all the negativity that's been surrounding the build-up to this event they will mellow out and enjoy themselves.  There's still time for that fun, friendly party atmosphere we saw in Calgary to happen.