Dyl's Summer in Vancouver

End - Thoughts on "The Summer In Vancouver".

2008-10-14T08:17:00.000-07:00

I thought it might be appropriate to give my final thoughts on the whole Summer Holiday I had in Vancouver. Plus it's somewhere to start for people randomly passing by.

I was thinking about this after the Skydive actually. This whole working holiday trip I did. I absolutely loved it. When I first arrived, I will admit, I was somewhat nervous. Didn't know what to expect, what to feel... when to wake up! It was scary. However, after what feels like not a long enough time there. I can definitely say that it is something that I will never regret. I believe that my fellow travellers will agree with me on this. To anyone that is thinking about travelling by themselves, or with people to a different place, but is unsure. Just do it. You've got nothing to lose. If it doesn't work out you can go back home, but to be honest, that will be very unlikely. More likely that you will have the time of your life. Even with the few bad things that happened to me (Not knowing where to go on the first day, Bike stolen!), I will always be happy that I decided to do something completely different, and go to Vancouver.
If you are by yourself, don't worry about that, It's just like starting at university when going to a youth hostel. Nobody really knows anyone, so everyone likes to get to know each other, and in no time at all, you know lots off people. I have many great memories of places I've seen and random things that I did with people there (Moose Tour, Whale watching in Victoria, Grouse Grind, Pretending we know Kung Fu, Fireworks, messing about with workmates). I made many friends for life (fellow Working Tourists, and native Canadians) and will sincerely miss them. Of course I now have many places to go where there will be someone that I know! Also, I am very happy with the leaving present that I got. A "Dyl-hat". Very cool. Thank you! You know who you are. (That would be for the hat, and just being yourselves.)
Before I left, I realised that it was going to be weird going back to England as I felt like my life in Vancouver was now home. Well the time to leave had come, and so I would be leaving one home for what felt like another home, with a different life.
Well, apparently the weather becomes a lot like Manchester anyway; Very Rainy! So I won't be missing much then! haha.

Byebye Rainy Vancouver. We shall meet again sometime. I will make sure of it.

moose trip! (Shuswap Lake, Banff, Revelstoke, Kelowna)

2008-09-04T05:05:00.000-07:00

The moose network bus

So this is how I spent my last week, and to be honest, there is a lot to tell, but I will try and make it as little writing as possible, especially as I am known to write an awful lot! Ok so this will still be a lot to read, so get some tea/hot chocolate/some whatever, then sit down to read this.

OK! My last week in Canada was spent on a Moose Travel Network trip that was supposed to last 5 days, but Sabrina and I decided that we would "jump off" the bus in Banff so that we could partake in Caving. Oh yes, it was good, but I will get to that later, my point is that the trip was 7 days, and so the whole week. There was obviously lots to do and see, so I decided to keep a diary of events and things we did. This Blog entry will pretty much be straight from that. So here is the Moose trip starting from the Monday!

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Moose on Monday - Vancouver To Shuswap Lake

Ok, so trip started off at the good 'ol Jericho Beach Youth Hostel, where me and Sabrina got on the bus and met the other Moose travellers and our "not quite so English anymore, but is a legend" driver called Jason.

Jason tells us what to do when seeing a Bear/Cougar
(put up your hands and back away)/(don't run, it has been stalking you, fight it!)

Not much was done while on the bus on the first day for we had much to travel, but here are some interesting facts learned:
While travelling through the Cascade Mountains, we learned that the pretty red trees you see on the mountains are dead/dying trees. They are being killed by the Pine Beetle and they can't do anything about it. This is why you see them large patches of Red pine trees, and then grey ones when they are completely dead. Hmm, the trees seem less pretty now, and more sad.

Random patches of red trees

Well, the places we stopped to take a look at. There was the Bridal Veil Falls, it was fairly big, quite wet (duh) and we could get right next to it providing a cool view.

I think that there is water up there.

We stopped at a place called Hope for lunch. It was a dull place, but it's claim to fame is that Rambo was filmed there.
On the minibus we listened to Jason's iPod, which is full of music that he liked from people he has taken on the bus. Anyway, after a fuel stop at another dull place in the middle of nowhere called Meritt, he asked us if we wanted to listen to a song that people may not like. We said yes. The mystery song was by blink 182, and called "f*** a dog". It was Hilarious, and we all had a good laugh at that. It was needed for the ride was long to our first stop, which was Shuswap Lake. Along the whole ride, I decided that This part of Canada is really a place you can just look at and think it is beautiful. Anyway, at the lake Jason told us that all the other groups that he had taken had swam in it. Well then, we just had to go swim in it too! Me having experience at Jericho, and remembering that it was cold decided to run into the water. Lake water, that is fed from the cold cold mountains is unsurprisingly, COLD! Mind you, after submerging yourself, it's not so bad, until you all spend half an hour in there!

Why do I always swim in the freezing lakes?
People (left to right): Alison, Me, Bertie? Chantel
Laurence, Hannah, Rebecca, Hitomi, Sabrina.

Here are all the mad people that swam! I was feeling thoroughly cold in the photo!
The place we stayed at was great though, right next to the lake, and had a BBQ every night. I had Steak and a pint of ale! Only the German girl Bertie (I hope that's how you spell her name!) had a pint too. I would expect no less!

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Tuesday Moose to Banff (a.k.a. The Rockies! woo!)

Today I learned that everyday we will be leaving at 8. Fun. Also, that on most mornings, we have breakfast at Tim Hortons. Good good. Ok so today was a day of go-karting! I hadn't been go-karting before, so this was fun on so many levels. One we weren't really racing as much as nudging, punting, pushing each other off the track and spinning each other! Also, our driver Jason was getting in on the action. He does so everytime apparently, and so he was fairly awesome. And spun me around good. Sabrina Shoved me off into the grass after a brilliant overtaking manoeuvre, and Hannah (a random English girl with my type of English accent, yay) caused me to be covered in mud. I was trying to pass her on the inside of the track but cutting a little bit off... yea, well the there was no grass, just muddy water!

Me, Hannah, Eric, we are ready for madness.

And we're off !

Afterwards: I sense that I am covered with mud.

Also, here are some notes I wrote after go karting. (Yes, I am being lazy... kinda)

Hehe. Yes she did put the helmet on backwards, and Jason took the piss. Well deserved I say =b
Right anyway. Here are some more notes from my journey, I shall explain bits as they are shown.
The people on the other side of the bus shouted out grizzly, we couldn't stop, and it was gone.

At Banff there was the option to go caving, this sound awesome! So jumping of at Banff we did, along with Hannah and Rebecca (An Aussie).

We stopped at Emerald lake along the way (apparently every lake was called Emerald lake at one point, but every time they found a new one, it was called it instead) While there I swear 1000 pictures were taken... "a 1000 pictures?" you are wondering. Well basically, everyone wanted a photo of all of us. EVEN THOUGH Eric, the man with the awesome SLR Camera, took a photo that everyone can take, and here it is!

