Travel Tips

Vancouver 2010 Blog: Olympics Mittens & Olympics Souvenirs

Peter Greenberg Worldwide
Locations in this article:  Vancouver, Canada

Vancouver Olympics mascotsWhile standing in a long, long line to enter the Olympic superstore, Theresa Corigliano questions her sanity and ruminates on the hot-ticket tchotchkes of the 2010 Games.

Yes, I want to buy souvenirs, I admit it. Marie has a point. Souvenirs only mean something to people if they care about where you’ve been.

A very good friend of mine cares nothing about sports. In fact, she thinks I’m crazy to be here. “The Olympics … that’s sports, right?”

So trust me, she is not going to particularly care if I buy her a mukmuk bauble. (Mukmuk is one of the Olympic mascots. The hairy one, I think. I don’t really know. Definitely not the sea bear. Yes, the bear that lives under the sea. Don’t ask.)

Olympic mascot MukmukBut there are people who will appreciate the right souvenir, the kitschier the better. I want to see how good the selection is, so I can get exactly the right thing for the right person, as long as it fits in my carry-on bag.

But how long am I willing to stand here when there’s so much to see and do? Why is there one main store in one place? What was Vancouver thinking?

It’s so bad we are news. That’s right, NBC and CTV are interviewing people stupid enough to stand here for hours. People like me!

I’m not a shopper by nature and I basically have room in my suitcase for pins. But strangely, the number-one request from friends and family is mittens. Olympic mittens.

Every Games has a hot item and in 2010 it is the mitten. Red. Maple-leafed. Ringed. They are everywhere.

Olympic mascots wearing red mittens Even last night, pairs skaters wore them to warm up. Good thing they’re packable, or my dear friends would be getting postcards.

We got a hot tip from a local and Marie has gone into the Hudson Bay department store to scope it out. We have heard that if you want mittens, you don’t have to stand in line at all, which—surprise, surprise—no one at the Bay will tell you.

She just called me and I can confirm: If you want the mittens, don’t stand in this ridiculous line. Go to the fifth floor of the Bay. There are mittens! Small, medium, large, and XL!

Vancouver Olympic Committee Logo (VANOC)But what about other stuff? We want windbreakers. We want more pins. Nothing like that exists on the secret floor. Darn it!

* * *

We’re inside the store. It’s ridiculous. Three women fight over one jacket, but they do it politely because they’re Canadian.

A woman who spent hours looking for just the right jacket put it down on a rack to try something on and had it snatched out from under her.

To the absconder: “Don’t you even feel guilty that you took my jacket?”

Perpetrator (not alleged because she had the said jacket in her hand): “No.”

I buy my scarf, my T-shirt, fingerless gloves for dog-walking, and my Olympic cowbell, and I’m gone.

By Theresa Corigliano for PeterGreenberg.com.

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