Today hubby and I had the opportunity to explore the Vancouver Olympic Village. And luckily it stopped raining otherwise it wouldn't have been much fun.
The Village has an awesome location. On the waterfront, at False Creek. Great views across to BC Place/Stadium, GM Place/Canada Hockey Place, Molson Canada Hockey House, Quebec House and Science World.
During the Games the Village is not open to the public. Only accredited athletes, staff, team officials, volunteers and invited guests with a guest pass will be able to enter the village.
The Village will be divided into residential and plaza zones. The Plazas will house the main stage, banking, post office, general store, Olympic store, tourism info, cafe, media centre, management offices, clinic, meeting rooms, etc.
The Salt Room will be the Village Living Room with games, lounge area, water bar, entertainment etc. The Salt Room was originally a salt refinery in the 1930's, it has also been a paper recycling plant. A heritage listed building, after the Games it will be a brew pub.
The residential area will house 2730 residents during the Olympic Games and 350 residents during the Paralympic Games.
The dining tent is split into two areas - for residents and workforce. During the Games over 600,000 meals will be served.
After the Games you can buy the apartments/lofts/townhouses from Millennium Water.
The plans include a community centre, gym, London Drugs, Urban Fare, a proposed specialty liquor store, parks, children's playground, water features, retail shops, restaurant, roof top gardens, and water access for non motorized water craft.
I could handle the location, and I like the idea of living in the Village. But. They are way out of our price range. And the units are tiny. Perfect size for some people, just not for us.
After we finished our tour, hubby headed out to the hangar to work on the plane and I went downtown to meet Andrea. Our plan was to head over to the Yew Bar at the Four Seasons Hotel to try out the Olympic themed cocktails. Yep, at 1 o'clock we decided it was late enough in the day to start drinking.
We ordered one of each cocktail, the bronze, silver and gold so split between us.
Bronze, representing the 1976 Montreal Summer Olympics. It contains maple syrup, whiskey, egg white, apple slices, and a creme brulee crust. This was by far my favourite, and Andrea was generous enough to let me drink most of it.
Silver, representing the 1988 Calgary Winter Olympics. Served in a glass cowboy boot, no less. It's basically a Caesar made with Crystal Head Vodka (Dan Ackroyd's smoked buffalo infused vodka). It was served with a swizzle stick of buffalo jerky. I was not a big fan of the silver drink. All I could smell was the buffalo jerky plus the clamato juice was overpowering. Andrea drank about 1/2 of this one and then we left it alone.
Gold, representing Vancouver 2010. It's liquid sushi. Very typically west coast. Gin, lemon juice, cane sugar juice, cucumber and salmon. Andrea's not a fan of cucumber, and I can't eat salmon so we removed the garnish and the drink was pretty good. Andrea drank most of this, as I was hording the bronze drink.
They were labour intensive and time consuming for the barman to make, and they were not cheap. Was it worth it? I'm glad we went but I don't need to go back. I really enjoyed the bronze cocktail but I won't be replicating the silver or the gold. However it was great to spend the afternoon with Andrea, made the trip downtown worthwhile.
Andrea will be volunteering during the Olympics and Paralympics. She started her own blog 2010vanfan in the summer and her goal is to post every day in the lead up to and during the games. Andrea recently quit her job so she can focus on blogging the Games full time. She'd like to be a writer when she grows up and is hoping to parlay this experience into paid work at a later date.