Here we all are at Emerald Lake. Look how blue it is! and look, no tourists (besides from us).

Yay.
Hmm, pool. Yes, Canadian rules are stupid. We entered a competition, and by no means do I use the rules as an excuse as loosing. I was rubbish, one might even say that I"got pwned". Anywho, the reason the rules suck, you don't get 2 shots, if you pot the white at any time while shooting for the black, your finished. So Hannah, lost, everyone lost at some point, however Chantel (Australian girl) who hasn't really played before, won her first game! To the amusement of everyone else as the guy who lost was very professional, and looked very unhappy at loosing!
Hmm, one thing that I failed to mention in the notes was the last spike. Probably because it was the lamest thing to ever be seen. Ok, the last spike is essentially the last nail to be put into the railway between the east and west of Canada. The story behind it shows that Canadians weren't always friendly and kind! Anyway, after walking to a bit of rail track with a hammer so you can pretend to put in the last spike,

Rebecca showing her Spike Hammering skills.

and looking at flags from all the provinces, you got to see the spike in all it's glory. And here it is!

"Look Sabrina, it's the last spike. Over there, where that arrow is pointing. Yes, the golden spike! It's beautiful."

Yep, lame eh? (how Canadian do I sound?)

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Wednesday - cave moose.

That's Right, me and Sabrina went Caving! Here's what I thought afterwards

Ok. Basically, caving was not like the touristy walk through a cave and make woo-ing sounds. This was crawling through caves, rappelling down shafts (that's abseiling to us non-americans), and crawling through the tiniest holes through the cave system, essentially moving by shuffling. At one point I was using my shoulder blades to move! It was brilliant! but yea, my shoes, they are very dead, before they were only slightly dead, but now, geeze.
We got back to the SameSun Hostel and looked at the room we booked...

After that was sorted, we went downtown with Hannah & Rebecca. All the shops are in a log cabin style, making for a very cool looking downtown, especially with the Rockies all in the background. On the way back to the hostel, I bought 2 chocolate cupcakes. After dinner, we played card games until midnight. Then when midnight came, Hannah got her Bacardi Apple out, and I whipped out the "ChocolateBirthdayCupcakes!" (this was to be the first 2 of many birthday cakes).I had tried to find candles earlier, failed at that. Tried to find matches (to use as candles) as there are always smokers about, but what do you know, they all disappeared.

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Thursday - moosed in Banff on Sabrina's Birthday

Today was do whatever we wanted in banff day. So breakfast in a place called the Wild flower was where we started. It was good, nice atmosphere, great chai tea latte. I like local cafe houses. We then walked explored the native museum. Filled with interesting facts. The two things that I will take back with me are that: Chief Walking Buffalo was an awesome guy, and that the Sun Dance was a painful looking ceremony. Next was playing in the swings, where I learned to swing stupidly high thanks to Sabrina, then the see-saw. After much shopping and walking, we were reunited with our Moose tour group, with whom we had a special birthday meal with. After that was a birthday cake (that would be #3), then partying in a random nightclub.

From left to Right: Sabrina enjoys her waffle breakfast, mountain that looked pretty, Sabrina show she is queen on the swings.
We find a see-saw and Sabrina officially becomes 21, A dodgy label on bins here, My large beer I bought for the meal.

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Friday - Banff to Revelstoke (wolf moose in a kayak)

Places and things we saw: Takakkaw Falls, Johnston Canyon (Johnston Falls) where my holey shoes let my feet wet, saw some deer, some moose (no picture I'm afraid), and Jason doing a dance.

Alison can see the deer!

He was doing a dance honest, not looking scared!

We also got to see some wolves at the wolf centre. The talk was brilliant, great and sad. The lady giving a talk obviously loved her job and it made the learning experience all the more enjoyable. Plus at the end we got to howl at the wolves. Yes you read correctly, the reason for this is that the wolves treat howling a lot like singing, they like to join in! And sure enough, they did. It was amazing, I certainly wasn't expecting to be howling with the wolves on this trip!
At the centre, we also got to see Karelian Bear Dogs. They are used for scaring Bears away from the town centres. At first this is hard to believe as all they do is lounge about and generally look cute. However, what you don't see is that when they see a bear, or something they may want to hunt/defend, they become very vicious, and think they are in fact a creature that is about 10times bigger that they actually are! Apparently there was a cat that lived with them, and thought it was a dog too, I asked about it after seeing the sign... yea, apparently it dissipated a few weeks ago, the the lady talking was sad about that. Whoops! I felt kinda bad about that. oh well!

There were also Giant Cedars, seriously giant! We got to walk around them on this boardwalk.

SABRINA HAS PHOTO! SORRY! SEND ME PHOTO DAMN IT!

Then a few of us decided to go Kayaking. This time on a lake, and in wooden kayaks. It was spectacular! I'm not just saying this either, for you see, most people thought we were crazy, for the weather did not seem great, rain rain rain, but when we went, it was only a slight drizzle, and not even raining most of the time. What made it something truly great to remember was that the scenery was so beautiful, the clouds were so low that they were whisping of the lake, and low enough so that you could see the very tops of the mountains (which you normally can't). We also got to see a Beaver damn, heard some Coyotes howling, and some Loon birds (this is where the loony comes from - name of CAN$1). Obviously, I didn't take my camera out to the lake, however, Our guide took his water proof one out, and many pictures can be found here! My favourites are below.

We are all doing the moose pose, aren't we soo cool!
People I can remember!: Me, Rebecca, Sabrina, Jillian, a pair of Aussies!

Clouds whisping along the lake, very cool.

Check out my reflection on the water, oh yea.

We spent the night in Revelstoke, in Log Cabins. One word, Awesome (I plan to use this word as much as possible!). Hot tub outside (we didn't use in the end for it was cold and rainy, but nice to know), pizza inside, cable, comfy rooms, chairs everything!

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Sat - moose is in the sun again! Revelstoke to Kelowna

All this is true!
the winery, geeze, seriously, it might have been ok if the tour guide wasn't so into what she was saying and just mentioned stuff off hand. Imagine this, we walk into this pyramid, and she goes on about how because of the pyramid shape, it make all drinks (not just wine) taste better, also, it help cure a man from parkinsons. I'm sorry, but ok, maybe, maybe not, but she was so Serious! I was very tempted to take out my water bottle and say to the people next to me, "Hmm, my, water has never tasted soo good!", but they were already trying to hold in their laughter. Yes I really mean you Laurence!

The winery tour was rubbish, but the view was lovely!

We got to the hostel, ate out with everyone, and what do you know, the food was good! This was while sitting outside and a band played in the park. We then got Ice cream at a place called 'Moo Lix'. At the end of the night I was deciding weather I should skydive or not on my last day of the moose trip.

Kelowna, it looks good day or night.

