I swear this is my last post about the Olympics. (One more note: figure skating, I will miss you most of all! I've been watching CTV's ice dancing videos to remedy my Olympics withdrawal.) Yesterday was such a funny day in this city. For the first time, it felt like I was living somewhere like Regina. I had to miss the first part of the gold medal hockey game, because Chris had promised one of the old ladies from church that we'd go out for Sunday lunch with her.
The restaurant we went to -- a favourite among this city's seniors -- is usually crowded on Sunday for lunch. We'd attempted to go there with the same lady once before, but she hadn't made reservations and the line-up was out the door. Yesterday, the place was nearly empty. We arrived really early for our reservation and they seated us right away because no one had had our table before us.
I'd been worried that I'd have no idea what was going on with the game. I'd considered having my sister text-message me with updates, but we both forgot our cellphones on Sunday. (Which is for the best, because that would not have been so polite.) However, we didn't have to worry; we knew whenever Canada got a goal. An old man with an ancient transistor radio at his table sent Chris hand signals to update him on the score. When I went to get dessert, I could hear the kitchen staff shouting to the wait staff, "Now the score's 2-1!" It reminded me of being at a store or restaurant in Regina during a major football game; everyone's interested and is keeping each other updated.
I rushed to Ky's house (where we were planning on watching movies for the afternoon), and even she was willing to watch the rest of the game with me. We hardly breathed through the last few minutes. After we watched the gold medals being handed out, we went to the grocery store. Everywhere we went, there were people honking their horns and waving Canadian flags. Ky honked her horn back at them and we cheered with everyone else as we drove downtown. The first grocery store was on Douglas Street (which ended up being partially shuts down for celebration), and so we could hear the constant honking through the whole store. In the second grocery store, closer to the University, someone ran through the store cheering, and the cashiers starting cheering along with them.
Some days, I love how different this city is, that you usually see everyone in the city come together over mid-summer festivals where everyone's dressed like fairies and pirates. But some days, I love when we all come together like that and I feel like we're in just another Canadian city. It feels like home on those days.
(P.S. Would you believe that 80% of this entire country watched at least part of the game? I'm normally not a hockey fan, but that's just so cool.)
4 comments:
Really -- I'm glad y'all won. We wouldn't have enjoyed it nearly as much!! That goes even more for curling. Hearing the whole curling venue sing "Oh Canada" -- and then seeing Martin win was really wonderful... then again, Hubby tells me I'm really a Canadian at heart, so I suppose it's no big shock.
I also loved, loved, loved the way they poked fun at the torch problem they had during the opening ceremony..
Seriously, the last couple of days of the Olympics were the best for all of those reasons. It was the best ever when everyone broke into "Oh Canada" in the final end of the curling match. And I love how pleasant Kevin Martin seems.
And I'm glad that the closing ceremony was devoted to making fun of ourselves (although I could have done without Nickleback).
My friend Lisa met K-Mart a while back and says that he's just the super nicest, and I totally believe it. Also, John Morris is the super dreamiest. Go Canada Go!
I knew he would be! I saw an interview with him where he used the phrase "we got 'er done" to mean that they won a gold medal, and he was all super-smiley. Best ever.
And after John Morris knocked out those three rocks at the same time, even Chris was considering mailing him his underwear.
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