La Grande-Garde

Walked about 30 minutes to the Ghent train station, which was a bit laboured because i sprained my ankle a bit trying to exit the craziness of the festival the night prior. 30 minute train back to brussels and another 30 minutes to reach Lille, France. I was here to attend the Canada v Greece olympic men's basketball game

Walked from the train station into the old town with all my gear and sat down for a small break and then continued to my hotel. About 30 minutes total. The old town is really beautiful.

I wasn't able to checkin until 4, so i dropped off my bags and walked back to the old town to get some food and check out the quaint streets and sights. Wearing my canada shirt, i got heckled by many greek fans and surprisingly i didn't see any other canadians. But it was fun to interact in good natured ribbing.

My friend Alexandra was en route from Paris to join me for the game but her train endured massive delays because of numerous sabotages to the tracks. Many people here are thinking its russians doing it. Eventually i realized Alexandra wasn't going to make it on time for the game, so i contacted Charlie who lives an hour away in Bruges to see if he wanted to come to the game with me. 90 minutes later he arrived and off to the stadium we went.

The crowd was mostly greek supporters and they were really loud. But canada led the game from start to finish. Definitely a nail biting finish but canada prevailed, yay!!!

In the meantime, poor Alexandra still hadn't arrived in Lille. This whole game was her idea and she was so discouraged to not be able to attend. Took Charlie and i two hours to get back to the hotel around 1:30am and Alexandra arrived at the same time. Poor her. We all walked to the old town for a beverage and then charlie drove back to bruges and we crashed out too.Read more