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Sunday - skydiving moose! (direct from notes I made)

Decided I will skydive! + Sabrina + Hitomi (A Japanese girl who is here to learn English). It shall be Brill-o-pants! Clear blue skies! But wasn't before, may have been called off, bet we are good to go.
... did have to take money out of UK account though. Ha, definitely haven't made money on this trip!
On bus now, Sabrina is sleeping with anticipation... ok, she was.
Will be an "awesome" way to end the trip, which feels like a holiday from my life in Vancouver, than part of my holiday from England. I don't want to say it, but I am really going to miss all the people I've met here. It feels like my home now, besides from the way that the Canadians talk! Hmm, anyway, 12,000ft with someone strapped to my back while being filmed... Ok this will indeed be something to remember!
Made a playlist using Alison's iPod with Sabrina, what we didn't know was that you can't play said playlist on random. So this meant that the first 3 songs were ABBA. Oh dear, well Jason skipped them after the first! Hehe. I also put a song in there to see how long it would be on for, some may know it, "The Avalanches - Frontier Psychiatrist".
OK, back to the skydiving

I think we enjoyed the skydive!

Hehe, yep, we were happy, the dvd we got was also great. but here were my thoughts...
The View was amazing from up there. Everything looked so small, I was excited all the way up! Just watch my DVD! (ask about it when you see me)
The guy on my back must have known that I was loving free-falling in the air, so he did a spin. After that the parachute came out, I'd say this was a great part of it, falling slower lets you have time to look around and see everything as a bird would. Up there my guy said, "look there's your friend, Irish". This was brilliant, as that came from no-where, and Jason kept calling Sabrina Irish too. So I laughed when he said that. He and Sabrina's guy got us really close together which was cool, but I failed us. I was meant to do an "Air-Five" to her (High five through the air, duh!), but completely forgot, I thought she was waving at me! Anyway, I had a very smooth landing, unlike Irish. hehe. Needless to say I had an amazing experience!

Sabrina is excited about something in my diary/book... oh yes, SKYDIVING!

After Skydiving: Hitomi, Sabrina and I are ecstatic about our dive!

The day ended with us all being sad of leaving each other, so I got many people doing a moose pose before they left the bus, and here they are... while Jason drives the minibus.

Some people that are moose (right to left): Eric, Jason driving, Rebecca
Hitomi, Laurence, Alison, Chantel (with Jason in the background)

Thus, ending this epic tale of the moose tour.

Trip to Victoria, Vancouver Island: including whale watching. Woo!

2008-08-23T10:32:00.000-07:00

Victoria, a pretty place in Vancouver Island.

I'm back from my trip to Victoria. Which is in the south part of Vancouver Island, here is a map. As you can see from the map, Vancouver Island is a very big island, and through the source of all knowledge, wikipedia, it is 285 miles long and 50 miles wide (at it's widest point). So bigger than Wales then.

Ok so we left Vancouver pretty early (later than planned mind you, the Irish still don't keep time!), and ended up getting confused about what bus to take. The original plan was correct, but a change of plans was incorrect. This worked out for us though, for the bus driver took pity on us foreigners and gave us free tickets to get to the ferry via our next stop from downtown Vancouver, the airport. From the airport bus stop, we took another bus to the Ferry, which is located at a place that I have never heard anyone pronounce, Tsawwassen. Who knows how to say it. Anyways, at the airport stop is where our good deed of the day came from. There was an Englishman who was, well he looked vaguely annoyed and worried. Basically the airport had told him that there was also an airport tax to be paid, and they wouldn't accept travellers cheques as it would have to be cleared first, and they wouldn't accept his mum's credit card over the phone (he had just got of the phone with her). So the tax was about $24, and he didn't have the money, it was his first time travelling by himself, and well, he was a little upset. So we, Sabrina, Alex, Seun and I, decided to give him the money between us. He was very thankful, gave me his email address as he lives in Manchester and works in the Arndale centre, of all places, and said he would have to buy me a drink sometime! But yes, that was the good deed for the day. We felt good about it, and he definitely seemed genuine, and was very thankful, and quickly got the next bus going to the airport terminal he needed.
Right, so bus to Tsawwassen, apparently outside Vancouver is lots and lots of farm land, it looks completely different to what is essentially just a few miles away. Tsawwassen Ferry port/stop/terminal/whatever-it-is-called had one interesting thing to note. Inside the male toilets was a special bin, it was a sharps disposable, for needles and syringes. Yes, you read that correctly, it seemed a little odd, "You, the druggy, be kind, dispose of your needles in the appropriate place please."
Ok, so the Ferry ride, it was, well it was cold, and wet at times. However, the view was good still. All of the little islands on the way to Vancouver island were all pretty. Some had exquisite houses on them, and most had boats. Not surprising that with lots of little islands, transport by boat is popular.

Me and Sabrina looking out on the ferry

For entertainment during the long ferry ride was a few photos, exploring the kids play area and a card game or two. I have learnt a new card game called 41, thanks Sabrina! We eventually reached the stop at Vancouver Island, at a place called Swartz Bay. Here there was rain. Fun. But there was a sign/advert that shows perfectly how Canadians love the word "Awesome". Well, I thought it was funny. So the bus from here to Victoria is slow, unbelievably slow. However it was a double decker bus, which was unexpected. A Rainy hour later, the rain had stopped, and we walked to the hostel called Backpackers' Inn. It was alright actually, not expensive, nice place, room... wasn't big but adequate. When we arrived it was too late to go do anything, so we decided to walk about. We discovered buildings that were Christmas packages (The Christmas village)

Buildings or really big presents? (The Christmas Village)

, A bridge, some pretty looking views, and the chinatown. Which to be honest was rubbish, it was more of a china-block. It did provide a fancy looking tree though.

it's a fancy tree isn't it?

After a little bit of walking, we were obviosuly hungry. So we decided to look for a place that would provide food and drinks. Enter 'The Sticky Wicket'. This place, was Awesome! There were a few people inside, but when we had the food/drink, we could see why. It was very good. I was actually stuffed full. Lovely. Then we had desert sautéed strawberries in a rum sauce. Needless to say, this was delicious! That and there may have been a mini fight to get strawberries onto our spoons. Cocktails, also good, and the ale too. One of the cocktails I had was called a Pink Elephant. The Pink Elephant that no-body talks about. I hope someone gets that, the barlady said that to me and I laughed, but no-body else got it, but me and her. Some people. *shaking my head*

The Sticky Wicket, if you go to Victoria, you must go here!

After a few drinks, was back to the hostel to play a game I had noticed in the hostel, Jenga! Or as the Irish call it, tumbling towers. We do seem to play a lot of games here. haha. I think the others were getting annoyed with me as my tactic is to play highly risky manoeuvres. Well especially Alex, for his move was after mine. This was happening while there was live music, very funny live music followed by a lady on guitar with a beautiful voice, we liked her music a lot. This ended the first night. Well Ok, Getting into a very squeaky top bed of a bunk bed quietly because there was someone sleeping in the dorm room was how I ended my first night.

