Oympics opening ceremonies
I wasn't planning on watching the opening ceremonies. I was just going to put them on in the background and read while I waited for certain rumoured singers to perform, and to see who got to light the torch. But they sucked me in.
I was only 8 the last time we hosted the Olympics in Canada. Mostly I remember doing booklets in school and painting flags of countries who competed (I seem to recall painting Jamaica's flag? And I think that was the year their bobsled team competed for the first time, and then they made the movie Cool Runnings?) So I wasn't expecting that sitting in my living room in the dark most of the country away from where the actual ceremonies were taking place could make me feel so proud to be Canadian. That's pretty spectacular.
Within the first ten minutes I realized why they were going to be so long: they went the bilingual route. I should have expected that. :) (The B.C. premier's French accent? Atrocious. Made me wince and I'm not even francophone. But I like that they didn't translate the IOC president's French portion or the officials' oath into English -- even though I knew that half the country and many other viewers didn't understand most of it. *g*)
The First Nations' greetings were very nice and I quite liked how welcoming it was, but for the record, if you ever come to Canada you are not likely to see Native Canadians walking down the street in full regalia. In case you were wondering. ;) But the fact that they danced for the hour it took for all of the athletes to make their entrance? Wow. That's incredible.
Somebody in charge sure likes white. The men and women standing around the stadium floor cheering on the athletes? Looked ridiculous, especially the men. IMO, of course.
Modern art (or whatever genre it was) is not an interest of mine so while I was impressed by the special effects, the cultural part of it dragged on a little too long for my tastes. It was funny though, because while I mostly watched the CTV (Canadian) feed, every once in a while I flipped to NBC (American) to get their take, and at one point the Canadians are talking about the cultural significance of the constellations, while on NBC the broadcasters decided that "now would be a good time to talk about the special effects." Heh.
I did not know that kd lang is Canadian. Live and learn.
The guy who did the speech/poetry near the end was probably my favourite part. And you gotta love a country that cheers like crazy at the lines "we're known for saying please and thank you" and "that's right, we say zed and not zee." That was awesome. And makes me want to track down that "My name is Joe, and I. Am. Canadian!!" Molson commercial from years back.
They showed some of our troops in Khandahar during O Canada and that speech, and they were all wearing Canada t-shirts over their fatigues. Unity, yo.
It's too bad about that glitch with the torch, but at least it got lit in the end and with only a few minutes' delay.
So in conclusion, being a citizen of the host country is more awesome than I've been giving it credit for the past several months.
(That the IOC officials were in tears over the announcement of the Georgian luge participant's death broke my heart. What an awful, awful thing to have happen.)
I was only 8 the last time we hosted the Olympics in Canada. Mostly I remember doing booklets in school and painting flags of countries who competed (I seem to recall painting Jamaica's flag? And I think that was the year their bobsled team competed for the first time, and then they made the movie Cool Runnings?) So I wasn't expecting that sitting in my living room in the dark most of the country away from where the actual ceremonies were taking place could make me feel so proud to be Canadian. That's pretty spectacular.
Within the first ten minutes I realized why they were going to be so long: they went the bilingual route. I should have expected that. :) (The B.C. premier's French accent? Atrocious. Made me wince and I'm not even francophone. But I like that they didn't translate the IOC president's French portion or the officials' oath into English -- even though I knew that half the country and many other viewers didn't understand most of it. *g*)
The First Nations' greetings were very nice and I quite liked how welcoming it was, but for the record, if you ever come to Canada you are not likely to see Native Canadians walking down the street in full regalia. In case you were wondering. ;) But the fact that they danced for the hour it took for all of the athletes to make their entrance? Wow. That's incredible.
Somebody in charge sure likes white. The men and women standing around the stadium floor cheering on the athletes? Looked ridiculous, especially the men. IMO, of course.
Modern art (or whatever genre it was) is not an interest of mine so while I was impressed by the special effects, the cultural part of it dragged on a little too long for my tastes. It was funny though, because while I mostly watched the CTV (Canadian) feed, every once in a while I flipped to NBC (American) to get their take, and at one point the Canadians are talking about the cultural significance of the constellations, while on NBC the broadcasters decided that "now would be a good time to talk about the special effects." Heh.
I did not know that kd lang is Canadian. Live and learn.
The guy who did the speech/poetry near the end was probably my favourite part. And you gotta love a country that cheers like crazy at the lines "we're known for saying please and thank you" and "that's right, we say zed and not zee." That was awesome. And makes me want to track down that "My name is Joe, and I. Am. Canadian!!" Molson commercial from years back.
They showed some of our troops in Khandahar during O Canada and that speech, and they were all wearing Canada t-shirts over their fatigues. Unity, yo.
It's too bad about that glitch with the torch, but at least it got lit in the end and with only a few minutes' delay.
So in conclusion, being a citizen of the host country is more awesome than I've been giving it credit for the past several months.
(That the IOC officials were in tears over the announcement of the Georgian luge participant's death broke my heart. What an awful, awful thing to have happen.)