Come What May: Ceremonious Ceremonies

Thursday, February 11, 2010

Ceremonious Ceremonies

Me with the Opening Ceremonies Rehearsal tickets!

I am really thankful for my life. It’s not perfect but I have an amazing family and wonderful friends. I have also been blessed (lucky?) to have had some fantastic opportunities in my life. I have won contests, gone on trips and met celebrities. But what I witnessed last night ranks right up there in my top 10: I got to attend the Opening Ceremonies dress rehearsal! I’m sure if it was the actual Opening Ceremonies (on Friday) it would rank in the top 5, but since this one didn’t have the actual athletes or final torch-bearer or the cauldron being lit, it loses a few points. VANOC has asked anyone attending to keep it a secret, and even though I’ve heard other people talking about it and posting pictures from it, I will honour VANOC’s request.

What I will say though is that is was incredible; it made me proud to be Canadian, and it made Vancouver look like the world class city that it is. The actual celebrity performers were there, as were the actual politicians, but the athletes were all volunteer stand-ins that looked like they were having so much fun walking in waiving and even dancing a bit.

My advice to people that are going to the real Ceremonies on Friday: Do not bring a bag, or if you have to make sure it is very small, (something that would just hold your cell phone and cash and your Visa card), because then you can go in the express line. It’s still a very long line-up, but it moves much faster. My other advice is try to eat before. The food offered really sucked, (I really couldn’t think of a better description), and is very pricey. I actually though McDonalds would have been providing the meals, since they are the Olympic Sponsors, but it was just the regular BC Place fare. Hot dogs, Chili dogs, Vegi dogs, (sold out last night), nachos and some lettuce that they called a salad. Also, water is $4 a bottle, and pop, (all Coka-Cola products) is $4.50, so it could end up a very expensive evening.

We were not allowed to take pictures, but in this day and age where everyone and their mother, (even mine) has a cell phone with a camera, it’s a little hard to enforce the rule. So I tried my hardest to take some pictures of the performance without getting caught. The iPhone is not the greatest for taking low-light pictures, but some turned out ok. I won’t be posting any of the event pictures until after tomorrow night, but by then there will be plenty of much better quality pictures from the audience that was actually allowed to bring their cameras in to the Ceremonies. In the mean-time, here are some pictures taken before, during, and after.

If you are lucky enough to have tickets for tomorrow night… Wow! You will be blown away. If you don’t have tickets… that’s ok too… because at least on TV you get the commentary and usually the best view! Enjoy!

Special Thanks to Michael for the tickets and for making sure the Movie Club didn't break up!