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The second day Helen was "hopping over" to see us and to go whale watching, along with whatever else we could fit in. Helen was taking a float plane, for free of course as she works for West Coast Air, and arriving at around 9am. So we decided that we would all meet at 9. Which in the Irish world means after 9. Ha, ok, to be fair Sabrina was ready by 9, Seun and Alex weren't. This was problematic as Whale watching only happens about 3 times a day with the people we wanted to go with, so in the end it was just me, Helen and Sabrina whale watching. This was something to remember. But first, we had to check out a place that Helen has been talking about since she had got here. It was Murchies, a place that does amazing afternoon tea. Although now it seemed that they are under new management and don't do it any more. We were very disappointed, so instead had scones and cake for breakfast. It was delicious. After that it was time to go whale watching.

We look like we should be on the sea. The problem with delayed photo's, you may look like a plonker.

First we suited up in what we called fisherman gear. Sabrina and Helen got orange suits, while I got the more captain style suit with blue on it as well (it's what I like to think anyway). Our captain was cool. We were on a small boat and I sat near the front, making the ride bouncy and exciting at times! Can you tell that I loved it yet? Well I did. Besides from seeing whales, we also saw sea-lions, elephant seals and some crazy sea weed type stuff called Bull Kelp. All of this was by Race Rocks. Some were cute.

Adorable isn't it! Smiling for the camera.

After looking at them, we joined a load of other whale watching boats. We were following a brother and a sister (I think), Orca Whales (Killer whales). They surfaced many times, it was quite cool to watch. The boats are only allowed up to 100ft to them. Which makes sense as when you see them they are actually hunting, wouldn't want to get in the way of that! The two we were watching were Transient Orca, meaning that they hunt other marine mammals, like Porpoises, Sea-lions etcetc. The other kind we could have seen are the Resident type, they swim in large family groups and hunt fish. There's a load of info in the wiki article if you want to read more. So where was I? Oh yes, whale watching, we did get pretty close to them, or should I say they appeared close to us! I would of got a fantastic photo of this too, if I wasn't staring at them thinking, 'wow, they are massive, and soo cool!'. I got some photos.

The Orca coming up one last time before KILLING!

Right, that was good, but I think a great part of this was purely being on the boat and skimming through the waves at high speeds. I basically a wide grin while this was happening. Just ask Helen. I was loving it! haha. It was only when we were out in the water that I realised how useful the 'fisherman' suits are. Underneath it I was wearing 3 layers already, that plus the extra gear made me comfortably warm. Unlike on land when walking around like this made you want to melt. So if you ever go out to sea, remember, it will definitely be cold! The other thing I noticed was that my phone got a text message, back at the harbour, I looked at it, apparently I we had crossed into US waters on the boat trip. So I can officially say I was in the USA briefly on this trip now.
So on the way back, bouncing along with the waves, Helen showed us her remarkable ability, she will sleep on bouncy boats like a baby. Kinda odd, but there you go. At the end we chatted to the captain of our little vessel, and asked him if there were any nice places to eat. I am so glad that I did, he directed us to a local fish & chip place by the water (yes, chips not fries!) which tourists generally don't know about. It is called Red Fish Blue Fish, and it was great! They even had mushy peas! I was unbelievably excited. They also get their food in a sustainable way and are environmentally friendly, so that's good too.

My fish & chips with Mushy peas, oh how I've missed you.

After this we had choices to make, as to what the 3 of us should do. 1st we looked into something we saw by the float planes. Scooters! They were funky old style ones, and had a flat rate after 4 hours. It seemed like a good idea, but we decided that getting up early the next day to go on them would be a better idea. Ride along the coast, then to the butterfly park. It would be a fun day, plus we could take pictures of us in 3 different coloured scooters. I was looking forward to my next day already. After that was sorted, we decided to chill out, take in the sunny sun sun, and the sea air. That and played with Sabrina's camera while she was on the phone to her sister. Mostly because Helen and I felt like playing, and our cameras had died for the day. Took some myspace style photos, and Helen as 'Cousin IT' style too. Apparently being a flame haired vancouverite means that she also gets sunburnt very easily. So after that we called her flame faced vancouverite (mostly as she was calling me dyl-bear, grr). To make sure Sabrina wasn't left out, we called her Ribena. Grabbed some popcorn, chilled some more. Then decided that we would go and see a play at the Fringe festival going on. The play we saw was "The Mechanical Bride", Starring Helen's housemate Kevin. He was M.O.M. and only appeared on tv/monitors. I liked it, it was funny, and importantly, enjoyable. After that we decided that we needed more food, and drinks, and the food should be in cake form, or something sweet. Yes food comes up a lot. Right, so we asked Hostel people, and ended up at a place called Detour Dessert Lounge. I had a London Fog, with lots of cinnamon, and the Bifky cake, full of chocolatey-ness and whipped cream to the side, and a strawberry. I don't have a photo, but I will nick one of Sabrina, who had the only working camera. The girls had wine and other delicious cake, and believe me, they were delicous, and large! The staff there were friendly and helpfull. Me and Sabrina played cards (snap, 41, Black Jack, Rummy), while Helen was feeling sunburnt, tired and had tea. We decided that we should drink stuff because of the games. But being as we are, we didn't want to spend lots of money on drink, and also, it probably wouldn't be the best idea if we were scootering the next day. We decided upon a glass of wine put into shot glasses. We asked the lady, and she had something better to put it in. Imagine a tall beer glass, but miniaturised to the size of a shot. It will brill-o! It turned into 3 shot glasses. After gruelling games of rummy, we ended up sharing the drinks as we couldn't decide if the looser or if the winner should drink! The plan for the next day had also been set, take scooters and explore, and also take float plane back as Helen made it sound very worth it. Also to try and get the student discount, making it $50ish instead of $160ish.

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Friday, the last day in Victoria.

We decided that breakfast should definitely be had before the scooter-ing begun. I had many ideas of photos to take, and with my recharged camera, it wasn't going to be a problem. We decided to eat at a place near to the hostel. It was a place that does an amazing, stomach filling breakfast. Food here is good, all of the time apparently! Ok, so after being stuffed again, we decided to check on the scooters. They were there, in the different colours we wanted. We were excited, we were ready, we needed our driving licences', Sabrina did not have one! AHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!! stupid stupid stupid! 'Why did we not think about that yesterday!?' Is just one of the many thoughts that I had. Ok, so this meant that we needed a quick change of plans. We did consider having Sabrina take an electric scooter, as you don't need a licence for that. But they don't go as fast, or travel as far, so that idea was scratched. We even considered hiring a fancy old fashioned car, but figured that there would be a ginormous deposit for that. So basically we did no travelling on this day. Instead, we called Sabrina a moose, and then came up with the name Purple Moose, as Purple Moose are prohibited from riding petrol powered scooters. It's a well known fact! After coming up with that, we decided to go to the Victoria Parliamentary Building. It was, urm boring, so we walked out of that pretty much straight away.

