Imagine

HAPPY BIRTHDAY _ensoleille and ceresse!!! Hope you both have a wonderful day of food, laughter and presents and bucketfuls of good wishes for the year *huggles you both*

tobiuslau and I stayed up until midnight watching the opening ceremony of the Olympics. He had taped the Canadian live feed from the morning but he only got the first thee hours so we ended up watching the American version around 10 until we realized that CBC was replaying the Canadian version. We promptly switched because the Canadian feed didn't cut things like the Ducati ballet dance and the Italian speeches.

The beginning of the ceremony was rather disappointing (crazy balloon head dance...?), but we thought it got quite spectacular after the Parade of Nations. I love the Parade of Nations because it's so fun to cheer for all the countries as they walk in. We cheered and clapped through the whole procession, randomly yelling whatever came into our heads when each country came out We had a crazy cheering fest for Canada (of course), the Baltic countries (my random obssession), Ireland (Erin go Bragh!), Poland (Karolina! Mr. Pietrosinski!) and China (our motherland). We cheered for Italy as they came in last, and we were both writhing with glee when we realized that in four years we are going to be the hosts!!!

The Italians did a fabulous job with their Renaissance to the Baroque segment (a giant book comes out of the ground and a passage from Dante was recited. The book geek in me went mad when I realized that a giant book was suddenly the focus of the zillion people watching), and the crazy techno ballet was interesting. I think our favorite parts were the human formations of the ski jumper and the dove, and Peter Gabriel's rendition of John Lennon's Imagine. We almost started crying.

As excited as we were for this Olympics, I think a lot of our enthusiasm came from the knowledge that our own Olympics is happening in four years! In four years, this beautiful, wonderful city is finally going to be the center of the world's attention and everyone will see why Vancouver is simply the best place in the world to live. Although, we are all kind of nervous as to what we will do for our opening ceremony. Vancouver is mostly known for amazing digital media, outdoor sports and marijuana...we figure we'll just hand out joints to all the athletes and they can all see their own opening ceremonies. I have faith in my city to surpass anything we've ever seen at the Olympics yet. Whatever we do will be beautiful and exciting and hopefully involve loads of fireworks.

But back to this year's games. I cannot wait for figure skating to start. I'm not too interested in the pairs or dance this year (mostly because I can't afford the extra time to spend) but I am beside myself with anticipation for the women's and men's events. Sasha Cohen and Jeffrey Buttle are both contenders for medals this year and I love, love, love them both. For the duration of the games, my icons will be of Sasha to support her. I want her to win gold so badly!!! And I think Jeff has a good chance for the gold if he can land his quad cleanly; otherwise, my ideal podium would be Jeff = silver, Evgeny Plushenko = gold.

In conclusion, YEA SASHA AND JEFF!!!

Thank you. *bows*