If you are on the fence, but have a chance to attend the Winter Olympics, go. Despite parades of people, ridiculously expensive paraphernalia, and guaranteed cover charges at every bar, the games warrant enthusiastic nationalism and just another reason to go ski Whistler.

I didn’t attend my college graduation, rarely remember birthdays, and never participate in Superbowl activities; some may consider me a killjoy in regards to culturally construed revelry, but I like to think I simply enjoy more discrete trends in celebration. That is, until I went to the Olympics.

As a skeptic turned believer, here is what I learned about appreciating the Olympics in Whistler:

1. Don’t get caught up in making the decision about whether or not to go to the Olympics and forget to pay your dinner bill. Running out of a restaurant because you finally decided to make the drive to Whistler justifies a noteworthy amount of bad karma.
2. The best deal you may encounter during your Olympic extravaganza may just be the two bottles of Crown for $35 at the duty free store.
3. Walking around the village at midnight allows only a few hours of getting down at the bars. Go to each bar and tell the bouncer you are looking for your friends. This should give you fifteen minutes at every bar in town, with enough time to at least dance to two songs, sans the cover charge.
4. Drink Red Bull or you will remember how tired you were when you were considering just staying home.
5. Don’t listen to everyone when they tell you that the events will be well advertised or you may end up missing the first run of the women’s slalom because you are trying to find the spectator area.
6. If you can’t find the spectator area and it is snowing, you are in Whistler, so go skiing. Why rush to watch other people ski?
7. Get your photo taken with a life-size Quatchi.
8. Take pictures of yourself with as many different flags as possible.
9. Don’t wear your ski boots to a spectator area that doesn’t involve any skiing.
10. Hide your new skis under random ticket sales booths, no one will steal them.
11. Shake a cowbell, like you’ve never shaken one before.
12. Be patriotic, even if you are American.

The winner Maria Riesch

And her German fans.

The crowd at the base.

A good place to hide your skis.