The Olympics have been over for just three days now. I know I am not the only one that feels like something is missing. Its like my best friend is gone.

I went downtown today for the first time since the sea of red on Sunday afternoon. No random high fives. No spontaneous “oh Canada’s”. I walked on Mainland in Yaletown and got honked at by a car….right…. its not a pedestrian zone anymore.

There is a weird quiet in the city. 

 I want it back….

Photo credit: Skye Nott

I can’t believe this is the final day of the Olympics here in Vancouver. It seems like a whirlwind of amazing times, meeting amazing people and watching amazing sports! But today is the biggest day for Canadians because our sport…. our hockey team was going for gold.

I could barely sleep last night because I was so excited. The entire city was up early, waiting in lines for pubs, to get their seat to watch this historic game. We lined up at 8:30am to get our seat and the game didn’t start until noon. The energy in the pub was great. Everyone just wanting to see our team take home the gold!

What a game. The USA played a good solid game and with 24 sec left in the final period, they tied it up sending us to overtime. I was beyond myself. But with an extra attacker, you can’t really blame Luongo for letting that goal in. So now it was in OT…. I was a wreck. And before I knew it, we were jumping up and down celebrating the Crosby goal! What? WE WIN!!! GOLD!!!!!!!!!! So ridiculously exciting!

Celebrating the win!

Gold Medal team!

Sue and I wanted to go downtown and check out the craziness and it was just that….crazy! Granville St was a gong show of people. We walked as far as Robson before the cops turned us around. There was just too many people going in the same direction, that they had everyone turn around. Suited me fine… I started to get a little claustrophic but what an experience to be downtown with other Vancouverites and Canadians celebrating this huge win.

Sue and me on Granville St.

Granville St crowds.

We then went to a friends to watch the closing ceremonies which I thought were great and so uniquely Canadian. Only Canada could make fun of themselves like they did and I loved it!

Closing Ceremonies.

There were some great performances of Canadian talent like Michael Buble, Avril Lavigne, Alanis Morrisette, Neil Young, Nickelback, Simple Plan, Hedley and K-os. Would have loved to seen a bit more of our A talent but still a fun show.

I can`t say enough about how these last two weeks have been. I was able to meet so many people and just have so many memorable experiences. I really feel like I made the most of having the Olympics in my back yard. I am beaming with pride to be a Canadian right now. I am going to miss the vibe here. It really was just an amazing thing to witness.

I will say one thing though… I am exhausted and am looking forward to doing nothing for a while. Back to regularly scheduled programming!