They have a Pavillion, the 'Canada Pavillion' set up outside right in the middle of town. This is where the main party is centered at and then evreything is revolving around this in all directions in the city. An out door ice rink, music stages, huge Tv screens running the events all the time, A 2 block long Zip line running right over everyones head from one end of the pavillion to the other, and its free!, but the line is huge, a 4 hour wait when we were there. Television crews all over the place. The pavillion is like a giant rock stage, with lights and all kinds of action!
If anyone is thinking about going up there here is alittle low down. The down town area around granville and Howe and from West Gorgia st. to about Robson st. ( this is an approximation I can't remember the exact streets ) is blocked off to street traffic, pedestrian only, which is a good thing. the torch is on the North shore side of the city abit of a walk from the pavillion but not to bad at all. We went up on the monday of the 3 day weekend. The traffic was nothing at all like the media fears present it. The wait at the border both directions was about 15 minutes or less. They try to encourage people to park out at the air port and take the new Sky tram in, ( I think its new ), on a weekend this might be a good idea. we drove into town and used public parking located right at the edge of the downtown event area, 23 dollars Canadian for all day, not any worse then a regular day in Seattle. the crowds were large but manegable and we had a 2 year old in a stroller, so did many others. The crowds do deffinitly get larger as evening comes on. Everone is having a good time and there are people from all countries everywhere which just adds great flavor. Be prepaired to see every Canadian wearing a flag somehow, somewhere, on or all over thier bodies, they have realy got thier National Pride on, which is great! the Dutch are doing a good job of this as well. If your thinking about going up I say do it. It makes for a great little day trip and how often do you get the chance to be this close to the Olympic games.
Does anyone else have similar expierences with the event, or worse expierences?
S.
