Friday 17 June 2011

The riot...


This was supposed to be Game 7, the game all of Canada was watching full of hope. I decided to go downtown to watch this oh so important game with some friends at 4:00PM. Bars were full everywhere, and soon after,  there was this first goal... The crowd felt different. I left. Transits were scarce but operational. It was 6:00 PM. By the time I got off the bus, the second goal was scored...

I turned the tv as soon as I got home, just in time to watch the last 10 minutes of the game. 7:30PM My friend that I had left behind in downtown texted me "Everything is quiet, no worries, people are really calm". I thought "This is not Montreal after all... maybe it was just my scary imagination and we won't have a riot"

And then it went so fast. 7:45PM My friend sent me another text "I smell something burning", followed by "switch channel to RDI". Cars on fire. People breaking windows, looting. Voices of reporters that just got their cameras smashed. Transits completely cut. No more ways in and out of downtown except by the sky train that obviously couldn't handle 100,000 people at once... And images of war zones filmed in the area I left just 2 hours before... This was even bigger than any riot that ever happened in Montreal. It must have been a nightmare!

I think everyone in Vancouver woke up in total disbelief and with tears in their eyes... but then this message of hope: hundreds of Vancouverites spontaneously volunteering to clean the mess. Thank you for showing us the true face of Vancouver, the true face of Canada and hopefully images that I hope will slowly erase this awful night, so that we can only remember how beautiful our home is.

On a side note, good luck to my colleagues who are cycling for the Ride to Conquer Cancer this weekend. May sun follow you and wind gently blow in your back to help you along the way. I'm proud of working alongside such amazing people :) Cheers!

1 comment:

  1. That's really sad. You only need a few drops of ink to completely stain a clean shirt. Vancouver's still a great place.

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