Olympics Withdrawal

For the past few weeks, the first thing I've done upon arriving home from work and putting my stuff away is go to the TV and turn on whatever Olympics coverage happened to be on at that very moment. Today, I find myself at a loss. I guess I could read? Or something?

As you can tell from the above, I got completely 100% sucked in to the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver. I watched the opening ceremonies while I was still in Miami, even. That's commitment. So here, in no particular order, are some of my favorite moments from these games:

• Johan Olsson from Sweden leads most of the Nordic 30km pursuit by a huge (relatively) margin only to be overtaken by one of his countrymen and a German within sight of the finish. Amazingly, he still got the bronze. It was riveting, especially for cross-country skiing.
  
• Evan Lysacek having the skate of his LIFE in the long program to beat out the pompous and over-confident Evegeni Plushenko in men's figure skating. Evan was so excited and it was amazing to watch. Plus, I've always had a soft spot for Evan's coach, Frank Caroll. He coached Michelle Kwan and she will always be my favorite figure skater.
  
• Joannie Rochette. Enough said.
• Kim Yu-Na's triumphant, beautiful and powerful free skate. Long live the Queen. (I seem to have a figure skating theme going here).
• Curling. All of it. But particulary, the Norwegian team's pants. Those things are awesome and I think I may buy them as a Halloween costume. It would be epic. (P.S. - There is a fansite on Facebook). Also, the Canadian men's gold medal victory. I've never seen curlers be so excited!
• The Men's Hockey gold medal game. As many before me have said, it may be the best hockey game ever played. Certainly, it's the best one I've ever seen. In the end, I'm glad Canada won because the reaction of everyone in that arena was priceless. Even I sang along to "Oh, Canada."

In other, sadder news, there was a giant storm that swept through western Europe over the weekend, wrecking havoc on the west coasts of France, Portugal, and Spain. One of the hardest hit regions was the Vendee which is where I lived while I was teaching in France. Here are some photos from my town, Les Sables d'Olonne. The port where the Vendee Globe begins may never be the same. It's devastating. Here also is a story from Le Monde, if anyone feels like practicing their French. Please keep the people I know there in your thoughts. I'm sure they are managing but it's still pretty shocking.