It has finally arrived.
Were here at the Sandman Signature Hotel in Richmond, BC. Probably the nicest hotel in Richmond. We all felt kind of out of place among the people coming and going from the Hotel. Lots of Olympic workers coming in and out and lots of high class looking people. Thanks to David Bedford from the COC for hooking us up with this amazing hotel. There's a pool, waterslide, Steve Nash Gym, Tennis Bubble, and about 3 fancy restaurants.
Last night we spent the night with my mom's friend from Sudbury, Debbie in Coquitlam. SIDE NOTE: Coquitlam seems to be Canada's version of San Francisco - so many little hills and houses that are built on the edges of these hills. HUGE thanks go out to her for the amazing hospitality. We arrived around 9pm, within 5 minutes she had cold Kokanee for us. Within half an hour she had the most amazing food spread ever. Wings, pizza, nachos, pecan pie, ice cream - just an amazing host; we cannot thank her enough for not only letting us spend the night but also for the amazing food and company. While we ate, we watched a time-shifted broadcast of the Opening Ceremonies. They were extremely moving and we all sat and watched in amazement. Made us all very, very proud to be Canadian. Since were three hours behind Ontario, we were all tired by midnight and went to bed soon after the ceremony was over. I woke up around 7:30 and was treated with a chorus of snores - we were all clearly exhausted after spending over 4000km and 60 hours since we left Sudbury. Once everyone was up and we all showered and found Dana's missing jeans, we were treated to, again, an amazing breakfast. Debbie made eggs and hashbrowns, we had bagels, cheese, yogurt, granola, and berries - again we cannot thank her enough. We ate and watched Mens Luge training run. Thanks again Debbie! See you on the way back, possibly.
After we said goodbye to Debbie and her son and daugther and found out that we couldn't check into the Hotel until 4 we decided to head to the mall to kill some time. We plugged the address into the GPS and we were off to the mall. Thanks to the amazing navigating team of J-Rod and Shanno we ended up at a mall comparable to the Rainbow Centre in Sudbury. After we walked around for a while and got Dana some new luggage, we decided that we were tired of the high quality stores and didn't want to be back in Sudbury. We quickly found the original mall we had been looking for and went in. The mall was extremely busy with many, many Olympic tourists. Oddly enough, the largest contingent in the mall were people from the Netherlands. Everywhere you looked you would see someone wearing Orange - either Richmond has a very high Dutch population or that people from the Netherlands are extremely loyal fans who traveled this far.
The guys split up with the girls and we went walking around for a bit, took some pictures of Olympic displays in the mall as well as looking at different merchandise (MukMuk - Cole Julien) and eventually ended up at a bar to watch Corey's favourite Olympic event - the Biatholon. After a couple drinks (each) we met back up with the girls who soon realized they would need to drive to the hotel. Upon arriving at the hotel we were all excited as we had finally made it to our home for the next 5 nights. It's very nice to have a home base where we can unload or bags and not have to worry so much.
Tonight I think we are meeting up with other SPAD students, Imran Gill and Sean and Lawren Carroll to go out in the City. It will be nice to hang out with some other SPAD students while 4000km away. We are all extremely excited to check out the city as we haven't been into Vancouver yet. Richmond is only about 20 minutes from Downtown Vancouver - think GTA for all those people from Ontario.
Right now we are switching back and forth from Canada routing Slovakia in Womens hockey 7-0 and Women's moguls and Jenn Heil. More stories to come tomorrow. BC is amazing, the hotel is amazing, this trip is just the most amazing.
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