Olympic fever...

When I first moved here I kept feeling as if I was three hours behind the rest of the world.  When I was in New York City a few years ago, it struck me that I was at the centre of the world.  Right now, I feel as if for once I am back in the centre and for a couple of weeks the centre has shifted slightly.

Needless to say our school got into the Olympic spirit this week.  We had our own mini Olympics followed by a trek by much of our school community up to the 53rd and Main to witness the torch relay.  As you may remember we had our own torch relay just as the torch was delivered to Victoria so 105 days later it seemed rather special to finally witness the torch in person.  It was Red Week all week at school and Friday was the day that every child got their own mittens.  As you can see my class were happy with that.  Our assembly after the mini-Olympics was a sea of red (now of course the seventh graders weren't quite as into wearing red as the primary children).
In partners, my class is doing presentations on the Olympic sports.  We had hoped at school to get tickets to the Paralympics but we only came through with a few so that it will be difficult to know how we can distribute them.  Most of our kids are not going to be able to attend any Olympic events but fortunately there are lots of free opportunities that I hope they are able to attend.  Our local high school is doing an Olympics for the fifth to seventh graders Thursday and I am still contemplating a field trip to check out the Olympic free venues the following week.

Vancouver in general is definitely having Olympic fever.  My neighbours, for instance, have flags everywhere.  Cambie Street has these cool lights.  And although no one can park in front of my house during the games unless they live on my block I can now zip downtown on the Canada Line in fifteen minutes from my door to Georgia and Granville.  Traffic to work is fine for me although we can't drive along the streets by the curling venue which are often my normal route.

Well hope this gives you a bit of an update