Since things are pretty quiet at work at the moment, I decided the time has come for me to take a day off, take the plunge, and wait in line for the zipline and the medal viewing.
Here's the start tower for the zipline, 6 stories tall.
My co-zippers, getting harnessed up.
The view from the top.
Do I look nervous? Well, I wasn't, at least till it came time to step off that last step. It's a loooonnnng way down!
The guys ahead of me:
The girl who 'zipped' after me didn't quite make it to the landing platform, but rolled back along the cable, and one of the staff had to go out on the line, and pull her back. Looked like they were used to this sort of thing, and luckily, the girl had done the zipline before, and didn't seem too concerned about it.
After that excitement, I headed over to the Mint exhibit at the library, where they had the Olympic and Paralympic medals on display, for us to touch, hold, ogle, but NOT pretend we had won. That was part of the instructions - we were not to do any sort of 'victory' symbol, or imply that we had actually won it. Mind-boggled, I asked what exactly had prompted that sort of restriction, and it's part of the IOC's requirements. Since this is the first time the public has had this kind of opportunity, I guess they wanted to just hold back a little bit of the 'thrill of victory'. Perhaps in London in 2012, they'll allow a bit more.
3 comments:
So are the medals really as heavy as they look? Way to go zipliner!
Sheri-Lee
They are definitely heavy medals! About 1 lb each. You would really feel it when that gets put around your neck!
Ziplining was very cool, and whet my appetite for more - some people at work have talked about organizing a day at Grouse Mountain - I'm in!
The zipline looks fun - kind of makes me wish we had done it. Glad you got a chance. That zipline-retriever person is like Spiderman!
Funny about the medals, that you can't pretend you won. Maybe the Czech medal winner (from one of your previous posts) was given those same instructions by mistake.
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