Tinkerblue

International Village at The Bay Downtown 5th Floor

Hubby and I finally had a chance to visit the International Village at The Bay last night. 

The Russians definately have the biggest presence.   they have a whole pod to themselves.

The Dutch have the brightest presence.  Maybe orange isn't your thing, but you gotta admit it stands out and is easily identifiable.  And just wait until you see a sea of orange at the speed skating at Richmond Olympic Oval or at Holland Heineken House at the Ozone.

This one's for you Morag, the Brits had some of the coolest/weirdest items.  A Union Jack puffy vest, some knit caps, I bet it will sell well.

What other countries had merchandise for sale? Finland, Italy, the US, all the Hockey Jerseys and a selection of IOC museum collection pieces.  We went fully intending to spend lots of cash on some Aussie items.  No luck.   This is the Australia section:

First Day in Uniform - it looks like the smurfs have taken over the office

 

This is what I will be wearing for the next 3 and 1/2 weeks.  Well except for the pants, I should be wearing snow pants, but I'm in the office in the city this week, and the snow pants are just too warm.

All Things Victory Ceremony - medal trays, podiums, uniform, flowers

10 days to go.  10 very short days.  There's not much left to surprise us all with - who will be the final torch bearer, who will perform at the Opening and Closing ceremonies... Today Vancouver 2010 released the details of the podiums, medal trays, flowers and medal bearer uniforms.

© VANOC/COVAN 

The Podiums are inspired by the snow-capped mountains of Vancouver and Whistler. Each one is assembled from over 200 pieces of precision cut wood from BC Forests.  Built by new trained inner city workers at the Rona Vancouver 2010 Fabrication Shop. 23 podiums will be used in 86 Olympic and Paralympic Victory Ceremonies.

© VANOC/COVAN

Ergonomic wooden trays, matching the design of the podiums, have a non slip surface to protect the wavy medals. Both the podiums and the trays were designed by VANOC's late design director Leo Obstbaum and industrial designer James Lee. I really like them both. Beautiful in their simplicity. I'd like one of the trays please.

 © VANOC/COVAN

Athlete bouquets contain green hypercium berries, green spider mums, leatherleaf fern, monkey grass and aspidistra leaves. They're pretty but why aren't there any native BC plants or flowers in the bouquets.

 

Volunteers will carry the medals and flowers on those lovely trays and escort the athletes while wearing their Aritzia produced costumes.  The costumes are in shades of blue to represent the sea to sky palette.

The outdoor uniform is a cocoon parka in hues of blue inspired by the night sky.

The indoor uniform is a handmade coat, each one is unique and hand knit. A silk scarf is embroidered with complementary hues representing the flags of all nations competing at the Games.

The athlete escort uniform features a vintage ski coat in shades of blue, flocked with with the same Aboriginal artwork of an orca and raven found on the medals. 

I'm not really keen on the uniforms, and I assume all the medal volunteers are female, can't see too many men wearing these outfits.  If I had to pick one, it would be the athlete escort uniform.