After the Bay, we headed down to the cauldron. Sonja and I saw the cauldron the other day from the viewing platform but since then, part of the chain link fence has been replaced with plexiglass allowing for better photos of people in front of the cauldron. We didn't go up to the viewing platform because it had not yet opened for the day.
We then made our way to the German Fan-Fest tent but discovered that it was not due to open for another 45 minutes. That gave us a bit of time to head down into Gastown to do a bit more shopping. It was also the first time that Cathie had seen the Gastown Steam Clock. Apparently, it has been gone for a couple of years to be repaired and cleaned, ready for the tourists that would arrive with the Olympics.
Back to German Fan-Fest!
We entered the tent at 10am and found out that it was really just a beer garden. Well, we had to make our wait worthwhile so Nelson and I had brats on a bun, Cathie and Geoff had blechkuchen, and Nelson and Debbie had a beer. Too early for a drink? Not when you get up before 6am! Unfortunately, the photo of me with my brat did not work out too well but it does show me with my sausage!
We were planning to go to the Royal Canadian Mint Pavilion to hold some medals but decided that the 6 hour line up was really not worth it. We then went looking for Casa Italia. Unfortunately, we could not remember quite where we had seen it on Friday night nor did we have an address for it so we wandered around for a long time looking. We did eventually get there only to learn that it was closed for a few hours for a press conference. Part of it was open so we went in there. We had just missed the samples of Kinder Chocolate and they had handed out the last of the Kinder baseball caps. There was a store with the Italian team outfits and giant plastic wheels of fake parmesan. We waited around for about 10 minutes and were able to sample prosciutto, parmesan, and wine.
After Casa Italia, we took a water taxi over to Granville Island. When I went to Granville Island (which is not really an island), I came by bus so I did not see the pretty little buildings on the water's edge.
We started with Swiss House but found out that it is only a restaurant, also with a very long line. We did get some Swiss pins but they didn't even have samples of Swiss chocolate! We were going to wait in the line for the Maritime Provinces House and had the foresight to ask a couple of questions. The long line was for the food samples (which would be handed out in about 30 minutes but only to the first 100 people and there were already far more than that in line) and the short line was just to view the displays. However, we were told that the displays were really only some photos and tourism posters.At this point, we were really done and ready to go home. We walked back to the car and headed out. We stopped to pick up some finger foods so that we could eat in front of the tv and watch the Canada/US hockey game. And Canada lost.
Overall, I was really disappointed with the National Houses. I was hoping for displays of each country's culture, things that would make me want to go for a visit but they were mostly just a place with really long lineups to sample tiny bits of food. We did hear that the Northern Territories house was really good but we didn't make it there. Perhaps another day.
Disappointing houses, long lineups, and a loss in hockey - it was just one of those days I guess.
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