Day 3 at the Olympics

Jill's words for Tuesday, Feb. 16th: What a fun day at Whistler! Rylee already wants to come back someday and spend the day in the village. A couple of funny things the kids said: Jarret said, "I love being a foreigner" as we were driving from the hotel to the sky train station. He counted 7 different forms of transportation we used today: walking, elevator, escalator, sky train, sea bus (very cool), charter bus, and gondola on Whistler mountain. Wow, no wonder our feet and legs are tired! After walking all day long, a lot of it UP and UP and UP Whistler mountain to see different views of the luge track, we finally got off the sky train to come back to our hotel. We all stood up to get off the train and groaned at the same time. Rylee said, "my lower body is cussing like a gangster"...man we laughed.
Watching the luge was really fun. At some points along the track, we were only a few feet from the lugers! They whizzed by us so fast that we almost missed the first two or three. The crowds really got into it and were yelling and ringing the cow bells. We didn't stay for the entire two heats as we wanted to see Whistler village before we had to ride the charter bus back to Vancouver (2 hr drive). Actually we took the sea bus from Vancouver to Lonsdale Quay, then boarded the bus for the drive up to Whistler. We only got drizzled on once or twice on the mountain, and didn't even use our hats and gloves. In the village we found a store called "Cows". You guessed it, it was all cow stuff. Rylee nearly wet her pants! Of course we had to go in and spend some money. We also tried poutines. What, you ask, are poutines? They're french fries covered in gravy and cheese curd. I know, I know, it sounds gross, but hey, when you're in Canada, you do as the Canadians do, right? They were actually pretty good!
I wore my Zags sweatshirt today, and just waited for one of the many thousands of Olympic fans to recognize it. Nothing. Until we were back in downtown Vancouver tonight taking pics of the Olympic torch, and a couple yelled "Gonzaga"!! They are alums and live in Seattle now. Yay, someone finally recognized it! The torch was blocked off with fencing, so we couldn't get too close. Apparently the protesters ruined it for the rest of us. Tomorrow is hockey and shopping!