The Winter Games are on a much smaller scale than the Summer version, but many participating nations have Houses (like, for instance, the rowdy Dutch.) Some are closed only to nationals, but most are open to the public in some way. Inside, visitors are invited to learn more about those countries, and in most cases this involves country-specific alcoholic beverages and partying. Which is what most visitors want to learn about anyway!

The "Olympic Expo" is also an important way for international visitors to learn about the host nation. And Canada, the second-largest country in the world at 3,854,085 square miles (10 million square kilometers), has a lot of ground to cover. They say that it would take a thousand lifetimes to properly explore Canada, but I tried to see if I could cover it in a day.

Each of the country's 10 provinces and three territories is represented by either a single or shared pavilion at Vancouver 2010, scattered across the city and free of charge to enter. The host province of British Columbia is set up in the heart of downtown, in and around the Vancouver ArtGallery. They've taken over Robson and Howe, and there are long queues for the zipline, where one can fly over the square block with a helmet and a carabiner.

Inside the gallery, on the fourth floor, things are more subdued. British Columbia is doing interesting things with wood! And they want the world to know.

There are three pavilions down by the waterfront at Concord Place. The most popular is Ontario's, where on Day 12 there were lines two hours deep -- on Vancouver's first miserably rainy day in a week -- to experience Canada's largest and most populous province... in four dimensions. Once inside the theater, visitors receive special glasses and settle in for the show.

The theater attendant warns everybody to put their phones in their pockets, and he isn't kidding. When the show starts, children go tobogganing through a snowy landscape, and snowblowers send a billow of soft flakes into the theater. Fireworks over the Toronto skyline make the seats rumble. In one scene, a man canoes on a quiet Ontario lake, then notices the camera. He makes a playful splash with his oar. And all of a sudden, the audience gets real wet!

The Saskatchewan pavilion is bursting with energy. The energy of lentils!

There are pins featuring the province's green and gold flag for everybody, and the workers are very enthusiastic about their home. ("Did you know that this many canola seeds makes this much canola oil? And it's very healthy!") A popular exhibit allows visitors to have their picture taken in Saskatchewan, holding a giant fish.

And the nice folks won't let people go without trying a big Saskatoon berry pie, available for only $3 CDN at the concessions. And just as you're leaving, there's another photo opportunity... with real Mounties!

Next to Saskatchewan, in exposition terms if not geographical ones, is le Maison de Quebec. It's a sad little box 50 feet square, cramped and crowded. And it's open-air, giving little relief from the rain save for a small cafe where an automated machine pours $7 glasses of white wine. On stage, a singer-songwriter from Montreal asked the crowd how many French speakers there were. Only two among 40, it turned out... so he had to do all his song introductions in broken English. Even at their own pavilion, the Quebecois are misunderstood and underrepresented.

Back in the city proper, on the other side of B.C. Place, is Alberta House. They've taken over an upscale restaurant, with modern art on the walls and blonde wood furnishings. As a live jazz band swung on stage, a queue of 20 waited outside to experience the warm, urban sophistication of Edmonton and 1988 host city Calgary. Perhaps there would be an exhibit featuring Calgary Flames star Jarome Iginla, who was busy a few blocks away scoring two goals for the Canadian national hockey team in its 8-2 classification rout of Germany, the first of a four-step path to an improbable gold medal.

But two kindly women in Alberta House jackets walked up and down the line with bad news.

"We don't have a pavilion," said one. "It's really just a restaurant."

She gave me a yellow and green Alberta pin anyway.

Central prairie province Manitoba does have a pavilion, located just a few blocks north of Alberta House alongside Vancouver's Lawrill Park. It's a proud one too, an indoor rotunda filled with soaring music and public relations poetry. Did you know that there's a mint in Winnipeg that makes every Canadian coin in circulation, as well as money for other countries as well?

Up on Hastings Street, Northern House holds the wide lands of Yukon, Northwest Territories and Nunavut -- and manages to do so all under one roof. There are polar bears and wolves there, made immortal by taxidermists. You can even make your own inukshuk. On two floors are exhibits about what life is like up in the wildest upper reaches of Canada. For instance, families do their shopping twice a year, and most now do so online.

Northern House also has the best music of any of the pavilions. Ever heard of Yukon rockabilly? There's a band from Whitehorse called Sasquatch Prom Date that's helping pioneer the movement!

The final provincial pavilion, the last talisman in any visitor's collection and the final stop in my personal 28-hour Tour de Canada, is the Atlantic House. It's located at Granville Island. Like Alberta House, it's also a repurposed restaurant, but its capacity of 175 (carefully counted by the local fire marshal) makes it the hardest one to get into. There's a line down the street, mostly young and hip Olympics-goers, hoping to sample the maritimes -- Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick, Newfoundland/Labrador and Nova Scotia.

And the wait can be upwards of three hours long. In line on the evening of day 12, there were many twenty- and thirty-somethings from the Eastern provinces, a little homesick perhaps. And as the rain kept coming down, making everybody miserable.

"This is so unlike Eastern Canada," one young lady said. "I've never waited in line for a bar in Halifax."

Deep into the night, when the shivering and wet folks from outside were let into the Atlantic House, the reward finally revealed. In the dimly lit restaurant, an Acadian zydeco band took the stage, playing boisterous rock music.

Behind the long bar was the reason for the long lines. There were banks of taps, featuring a wide variety of beers and ales and thick dark stouts from the maritime provinces. And it was cheap, served in tall glasses, and it flowed freely.

And that, of course, is what most people here want to do anyway.

Beyond the athletic competitions, outside the tightly-controlled venues and off the television, the Olympic Games are the People's Expo. They are a celebration of regional and international culture, an adventure for the relentlessly curious, and a bottomless cup of liquid cheer as well. Shanghai Expo 2010 won't be nearly as much fun, I guarantee it.