So I spent years complaining about the Olympics, from the moment, or actually even before Vancouver won the bid. I also told everyone who would listen that I had every intention of spending the Olympics as far away from them as possible (such as their ancient birthplace Greece perhaps, or somewhere else summery and not obsessed with snowboarding). In fact, the summery part came true, as Vancouver decided to do spring instead of winter this year, but a train of events led to me being in town, and you know what? It wasn’t all bad.

Don’t get me wrong: I think we were sold a lie of vast improvements and economic well-being, there were various scandals along the way, from the private funding falling through on the Olympic village and leaving us with the bill, to the anti crowd weapons the police considerately procured in the lead-up to the games, to the forced clean-up of the Downtown Eastside, to the arrogant and small-minded “own the podium” campaign, to the death of the luger to the lovely summery weather to… well, anyway. And I went to the protest rallies once the Olympics had started too, along with a huge chunk of the rest of the city. You have to stick to your beliefs.

But we did get the new Canada Line to the airport, which is pretty much the best thing since sliced bread in Vancouver. And I got to remember that watching the games on TV is actually pretty fun, and that I’m more interested in ski jumping and men’s figure skating than I would have thought possible. But most importantly for a city like Vancouver, it was a veritable party. There were free concerts everywhere (I loved discovering the Quebec group Les Cowboys Fringants warming up to an audience of 12 one sunny afternoon), there was public drinking on the streets, there was every kind of exhibition and performance piece happening on Granville Island. Vancouver is a city that frequently tops the quality of life index, but as anyone who’s ever lived anywhere more vibrant knows, it can be dead boring, especially at night. The Olympics gave our laid-back citizenry a taste of a little raucousity (that should be a word) With any luck, they’ll remember it next summer when someone proposes shutting down a few streets for a block party, and say “hell yeah!”

Without feeling the need to yell “Go Canada!” afterwards.