Vancouver, CANADA

Walking around Vancouver on the morning after the Winter Olympics' Closing Ceremonies, we thought about our first visit to the city. Here are some observations:

• Easy to get around, walking and on public transportation.
• Clean. Great variety in architecture.
• See-through glass awnings on many stores to provide shelter from the rain.
• Canadians are "friendly to a fault" and even the "out of service" buses say "SORRY".
• City shut down all bar service/liquor store sales at 2pm on two days to keep Canadian ice hockey fans from getting too rowdy.
• All city government and businesses used English and French on all signage.
  
• Tons of tall buildings with mostly glass to capture the fantastic views.
• Many Yellow Cab Toyota PRIUS cars.
• Vancouver is proud to be a "green" city and uses 3 types of recycling bins.
• Vancouver has bicycle lanes and indicates the bike-friendly streets on overhead street signs, including bicycle image.
  

Green Games? Or too much paper?

Just saw a Twitter "tweet" from the Olympics media folk on how environmentally friendly the games are. We heard one person earlier talk about how many paper tickets they needed or got and commented on how environmentally UNfriendly that was. Guess we will see. Some things take time to change. However, given our increasing sensitivity to what is wasteful and what is not, we cringe when we see waste -- like WHY do some events still use plastic and paper? Or, why the requirement to fill out forms on paper and not online?