A Night In The City!

So yesterday I went to Vancouver for the day to check out all the big city sites. I've been spending so much time in Whistler I wanted to get a sence of the vibe in Vancouver.
So I drove down with my parents to meet up with Charlie, his friend Mark and his girlfriend to take in all the sights. Me and my parents got there a bit early so we decided to check out a few of the "Houses". You see each of Canadian's provinces have different houses where visitors can come in an experience a bit about that province. As well other countries have houses as well where you can go and experience that countries food, drink and excitement. The one thing I have noticed about other countries houses is that they are really just large tents where you can go watch a game and drink! The Irish house and German houses in Vancouver are just that, very large white tents placed in parking lots, that they fill with people drinking...I have heard they are a lot of fun.. and by the looks of the lines to get into these tents they must be.
We skipped the drinking houses and went to the Canada House, to see what our country as showing off. Well... it was a huge tent... with lots of lines.. to have your picture taken with a few Olympic symbols, like the torch, skies, bobsled... there were a few Canadian facts, but to be honest it was a bit of a disappointment. We then went off to the Aboriginal Arts Center where it was kinda set up as a native arts and crafts show. Each few days different artist set up a table to sell their crafts. There were some nice and not so nice things.
We then decided to skip the houses and go for a walk around downtown and just check out the street entertainers and walk up and down the roads that have been cut off to cars.
When I met up with Charlie and friends we deiced to take a bit of a long walk down to the ocean to see the athletes village and the other province's houses. Seeing the athletes village by the ocean was super cool and it was huge!!! The other province's houses were as expected from my morning a bit of a disappointment. But it was nice to just check out the sites and see all the people that were enjoying learning about our beautiful country.
It was then 2:00pm and time to figure out where we were going to watch the hockey game at 4:40pm , that's right you need to find a seat that early or you will be left watching the game int he streets in the rain. All the bars and "houses" had huge line ups already and we were getting worried, when we came across a cute little restaurant and bar that was going to be perfect!
We watched the game with about 60 of our now closes friends, you can imagine how many drinks or in my case bottles of wine you can drink in the time we had to wait for the game to even begin.
Right after the big win we ran out onto the streets with what felt like thousands and thousands of your now closes friends from all over the world!!! The energy was eclectic! everyone cheering, giving each other high 5's, hugs and spreading the Canadian Spirit!! I even saw people from other countries cheering and be happy as well. It was a remarkable experience to be walking around the city with that many excited people all cheering on Canada, it made me a very proud Canadian.
We then had to go see the Olympic rings that are normally green, but when we win gold the rigs light up gold!!! AMAZING!!! as well we had to see the flame, and now that they have lowered the fence you can get a better view.
We hit another bar and had drinks with very happy Canadian fans with everyone still giving each other hugs followed by shots!!!
So we didn't really drink at any of the countries houses, but we did drink in celebration of Canada!!!
The city was amazing... I'm so happy that I got to feel the Olympic energy Vancouver is giving off....

Neat fact!!! We have out partied and out drank the past three Olympics put together.. it shows that Canadians really know how to throw a great party!