Arrogant reflection shot of us in Parliament building

Maybe it would have been vaguely more interesting if we had taken the tour, but the lady talking had a very annoying voice, that we could not stand. So next option, find a park and relax. This worked. We went to Beacon Hill Park, the first thing me and Sabrina did was climb up the rocks and stuff, Helen just walked straight to a bench and stayed away from any sun! We joined up again at the bench, which was facing a pond full of ducks. Ducks that like to stick their heads into the water. It was Hilarious. One duck, which Helen named "Ducky" kept paddling his feet in the air, like he just didn't care. Yea, sorry, bad joke, but it was very funny at the time.

It's Ducky, he likes to shake his legs in the air.

Then we "climbed" a tree, I say "climbed" as Helen leant against the tree. It was now that Ben called me. He was picking up his girlfriend Hayley from the airport, but she was delayed. So he decided to see how things were going for me. Well, I was having this chat on a low branch of a tree, so the girls, being annoying creatures decided to take off my shoes. I could do nothing about this as I had my camera in one hand, and the phone in the other. I have no idea what Ben was thinking while this was happening, but he must have thought I was odd, but he probably thinks that anyway. More talking later, and Helen decided to up the ante. She started feckin pulling hairs out of my leg! Then Sabrina joined. Very much Grr indeed! and Ow sounds. I eventually got of the phone, and out of the tree, and out of being annoyed by the girls. Next we decided that Murchies was too good to not go to again, and made our own afternoon tea. I had Ceylon tea, of for those who don't know why that is good, Sri Lankan tea! It was just like being in Sri Lanka and having tea, minus the climate and surrounding, and the fact I had a massive sandwich. They made a great sandwich, it was odd, there was asparagus inside of it, but it worked.
Then it was time for the float plane ride! Me and Sabrina tried to get in with our student cards, but apparently only Canadian students are allowed. How fortunate FOR THEM. Means a more expensive ride, but my mind was set now, we were going by plane, so much quicker, and a great view. Of course, I was thinking of tailspin during take off and landing. How could I not? The flight was great, small plane it has to be said, but great fun. You fly lower than the clouds, and so can see everything below. I even think I saw Helen's house from the air!

A Shot from the plane of the little islands we passed

---

So the plane flight was how my trip ended and I've spent the last two days writing it up. That and planning my next trip which starts tomorrow. I am taking a 5 day Moose Travel Network Bus ride to Banff and back with Sabrina. It will pass through Shuswap Lake, Banff, Revelstoke, Kelowna, and return to Vancouver. On the way are the possibilities to do these activities. As I have a Hostelling International card (from my time at Jericho Beach), this trip (bus ride and accommodation) comes to $299. Bargin! If we wanted, we can jump of the bus at any stop, and take the next one for no extra cost (minus the accommodation). However, I do have to do this in one go as I have to get back home, and get ready to leave this wonderful country and city. That and have Christmas dinner with friends. It's an "August Christmas dinner in July". The idea came from Lynda, as Australians like to party in their winter, hence, Christmas in July. But obviously it's August now so...

Yea, Anyway, I will not be taking my laptop, so the next posting will be a while away. Hopefully the weather will stay good, or at least manageable, today wasn't so great, a bit rainy, but hey, whatever. I will leave you with this, a guy I saw on the Skytrain yesterday, about to get married.

Oh yes, he was loving his friends.

rain rain rain. WHY!?!?!

2008-08-20T00:53:00.000-07:00

I got soaked. Well, ok, not as much as Ben did, good thing he didn't ride his bike home. Today, no Lynn Valley, just Chinese food, and tea at Lynda and Andrew's from the now newly dubbed 'Manpot'. Good tea, and biscuits too. Today has been a lazy day, except for the running in the rain with a large bag, which I will need for going to Vancouver Island. To everyone reading this, I would like to say, haha! I will be having fun with Irish people, and on Thursday, when Helen joins us, with an English person too. I believe we will be whale watching at some point, and also going to have high tea at a place called Murchies. Because Helen says it's amazing. Although, now that we are Canadian mostly, we'd probably say "awesome". She has been talking about it since we have arrived, so I have high expectations.

Basically, I can't wait, and shall be leaving early in the morning, to go back into a youth hostel.

In other news, my parents don't get the grid system that we use here. They came around the house this morning, but got lost along the way. I knew where they were, so I tried to help by saying head west, blah blah blah. They did not know which way was west.
o_0? how?! I couldn't comprehend just how this was possible, especially as they use a map.
It's not just them though. (Yes this is becoming a rant, deal with it). Some of the people that have now lived here for a few months still don't have any clue about where they are going, where to go, or where anything is in location to each other! Me and Ben can't understand how someone can live in a city for so many months and still not know any directions!

Anyway, enough of that. There was a reason I mention my parents, it was the last time that I will see them before they return to England. They are spending time in Vancouver Island too. So I gave them some stuff to take home so I have more room for anything else. This does mean that I had to give away my squishable that I acquired whilst in Vancouver. It was a sad moment, the squishy fluffy puppy that guards my room has now gone.

My squishable guard puppy

Oh well.
Anyway, to Victoria in Vancouver Island!

Oh, also as an informative side note, Australians and Canadians get confused if you say that daddy long legs can fly. (they think it is a spider, look it up on wikipedia, it's quite interesting actually)

Start of 1st week off, Bike show & Capilano Bridge (week 11)

2008-08-18T22:02:00.000-07:00

Yea, so Sunday didn't do much. I ... hmm, what did I do, oh yes I remember, I did do much! I walked from my house all the way to Mink. Out of all the stupid ideas I have had, this rates as one of the highest! Anyway, it took 1hr45mins, and along the way I saw that rare sight of Canadian Cricketers.

Cricket!

But no Zombies. haha. What was annoying was that throughout that whole day, with more walking, I stubbed my toe so many times! This is what I get for wearing flipflops. Whatever, after arriving at Mink, me and Ben went to a Bike show in Gastown. I've put the photos onto flickr. But I will show my favourites here. There were many nice bikes there, and so many people too.

I think the most random picture from this event came from the tiny dog on a massive bike!

tiny dog on massive bike

After the bikes, Ben went to his usual football match, and I stayed around Downtown as I had agreed to help Lynda take her box of surprises back home. I will get to that later. So what I did was to visit Helen at her workplace. She was kind enough to let me onto the docks, full of seaplanes. Looking at them just reminded me of TailSpin, awesome kids show!

oh-e-eh TAILSPIN! oh-e-oh TAILSPIN! (not Balu as some Germans would have you believe!)

