Many of you might have heard it by now. Last night, I sat down in front of the TV hoping to watch my hometown team win the Stanley Cup playoffs for the first time in history. It would've been the graduation gift of our lives. Instead, we lost to the Bruins in a respectable, hard-fought series. We did our best. But, instead of resuming regular life at 7:30pm, the news wouldn't let me go: the dreaded, expected riots had started. And I couldn't move from then till my sister kicked me off the TV at 11:30, enthralled by the destruction that was happening in my city, in disbelief that it was actually happening.
Horrified as I was then, the morning showed the face of the the Vancouver I knew: thousands of citizens taking to the streets and cleaning up after the actions of an unruly few, not 12 hours after the riots. I had a final this morning and had to study and then write it, so by the time I got there, much of the cleanup had already taken place. Not all, however, and this is what I saw...
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Someone who'd gotten up ontop of the store forgot some shoes and a bag.
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This mannequin was burned to a crisp.
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One of thousands of well-wishers vowing to rebuild Vancouver and its image
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12. "No, this isn't who we are"
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14. "What's happened here?"
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And thankyou for viewing (: