First, some housekeeping. We are going to do the draw for the 2010 Olympics Men’s Curling ticket contest from the House of Switzerland this Sunday, Valentine’s Day. Stay tuned to see if you won! Second, I have some REALLY exciting news to announce shortly… so keep your eyes on the blog on Monday or Tuesday for my announcement as well as an updated list of the Olympic coverage I am going to be doing in terms of events and new parties I’ll be attending. Don’t forget to follow me on Twitter for live Olympic and Vancouver-related updates.

Allan and I had a chance to check out the Holland Heineken House last night to get a first look at the pavilion, the activities and of course the main club venue. Let me tell you this… the city has reached a fever pitch and people were partying before the Olympics even start today. Awesome. Not so awesome: The food and forced pre-pay cards at the Heineken House. And paying for water. Bad bad BAD.

It’s free to get in, but be prepared to fork out cash once you get inside for tiny expensive beers and snacks. Note that only VISA and cash is accepted, and you will have to load money onto pre-pay cards to buy any drinks or snacks once you are inside the club part of the venue. Lineups for these are VERY long, so make sure you load up lots of cash on the cards as soon as you get in to avoid delays.

It was neat seeing the venue before the crazy crowds got there. Everything is very orange.

Nothing like doing virtual snowboarding in Michael Kors boots. Yeah, that’s me.

The stores there are pretty cool… plus there are some very good looking Dutch men working the SuitSupply store.

The SuitSupply store has Olympic-Dutch branded clothing, and I REALLY loved these dress shirts. Really stylish. Wish Allan had bought one but they were pretty expensive ($160-ish).

We also tried out the virtual Volkswagen racing. It was a lot of fun, but note that they are kind of standoffish if you aren’t Dutch, and many of the activities and contests inside you can only win if you are a Dutch citizen.

Check out some of the pics from around the venue. In particular I liked the Gold Medal beer opener (we bought one of those as well as a scarf) and the Converse Heineken shoes. The food was absolutely terrible though, other than the Dutch Hotchpodge featured here. It’s difficult to get into the restaurant without reservations (mostly sold out now), but the food is BAD. And they charge you for water. Yes, water. Seriously, you can’t get free tap water at the restaurant and they don’t tell you that the water you are buying is $2.85 for 4 ounces. Not impressed.

The main club area is huge though, and it’s going to be really neat to see the place explode when they get in famous DJs like Armin van Buuren (rumoured).

The Olympics are going to be crazy. I can’t wait for everything to get started.

Stay tuned for more Olympic updates and exclusive coverage! What do you think of the Holland House? Are you going to go?