Yea, so that was a nice bit of fun, but then I had to let Helen go back to her marathon work, she does many many hours you see. After that was back to Mink, and to help Lynda take stuff back home. The stuff was donated by her boss, and there was much of it, even Nicole, her workmate was impressed!

excited about opening stuff

It included a giant Teapot, Canadian sized if you will, that also said 'Tea' on the side. Obviously, once we had moved all of that, we had much tea! That and KFC.

Ok so today, Monday, the plan was to go to Lynn Valley with the Irish people (there are many of them, I am not listing their names!). Part of the plan was also to meet up at the library at 12. If there is one thing that I should have known, it is that these Irish girls can't keep time! Oh well, never mind! It turned out to be a good thing I suppose. Well, the day started of like so, at the bus stop, noticing that the weather looked like it would rain, I was not pleased.

"That better not be a rain cloud"

Because of this we decided to go to Capilano Bridge instead, and also, to meet at 12.30. At 1.10 they got there. Ha! What made up for this is that we have a plan for Wednesday to Friday. We shall be going to Vancouver Island, to Victoria first. It was all sorted out before we left for the suspension bridge. Oh right, it's a footbridge that has a rather large span if you were wondering.
So, Capilano:
Seabus -> real bus (no where near as packed as the time we went up the Grouse) -> using UK student card to get a discount, woohoo! So now the adventure begins below!

first odd thing to note, outside the entrance to Capilano Suspension Bridge, a place that is native American, the music was unexpectedly Irish sounding! Seriously, it wasn't just me who thought so, all the Irish people I was with (everyone else) thought so too. Right, so this area isn't just a bridge, otherwise I would be seriously annoyed at having paid $22 to get in. It's pretty much a an area of the temperate rainforest (what all the forests around Vancouver are), and there are little pathways that you can walk along to explore and learn (for the kids). The thing is, that you have to walk along this suspension bridge first!

Capillano Suspension Bridge, a long wobbly footbridge.

Nice. Here is the reaction of most people.

Peoples reactions, all happy or unconcerned. Then there is Seun!

As you can see all were excited, except Seun who looks decidedly scared. It wasn't so bad to be honest, it is shaky and wobbly, it is high, but it is a nice view, and feels safe. Although judging by some people, you'd think the floor was going to disappear, or that some crazed monster was going to bite their face of if they looked over. Seun wasn't this bad, but did require Alex assistance to get across... while Emma laughed. Evil.
Yea, the other side of the bridge leads to trails along the side of the mountain, and then there is also a walk along the tree tops.

I did not run back to the centre and scare the people behind me, honest.

Apparently this makes the trees stronger. It was all very pretty, and full of things to see. Pretty much every path, you'd look over and think, 'hmm, that would hurt if you fell', along with 'it's pretty'.

"Ummhmm, wouldn't want to fall down there."

We all had fun though.

Sitting around in a forest, as you do.

Afterwards we had a bright idea of going to a nearby museum. Little did we know that the nearby museum did not exist. It was a place to show of the native art, but it was closed for the day. Sabrina's idea, thanks Sabrina. She thought she saw a museum on a bike ride, how wrong she was. Haha, nah, it was all good. Afterwards we got a bus back through the Lions Gate Bridge, met up with Ben in Gas town, and had some food and drink, where Ben beat me at pool. Darn.

Ok, so today is now Tuesday, and I was going to go to Lynn Valley today, but the weather doesn't seem to want me to go. So today I think will be more chilling, maybe buying a small bag to carry stuff to Vancouver Island tomorrow, and eating Cantonese food (Dim sum) with everybody. I don't like the look of the weather forecast though for my last 2 weeks.

Yellow is predicted temperature, white is avr normally.

Hmm, Well, I suppose my last few days will be good. Also next week I am hoping to go to whistler, maybe the Rockies, so hopefully with the warmer temperatures, it will be good. However, this is only the forecast for Vancouver.
Not long left... I'm kinda feeling sad about it. But only kinda, too much to do to feel sad just yet!

=)

last day at work, Kayaking, and other stuff. (week 10)

2008-08-13T22:56:00.000-07:00

So yesterday (Friday) was my last day at work. It was very sad. I've enjoyed working there, it's been so much fun with the people I work with. Ah, the number of times I must have said/shouted "FAIL!" to them, or insulted the face. It's been good there! On my last few days I have been adding random messages to the juice I put into cups, like little smiley faces, or "drink me!", stuff like that, on the Friday, the Flying Spaghetti Monster appeared on apple juice. I also took a few photos of people and things before I left. There wasn't too much time to be sad about it though, as Ashley forgot to bring a chain to tie me up with (she apparently had handcuffs prepared, but left them at home), and I had to make it to a bus stop in downtown by 6, when I finished at 5.30. Why? For me and Helen were going Kayaking!

Kayaking! I say again, Never done it, do want to do it again. It was good. We were Kayaking at Deep Cove (see my googlemap for where it is). This involved me running from work to the skytrain so I could get to the waterfront station (near Canada place), then running (or walking fast) again to the bus stop down the road where Helen was waiting and hoping the bus didn't get there before I did. The semi-running was actually pointless, the bus was late and we waited a few minutes.

We wait for the bus, 290 to Deep Cove.

Well, the bus came and we realised that we would have to upgrade our bus passes otherwise we wouldn't have paid the correct fare. What we ended up doing was playing the dumb tourist card, and got on the bus for free! Yay, I like the bus drivers here. The bus drive was interesting, it was through the more industrial areas of Vancouver, so not as pretty as I am used to over here. It was made up though when we went on and over the Trans Canada Highway bridge. The view of Downtown and North Vancouver was great from it. When we were on the North Vancouver side, the scenery was completely different. For some reason my brain was convinced that the smell of the air around there was just like Sri Lanka at times. It's very forest-y and full of nice looking houses around the far eastern part of North Vancouver. We eventually got to Deep Cove and were silenced by the view. This does happen a lot around here admittedly, but it was rather nice! First thing we did was, well besides from make sounds like 'ouu, and ahh' about the view,

The view of where we were Kayaking

was to go inside the Deep Cove kayaking club and get ourselves kitted out. This was halted for a minute for the standard waiver, basically saying its our fault if we die. Signed that. Then it was time for getting kitted out in Kayaking gear. First was the spray deck, to stop you getting completely wet from the paddling.

Oh yes, me and Helen are well aware of how we look.

