The VIP treatment

And so after 17 days of debauchery, hard work (oh yes, I did some), the odd German date (story to follow) and one blow out final day the games are over here! I have to say these games have been memorable for all the right reasons, Vancouver has been a great host and their incredible Gold haul of 14 medals surpasses any previous record by any other nation, and they definitely deserve all of the success. Apart from the outrageous beer prices during the games($10 a pint, cheers!) there's been very little to moan about, and I do like a whinge.

A little worse for wear at 3am with, Jamie & Michael Lee.

These final few days started with a good old Auzzie piss up, and ended with the mother of all day outings... On Thursday we ventured to the Library Square bar to celebrate Michael Lee's birthday,and for those of you not familiar with this spiritual Auzzie; think of a cross between Trevor Linden and the standard "Oh yeah, get some more shrimp on the barbie mate, and chuck us a sheila would ya". Got it?

Embarrassingly, the rest of the weekend was fairly timid. With the main news being that of Canada's huge Gold Medal tally. Sir Steven Redgrave defended Britain’s only Gold medal, suggesting that he'd take the 1 Gold over 5 bronzes anytime. Err, I'm sure Amy Williams might agree, but I doubt any other British athlete at the games would, cheers though for that pearl Steve.

So instead of doing the logical thing in pissing Friday and Saturday up the wall, I waited...FOR HOCKEY HOUSE SUNDAY, and boy, was it worth the wait. My gamble paid off, and Canada reached the Men's Hockey Final against the USA. My little VIP beauties were about to get a serious outing. Following a quick 3 hour work blast in the morning it was straight down to the Hockey House at Midday for one of those drinking sessions you know is going to put you in bed by 10. Some great gambas, beef steak and gourmet deserts were washed down with a wide array of alcoholic beverages including Beer, Gin and Tonic, Wine and Whiskey and Coke....

The game wasn't too bad either, the USA equalising with 20 seconds to go to send the match in to OT. But the day was saved (at least for me and my aspirations for the mother of all parties) by Sidney Crosby who grabbed the Golden Goal.

Unfortunately these days are never as straight forward as they should be and a call from the office meant that I was saved from complete obliteration to sort out some problems in Whistler. And then after a closing ceremony ticket presented itself, my hopes of bed by 10 were dashed... This little respite provided for some interesting moments, sobering up in front of 50,000 spectators is never great, especially when you've got a grandma on one side and a fitty on the other. The ceremony was pretty tops though....

After a couple of expensive beers at the ceremony to ensure that all my hard work early in the day was not completely lost it was back to the hockey house to ensure that somebodies $450 VIP ticket was money truly well spent.


Fran, Myself and Jamie

So that's it from the Olympic Games, but not it from me. I'm heading up to Whistler now for 10 days of powder and apres...bliss. Ill still try and bring you as many updates on antics as I can afford, however I fear for lack of time due to impending snow/mountains/jaeger/beer/ and hopefully a ski bunny or two inhibiting my computer access. Enjoy the English spring guys...

JW in Vancouver.