The alarm went off at 6 am. The night before, we had chosen Jack's Mannequin 'Annie Use Your Telescope' to wake us up. It was nearly impossible to see anything, so I started tanking out random chords until the music stopped. I arose immediately and got ready, which was just as well, because it gave each of us our own time in the bathroom, so there would be no fighting. Everyone was asleep, so I did my best not to make noise. I tiptoed to my Gramma's room where I kept my stuff. I stuck my hand into my bag and pulled out whatever I could grab. I had to go wake up Lyssie- though that was nearly impossible. I sat there poking her for about a minute, and when that wasn't working, I pulled off the covers- that did it.
We quietly left the condo, and set out to Cypress. We had been there once before, so you could think we would rememeber where to go. Well, we just kept walking until we found some people in the Blue Olympic jackets who would be willing to point us in the direction of the Sea Bus. We got on the sea bus, and waited anxiously to get across. It was 7:42, and our bus to Cypress was leaving at 7:45. So, I sprinted to the bus stop, and got in line just in the nick of time.
The ride up was hot. We listened to music off the Glee soundtrack, and tried to pre-occupy ourselves with conversation.
Getting off the bus was easy. Though, the location of the slolum was a little bit different, it wasn't too bad. We had to climb atleast 500 stairs to get to our seats- but no biggie. By this time, we were 1 1/2 hours early for the event. It was spitting rain, so I pulled out the 'poncho's' my Gramma had bought for us. As I took them out of their case, it turns out they were little colourful bags. We giggled at the thought of my Gramma's purchase- but they did come into some use. We sat on them, attempting to keep our seats dry.
At the beginning of each event, they had these little videos about each of the mascots. My favorite would be MukMuk, though it appears that he was left out for most of the time. They showed how Miga went from being an Orca to being an Orca bear, and how Sumi can fly, and MukMuk is a secret stalker-fan who follows Quatchi to the Olympics. Though they played this at every event, I found myself amused every single time.
The event had now started, and so did the rain. At first, the rain was tolerable, but an hour or so, it just keep seeping its way through your clothes. About an hour in, the wind started up, which made the rain even colder. By this point, I could no longer move my fingers, and trying to keep yourself dry was completely useless. Even though it was raining cats and dogs, whenever Canada made its way down the hill, I always managed to stand up and cheer. I remember, they have these huge TV's set up, so you can see what the camera's are filming. In one of the shots, I remember seeing what looked like my Canada flag (though, how was I to be sure, there were over a billion there?) But when the flag flew up and became tangled, and I new it was my flag on the screen! So, remember kids, that I was the person with the tangled flag in the left hand corner of the slolum event for about 2 seconds. Yay me.
At 11:00, they took a break, and wouldn't be back until 12:15 for the finals. Up on Cypress, they didn't have any shelter up there. Walking was slightly painful, because I'm pretty sure the muscles in my legs had seized up. My boots were completely drenched, and whenever I would walk, I could feel the water sloshing around in the bottom. Twas a weird feeling. We just kept following the crowd, and wound up leaving the event early. We walked painfully slowly back to the bus, but when we finally sat down in the toasty warm bus. Although I do regret leaving early, I think it was for the better.
We got back to the condo to find everyone up and gathered in the living room. Lyssie and I were completely exhausted, and I felt like a blob, as my pants had gained 15 pound of water. We got changed as soon as we got in there. It was such a relief to be wearing dry pants.
---SORRY, IT APPEARS WE ARE HAVING SOME TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES---
It appears that the rest of this day has been completely erased from my memory.
Until I remember the rest,
Happy Blogger
Episode 2 - A Bucket of Beeps
11 years ago