It's All Over Now... and we say Goodbye So Soon to Vancouver 2010

We all knew this day would come. The Olympics lasts but two weeks, leaving almost as soon as it arrives and leaving one hell of a mess behind! Still, even though it's been a few days now, the streets feel empty, and it's more than a little disconcerting, living without Vancouver's Winter Games. The thing is, that even if you have no love for sport, the sheer volume of people, the shouts of support, the busy attractions could not fail to touch your life in one way or another.

Now there are no queues of pin-freaks outside HMV, waiting hours for CTV's commemorative pin. There are no pot-heads and drunks stumbling through in maple-leaf-flags and screaming "Wooo Canada yeah!" before running out again. The red and white has melted away, along with the temporary screens, buskers and free concerts.

I was working through the Hockey final - damn it - but I could hear the shouts and cheers from the bottom floor of HMV, let alone the main floor! Canada 3 - USA 2 and what a sweet end to the Games. The car-horns started beeping, people kept cheering, from the late afternoon all the way into the wee-hours of the morning - a near-constant frenzy of chaos. It reminded me of Naples. Hot-headed, loud, blaring, an edge of bite behind the smiles... when your sober, such things can be pretty scary. When you knock off work and get a couple of drinks down ya however... =D Electric. Exciting. Absolutely bloody mental! High-fives and hugs all round, music in the street, just a brilliant, drunken vibe.

[Video: the sound of the crowd outside HMV on Robson and Burrard. Those car-horns are happy car-horns, and, BTW, that video was taken at an ebb of noise (yes, that was a quiet portion of the night).]

I almost didn't go out. But I'm glad I did. My feet were dead from a long weekend of working and sight-seeing, I was tired, cranky - and then I realised that the reason I was cranky was the fact that I'd had no fun. The fact that I couldn't find the closing ceremony online only added to my frustration (they really put it in the most obscure location)! Soon realising that it was utter madness not to take up the inivtation I ended up getting to Malone's quite late. But just in time to still enjoy the atmosphere before catching one of the last SkyTrains home.

And so we say goodbye, so soon, to the games. And isn't it a shame. We know by now that time goes on and oh, so soon, goodbye...

The Paralympics just won't be the same.