The one day I forget to take my camera!

I was expecting to work. So I travelled light. I didn’t know that they’d started everybody’s shifts far too early – suspected they would, but didn’t know. I thought – well that’s just fine, I don’t have a TV at home anyway, and if I stay for an hour I get a free meal. So I wasn’t too bothered. Then the night kept getting better and better (despite the lack of income)!

First off they let the staff watch the opening ceremony in the lounge area downstairs (so long as we were out of uniform) – awesome. I got the communal vibe, free soft-drinks and I wasn’t cramped for space. Some of the acts were brilliant, others less so.

The best was definitely the crazy punk-violinists doing the Irish-style folk-tap. The singers and dance choreography were generally a little weak – though I was impressed by K.D. Lang ’s voice (though singing Hallelujah for the Olympics??? A little strange considering the song’s subtext). The light-spectacular however – wow.

Anyway… so they lit up the torch (and the last one didn’t stand up properly – ooops), and then Wayne Gretzy (a hockey legend, apparently) takes the torch out of BC Place to a second cauldron.

One of the girls who were sitting near us said she knew where it was – because her friend works right next door. So we all kinda looked at each other, before I dashed out of the door as quickly and quietly as I could.

Legging it down the street I lost them, only for them to catch up with me and pass me by – I’m sooo unfit!
It felt amazing. You could hear cheering a few blocks to your left, CTV’s helicopter was right there, hanging in the sky. The closer you got to the Waterfront, the more people were turning around and realising what was going on. I ran and ran, hearing the screams up ahead as Gretzy got there.

The flame was lit behind railings covered in bloody gauze with “Vancouver 2010” images all over them! Damn, I thought. Though it was very pretty indeed.

The crowd was milling around but not so thick you couldn’t move through it. The faint smell of weed filled the air. Heaps of people balanced on chairs and street poles to get a half-arsed view of the commotion, and then with a crack and a bang came the fireworks.

The sky erupted, like the crowd, with that dazzling splash of colour and dark rattle which fireworks always bring. I couldn’t see them, not well enough. So I meandered like a salmon, keeping one eye on the sky, and knowing exactly where to get a better view; on the stairs down towards Coal Harbour. Here there were even less people. I was pressed against the chain-fence, with a spectacular view. Millions of dollars of fireworks exploding, sending a rumble through my core, lighting up the water and the sky in equal measure.

Between cheers for Go Canada! I couldn’t muster the strength to get a better view! It was good enough here. The one day I forgot my camera – and I see this!

When the fireworks climaxed, the crowd still cheering, I was ready to move on. As I passed the Olympic flame once more I saw a man pulling the covering off. “Anybody wanna help me take this off?” He was asking, defying the stupid, snobby git who decided that no-one but the privileged few should see this glowing flame in its full glory. I smiled at that.

As I neared the station there was singing, in the entrance to the Fairmont Hotel. A Russian choir, for no reason I could discern, stood serenading us with a language I could not understand. It was beautiful. It was everything this moment should be – groups of strangers in the street, celebrating, spontaneously giving their time and talents to those around them.

When the summer Olympics come, I’m going to watch the ceremony at a bar near the fireworks and watch them before going home or crashing at someone’s place! Lol.