Oh yes, we looked good and we knew it! We got that sorted, with the life jacket and the paddle too. Next was wait for two Kayaks, then to get in, and be told how to use or, or more precisely, what to do if you mess up. Our Kayaks confused Helen as the one she had been in before did not have peddals to steer a rudder on the kayak. As for pictures while on the water, they don't exist. I was not going to take my DVD camcorder anywhere near water, and Helen's camera was underneath the spray deck, or in other words, sealed away from the water, and from her hands. So no pictures, but it was very pretty, and the houses on the edge of the mountains/by the edge of the water were amazing to look at, and probably to look from. Wouldn't be surprised if celebrities lived there. We only had 2 hours of it though, and we arrived a little late, so we decided to turn back from our original destination, to make sure we got back in time. On the way back I saw Vincent, the guy who works in Science World and took us to see Batman in IMAX. needless to say it was a random encounter, but good, means I get to see him before I leave for England. On the bus ride home Helen and I decided to go to Lonsdale Quay for food, so we would be next to the seabus to go home. With that in mind we remembered The Cheshire Cheese restaurant, it does English food. So we both instantly thought of Toad in the hole, and that is what we had. Oh having this food was sooooo good! The sausages were proper sausages, not this rubbish Canadian stuff, proper and English, the gravy, well wasn't what was expected, as in we couldn't drown any toads today, but the Yorkshire pudding was great. What was unexpected was that it was served with salad. Yes, salad. What's with that? Odd people, reminds me of the time I was in Sri Lanka, ordered a Hot Dog, and received half a sausage (cut through it's length) and a leaf of lettuce in a hot dog bun. It's not right!

Toad in the Hole, but what's with the salad?

With that exception, it was still delicious! After the much needed food was the long ride home, sleepy style. Today was a good day. Yep.

AH! It's the day after (Saturday), and apparently I have left my keys at the Kayak place! Crud!
I will get it back somehow. but now I must go to Ninjitsu for the first time ever!
...
12 hours later
...
yay, they have been retrieved! Sabrina has them, for she went kayaking today at the same place.
However, I got to the place where ninjitsu was meant to be, and found no-body there! I was a little annoyed, especailly as I jumped of the bus and ran a few blocks to the place. The bus was stuck in a traffic jam at kits beach. So I decided to walk to Mink, and take the Burrard bridge, it has a very nice view of English Bay from it

English Bay from Burrard Bridge.

THe odd thing that I noticed was lots of Zombies. yes, I said Zombies, I didn't take photos of the Zombies or even talk to them. Not from fear of loosing my brain, or from being fictional (They were real!), but mostly because I was still annoyed. One Zombie had a wii remote stuck in his head, and was holding a wii remote and nunchuck in his hands. I thought it looked good. Ok, I've just looked it up with the help of google, it was "Zombie Walk 2008", It has been going on for a few years now, part art, part fun. There are also photos that can be found on flickr, I quite like this one of zombies attacking a bus! Somewhat odd seeing zombies in downtown. Well like any other lazy day in Vancouver, it was decided that we should go to the beach, English bay. And watched the sunset. I also took a picture of Ben Wearing Nicole's Sunglasses (Lynda's work mate), it's a lot like Ben's picture of me like Ray Charles, but he looks like a spastic Elton John.

Ben as 'Spastic Elton John'

I can't say that life here is boring, there is always somewhere to go/something to do. Hmm, what to do tomorrow? Get my Keys!

Anyway, now to other stuff, namely, how the rest of the week has been.
For the most part, there is not much to say really.
Well, there was the day that I became Canadian for a brief moment from me saying tom-aye-toe instead of my usual tom-ah-toe in normal conversation. This was at work, Ashley was Very happy, started bouncing for a while and laughed and pointed at me. It was a slip of the tongue! I am not starting to talk Canadian as my normal language! Grr, I don't think Ashley will let me live that down. This is what I get for talking like them to customers. Oh actually, talking about the Canadian tongue, on Friday I discovered that the trick of saying 'Beer Can' and finding it impossible to not sound like a Jamaican saying 'Bacon' doesn't work with Canadians. It ruined the phrase for me. Today I also discovered that it doesn't work with Australians too. On another lingual front, if you do come here, don't add 'o' to the end of words, like good'o or 'brillo!', it confuses the Canadians.

On Thursday Helen made a roast for us to eat. I can honestly say that it was good. There was chicken, mash, cranberry, gravy, vegetables, Yorkshire Puddings, almost all that one needs, she forgot about stuffing. But hey, its hard to remember that when shopping at a Chinese supermarket is a good excuse. This food is the reason we thought about Toad in the hole after Kayaking. On the way back from Helens, I saw a skunk, and for the first time ever, a Raccoon. This wasn't any ordinary raccoon though, it was a raccoon that was staring at me. Having never seen a raccoon before, I decided it was best to walk on the other side of the street, while it still stared me out. It was a little odd, but when it was being backed up by a skunk, I didn't want to take a chance. It did look cool though. That just leaves Coyotes to see around here.

Current things you may not know: My hair is now fluffy like! People like this. And generally like to pat my head. My parents went up to Jasper and further up the Rockies and are currently on their way back down, seeing dinosaurs. I keep being told to stay in Canada. I would like to, but have made plans. darn. Although a man named Jonathon is being a twat about setting up post dated cheques. Has he not heard of Direct Debit?! Grr, I am in a different country, as well as other soon to be housemates, how are we meant to do get this done by the 22nd? foolio.

Never did hear from Jane or Elissa, so dunno about hanging out with them to see vancouver-ian things to see around here. Anyway, future plans include Whistler, Tofino, Ice Skating, Speed boat-ing, the islands in general, hopefully whale watching, and more chilling out! so look out for more to come in my last 2 weeks here!

parents appearing... pt 2. and the start of week 10 (sat->mon)

2008-08-11T21:20:00.000-07:00

Ok. So where was I? Oh yea, something along the lines of, parents, Ahh!

All right, so what did we do... Saturday well it was supposed to rain, so we decided not to go to the Stanley park, but went to North Vancouver instead. Ate at Lonsdale Quay, while this was happening I realised that I was not going to ninjitsu today either. Oh well.
Urrm, went to a shopping mall, had a snack there at a place called Cinnabon. This was amazing! I was addicted to the food straight away,

The Cinnabon (Classic Cinnamon Roll).

the cinnamon goes well. I decided to go to mink after and left my parents and aunty and uncle to themselves. Ate food with Lynda, Ben, and Sabrina. Yes, food occurs a lot for me! Then we watched a film I hadn't watched in years at Sabrina's, the film was K-PAX. People liked it. I would like to thank my mate Luke back at school for introducing me to the film! Go Luke, you're awesome! It was just as good as I remembered it.

Sunday, was work, yay... Weekends are so busy. After work I went to Jericho Beach for it was Sophia's birthday (German girl we met from the hostel), and she was having a bbq and we were going to see some drumming, drumming people here is something fun to watch. Anyway, we had some sausages/hotdogs on a small bbq, flame grilled, fire is what one might call fun! There was this random play going on at the same time as well next to us, it was Jack and the Bean stalk, but not as we know it.

