and the Olympics take off

This weekend was weird and great at the same time.
Friday was my last day at my practicum until after spring break.  It was a long day, but pretty exciting once I got home. 
The caf just opened a new lounge area where the "Asian" seating area used to be.  It's pretty nice--TVs, couches, etc.  They hosted a big event for the opening ceremonies of the Olympics.  I went and filmed a bit.  Talked to Toph for the first time.  It was weird, a little bit... but not too bad.  Later that night, Dave M. and Sara B. had a double bubble chewing contest in my apartment.  Heather had about four hundred year old double bubble (a massive tub of it).  Dave and Sara have been stopping by all year because they love the gum, for some reason.  So on Friday they had a competition to see who could chew the most gum.  They finished the bucket... 70 pieces between the two of them.  Crazy kids.
On Saturday, Heath, Sara, Heidi, and I went into downtown to check out the Olympic festivities.  It was raining, and cold... and we went in without a plan.  We could have been a lot more organized and covered a lot more ground, but it was still pretty sweet.  Most of the roads were closed off and the crowds were insane.  Just a few hours earlier there had been a protest at The Bay where people had thrown rocks and paint at their windows and the SWAT team had to come in.  Later we saw it on the news and one of the "anarchists," as they called themselves, was really angry that the police had guns--as if this gave them every right to deface property.  Um, hello??  They're police/SWAT!  Of course they have guns!
After seeing that, we went to the art museum in Robson square because it was free.  We tried to go to the aboriginal pavilion but we missed the matinee show, so then we went to the Russian pavilion in the science museum.  It was pretty cool, although there wasn't much to do.  We ran out of time to see the torch, so we walked to the free train, and then from there walked to Heather's siblings' apartment for dinner and otherwise good times.  All in all we spent 15 hours downtown.  Pretty crazy and tiring, but fun.

Jamie out.