I haven’t yet written about being back in Vancouver, mostly because we have been way too busy. The Olympics are on their way, starting on Friday, and we have a lot of things we’d like to get done before that chaos begins. We already made our run for the border, as we expect security to be nuts. We are heading to the island soon as well.

But mostly, we are getting jacked up for the Games. The city is all decked out for the party. The venues are long since ready. They have stages set up around town for all the entertainment. Tourists are piling in. The new tram line from the Olympic Village to Granville Island is looking sharp; the new Skytrain line is running smoothly. The buzz is starting. It’s what everybody is talking about. We have our tickets and we’re ready to go.

What I expect is that we’ll find time to blog almost every day about the Olympics. The curling venue is five minutes’ walk from here, for example. My best friend lives right near the speed skating oval. Downtown has a huge cluster of events. Then there’s the wall-to-wall coverage of all things in the mountains as well.

Speaking of the mountains, that’s a bit of a cause for concern right now. The snowboarding and freestyle skiing takes place on Cypress Mountain, one of the ski hills you can see from the city. They don’t have much snow. Next door is Grouse Mountain, and it looks like it’s April up there it’s so brown. It’s been a warm winter and these mountains have the least amount of snow at this point in the year that they ever have. It’s been called the Spring Olympics by some – technically I think Sydney already did that – and they’re not wrong. It’s not cold, it hasn’t rained and while the weather is fantastic for most of us I imagine the organizers are doing a bit of sweating.

But make no mistake – the city is coming alive. The countdown is on. And we’ll be here every step of the way, walking and watching.