Does everyone in Vancouver have a hangover?

Many people are lingering longer in the coffee shops.

Many people are buying a tub of ice cream and consuming it.

Many yoga classes are focussing on "restorative" poses - the ones where you get into one position and stay there for 5 minutes. No one is complaining.

The early morning news is describing a marked rise in people calling into work sick with colds, but the traffic is still quite a mess this week as droopy people get themselves into work.

Do we all have a collective hangover from the Olympics?

The early morning news says all the "high-fiving" people were doing in the streets with complete strangers during the Olympics helped the cold spread. It's like the office cold gone global. But some of us didn't join a lot of crowds. (Those of us in wheelchairs tried to avoid the crowds at all costs!)

A distinct difference between the Olympic weeks and now is obvious on the streets. The streets are empty. We have normal traffic, but that's it. We've all calmed down and gone back to normal living.

I think we were all a bit over-stimulated by the Olympics, and now we have a low-energy hangover. It's an amazing, shared, hangover of immense proportions.