Three Days of Olympic Opportunity

2-16-2010; 12:08, from notes:

Riding on the Games Express #10 bus from the Athlete’s Village, heading to pick up the luge ticket from Kyla and return to the sliding centre from there via the Excalibur Gondola.

The travel is always different to Whistler, somehow. Today I asked Dylan, a housemate, if he could drop me off at Walmart so I could take the bus up to Whistler. As we’re leaving I spot a Blue Jacket waiting at a bus stop – a bus stop where no busses run from 09:00 – 14:00 during the day.

“Would you like a ride to Walmart?” “Absolutely,” she says, and hops in the VW Golf.

No need for introductions here, yet, people generally are who they say they are and turns out she has a car parked nearby – so Dylan turns around to enjoy his day off, I hop in the car with the stranger who hopped in ours, I introduce myself.

Jane and I, then, as only those who were once strangers and have now become fast friends do, enjoy a pleasant ride up to Whistler (Function Junction, to be more precise) as she works in the Village. Things keep flowing together nicely for me –

(A man had done the same for me at the same bus stop – seeing me in my Blue Jacket, looking anxious about a bus arriving, graciously picked me up, so it was clear in the order of things for the day that the woman was at least receiving a ride from our car).

A walk through Whistler, almost daily now, my new posh home ($5.25 for one can of Red Bull) towards the Sliding Centre. Caption: A group of Americans from Washington State walk through the Whistler Marketplace en route to a bar to continue watching Team USA Hockey.

Caption: Two RCMP (Mounties, eh) pose for pictures. Caption: The Olympic Rings, Whistler Village (near the Brewhouse and Medal's Plaza).

Caption: The Estonian flag-walkers proudly display their flags high above the sea of people within the Village and the events.

With a camera in hand it becomes hard to write and vice-versa with a notebook, so I resume capturing the pulse of Whistler Village around 19:00. The Olympic Anthem plays first for the Medal’s Ceremony – I’ve got the budget seats: behind the fence, behind the screen, and no view of the stage in a pavillon outside of the Brewhouse (Whistler, but I’m getting tired of writing Whistler, because everything comes with that proper noun in front of it here – Whistler Olympic Park, Whistler Village, Whistler Sliding Centre, Whistler Live, etc. etc.)

Snowboard cross is being presented down in Vancouver (the American wins gold) and the Vancouver Music, as I call it, plays.

And then, much to my surprise, Cory and Kara Salmela wander into the same little spot. Cory (for those here, not there) is announcing with NBC Universal; Kara was a 2002 Olympian in Biathlon.

In Duluth stopping these two at Snowflake is maybe acceptable for making a shy introduction – but probably not in the passing by at Mount Royal, for example.

But here, Duluth is a binding glue -- more than being a Minnesotan as the first step. So far I haven’t met many other Minnesotans – one from Eden Prairie – but it is more common to identify with “almost Thunder Bay” and “northwestern Ontario” because, well, nobody knows it and I don’t know Toronto proper nor its plethora of suburbs in the east. I’m improving.

Being an American here is purely satisfying (usually, and I do admit with a slight bashful glee) because it is quite possible to approach nearly anyone, anywhere and ask them where they’re from “in the States.” As I reveal my location – perhaps it matches with theirs, likely it doesn’t, I think about approaching the same people back home and the reaction.

Common answers to my question so far have been Washington State, Wyoming, Vermont (but those are just the Andy Newell fans, munching peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and offering them up to people).

So I’ll preview tomorrow (today’s later) post with this image I sent to Duluth Pack via Twitter: an old satchel, making me very proud to see at the Winter Games and be an American, a Duluthian, a Minnesotan – a pride I have not felt back in those places, at times.