Some of the World Has Arrived

Another beautiful and mild day in Vancouver. All of our snow is falling in Washington D.C.

This morning I went to the University of British Columbia to see the Museum of Anthropology and its First Nations artwork. More about that on another day.

This afternoon I took the SkyTrain downtown to see what has changed this week and to get a glimpse of the Athletes Village.

The Athletes Village was built on an old, undeveloped area of land on False Creek across from the Stadium. It is a series of medium height highrises with low rise support buildings. After the Games, they will be sold as condominiums with a decent percentage reserved for low-income tenants. They are in a very desirable part of town along the water and served by a new SkyTrain station. This was as close as I could get because of the security fences, The flags of the participating nations are flying out front.

This is one of the original buildings from the site which was retained and renovated into the Salt House which is the athletes living room. It contains places to relax, play games, and hang out.

The Village will accommodate 3,000 athletes and officials from 80 countries in 1,100 units. The food people are planning to serve over 10,000 meals each day.

The buildings were all built to LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) gold and even the rare platinum level as part of VANOC's mission to hold a green Olympics.

This is the view the athletes will have from the Village across False Creek to the city with the coastal mountains in the background.

As part of the hospitality for the athletes, students in British Columbia high schools wrote notes to the athletes. Every four days each athlete will receive a new note of welcome and encouragement from a BC student.

It seems pretty obvious that this is the building in which the Canadian athletes are staying.

The Swiss have taken over floors in this building (at least the balconies.)

And this building has been the subject of a great deal of controversy most of this week. When the Aussies moved in on Monday they put up this large boxing kangaroo as a motivating symbol for their team. The International Olympic Committee has told them to take it down as it is not the country's flag and is apparently a copyrighted banner. So far the Australian delegation has refused and the Australian Deputy Prime Minister said in the press that there was no way it was coming down. There were tons of people taking pictures of it today.

I then walked across the bridge to downtown. At BC Place Stadium, the security gates and waiting areas looked ready to welcome spectators on Friday for the Opening Ceremonies. The tent on the right is where I will check in for work each day.

After the Games, BC Place Stadium is being closed for more than a year for the installation of a new retractable roof to replace the current inflated roof.

This is the Plaza of Nations Building in which the Venue Communications Centre for the Stadium will be located and where I will be working starting tomorrow.

At the end of False Creek between the Stadium and the Athletes Village in Science World. It is normally an interactive science museum, but for this month it has been taken over by the Russians and has been renamed Sochi House in honour of the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi Russia.

Beside BC Place Stadium is General Motors Place, the home of the Vancouver Canucks hockey team. The Canucks were sent away last week on a road trip that lasts until March so that GM Place could be used for Olympic hockey. Even though General Motors is an official Olympic sponsor, Olympic venues cannot bear corporate monikers so it has been temporarily renamed Canada Hockey Place. Its location right beside the Stadium causes interesting complications for crowd movement and security. We have been warned in the Communications Centre that it will make our lives interesting.

There were huge crowds of people downtown. I saw athletes from the Czech Republic, China, and Russia shopping in downtown stores. Although there are less than seven days until the opening, there were still plenty of saws buzzing and workers hard at work at pavilions across the downtown area.

These new directional signs were put up this week to help people find their way through the closed streets to the venues.

And more and more Olympic colour keeps appearing.

Welcome signs in languages of the participating countries have been put up on lamp posts all over downtown.

This is the new expansion of the Vancouver Convention Centre which for the Olympics is the International Broadcast Centre. It is located on Burrard Inlet and looks across at North Vancouver. It should make for a spectacular backdrop for television broadcasts. (Once again I had to take the picture through a break in the security fence.)

Across from the International Broadcast Centre is a brand new Fairmont hotel that is opening this week to a sell out. It is a fascinating building as it has a poem wrapped around the balconies on many of the floors.

For Lori Wood, a picture of the new W at the Woodwards redevelopment on the East side.

On my way back to the SkyTrain I encountered this building on Hastings Street. I don't know what it is normally, but it has now been relabeled as "The Olympic Club." It is flying the Olympic flag over the door. It appears that those folks know to live the good life. I don't think that this is one of the free, welcoming pavilions for the rest of us.











While it was a busy day downtown today, I'm sure that it will continue to get busier each day this week as more of the athletes arrive and more visitors arrive. There are lots of visitors here already as I was asked three times to take peoples' pictures in front of Olympic locations.

There was an excitement in the air downtown with lots of people uncharacteristically wearing their Canadian gear and lots of flags hung on condominium balconies. It all adds to the new colour of the city.