The play, with random charectors

For Jack was "Captain Jack" the Pirate, and the giant looked an awful lot like Peter Pan. Yea, odd, but it ended an on even odder note, the giant ends up marrying a cow (it said moo, which means yes, I do), and another Pirate wanted to marry himself because the reflection in his sword was pretty. Odd doesn't really describe it!
Going back to Jericho beach was good, I forgot how beautiful it was, especially at sunset,

Jericho Beach, as pretty as ever.

also, in the hostel, I chatted to all the staff, they were cool as always.
Oh and there was Banana bread to be had of course! That banana bread is always great, especially when warmed up slightly and spread with butter. I really want the recipe for it. And yes, this is my paragraph dedicated to banana bread, because it's worth it.
After food and random play, and sunset, we went to the Spanish Banks (just west of Jericho Beach) to watch the drummers and took a car. There were 7 people though, luckily Ben had his bike, leaving 6 people, so we went like so, 4 in the back, being very squished. They were apparently 'Vrad', aka 'Vancouver Rhythm and Dance'. It was good, but then it ended, so we had the question of how to get 7 people back in a car as Emma had joined us. It was like this, 5 in the back, 4 sitting down, one lying across us. First this was Sabrina, we stopped briefly, got out, and then I was lying across everyone. I got to say, lying on top is more comfortable than being squished! But yea, good day, I like doing these random things every now and then, should do this when I go back home.

Monday is another day at work. work work work, only 4 more days! Met Jane and Elissa at work today (the random science world girls that want to show me Vancouver before I leave), and they maybe taking me about this weekend. Woo! What random thing did I do today after work today? Well, met up for food this lovely sunny day and ate at Canada place. Well, I didn't eat dinner, as I ate at 4.30 (as it was the only time to eat today, from lack of busy-ness). What I had was a rolo McFlurry. Ice cream is wonderful, especially when looking across the beautiful view that is the view from Canada Place. Are you people jealous yet? Sucks to be you.

Well yea, I have work all the way till Friday. After work tomorrow will be going to Granville Island with my parents. It should be good, plus, that thing I love, more food!
Oh and that day us people here had a bbq at the Irish girls house, me and Ben got bored while the girls decided to shop for food and took random photos (from here forwards, there are some before too I suppose). I do like this photo

haha, nice.

Anyway, until the next blog entry. See ya.

Parents appear on holiday. ermm.

2008-08-08T10:16:00.001-07:00

Yes, my parents arrived yesterday, well half an hour later than expected.
The first thing they noticed about me is that my shorts were bright, for they got to see my board shorts that I brought. It was good, I also realised that my uncle's accent disappears when talking in Sinhala (Sri Lankan). It was quite odd to hear Sinhala again after so many months, and also good to know I can still understand perfectly! If I had suddenly had lost that abiliity, I may have to cry!

Anywho, yes, my parents arriving. I was half excited, half thinking. 'Ahh, my parents are coming! my life as I know it now is OVER!'
haha. nah, it should be cool. I have to admit, that hearing that they were coming to vancouver too was... well a bit of a shock. This is how it happened;
I finish uni, and my parents come to pick me up, while packing stuff, they tell me,
'By the way, we are coming to Canada too!'
I think this is where my face looked shocked, scared, worried, annoyed and like my heart had stopped, all at once!
'It's supposed to be my trip!', is what I was thinking. After that look I gave, they explained that they were arriving much later, for two weeks, and would be doing there own thing.
My heart had restarted, and I was ok again.

heh, yea, that is pretty much as I remember it.

oh wait... umm yea, today we are exploring canada point, stanley park, and granville island.

and I must leave as they are standing around me right now!!!

ok, byebye!

Plans ahead (and more of life : sun3rd-thurs7th) week 9-ish

2008-08-06T09:35:00.000-07:00

Hey all.

So I have plans. That's right, me. With plans!
I was walking around the UBC botanical gardens with Sabrina on Sunday, and talking about what we were doing before we leave for Home, the real home (UK). We came up with the idea of exploring Whistler, and the Rockies, and pretty much as much as possible by leaving our jobs two weeks early. So it has been settled, I handed in my resignation notice to work on Monday, saying that I will be leaving the job on the 16th. When Ashley found out, she said that she would have to buy that chain earlier (As she said she would chain me up so I couldn't leave!). I replied, You may also want to buy the lock earlier too! Hmm, anyway, the UBC gardens:

So me and Sabrina had decided to go to the gardens on Sunday after she had finished work. The first challenge was getting there. The bus stops a little bit away from there, but after some walking, we discovered, how to get there. It involved walking along a street called Thunderbird, and going towards Tunderbird Stadium. I liked this fact.

We got there at 6pm, hoping that it was still open. The entrance said that it was open until 7, good, but that tickets stop selling at 5, not so good. We looked at the sign, a bit bewildered, then because of that a lady came out and said you can go in, suggested a route (to see the most in the available time), and then said that a donation would be nice. This worked out well, instead of paying $8 each, we paid $2 donation for both of us! Also, the lady obviously didn't realise that we were just going to walk around, rather than read every note about every plant, so we got around the whole lot almost! We walked to the north garden first, and got there by walking through a tunnel, a tunnel that talks to children

The tunnel likes to talk to children

There was lots to explore, but compared to how the map showed it, it was tiny. However, it was still good, and pretty. Anywho, besides from lots and lots of trees and plants to look at, there were a few things to look at, and so to mention. There were a few special trees, all of which had photo's taken of, and random bridges and stuff to be seen (like a tiny pool of water). The main thing to mention, is that there was a Sundial. Now, how many of you can read a sundial? I've been asking people this recently, just to see if it was only me who knew how to read it, most people seem unsure but know what part of the sundial to read, the shadow. Sabrina on the other hand looked at the metal part and seemed confused as to how it tells the time, because it could not move to point at the numbers. You read the shadow Sabrina! I thought this was funny. She's the only one to have thought this so far. Haha, I don't think she likes me bringing this up to our friends though!
Hmm, There were some fun things to look at, like the Minotaur. It was a tad bit bigger than us! There were also tall trees, European honeybees, and more trees! You can see the photos on my flickr, the start is here. My favourite picture comes from the end of the walk around the gardens, when we found a lookout point onto the beach.

Sabrina looking out upon the beach.

After the gardens, food was needed, Chinese was decided, and for $3 for a fill and tea, we were happy! Not happy with doing nothing for the rest of the day, We decided to rent a load of films out from blockbuster, and watched Evan almighty, it was good, not as good as Bruce almighty, but still good. The other two films are for next Sunday.

Monday - Handed in resignation, it was also BC day, so I got 1 and a half pay, plus I did some over time, so during that period, I got 2.5 pay. Much money that is needed for when I quit. It was Nadia's last day at work, she is returning to elsewhere in Canada. Lynda had a meal at hers. Eating for $20, makes for good random food! Obviously we played Scumbag afterwards too!

On Tuesday - After work, I watched Batman in IMAX with workmates. It was awesome! and the film was MAssive! although, we may have been a little bit close, to close for comfort, but still worth it. When I got back home I found that some of the original inhabitants for this house had come back. The conversation went like this:
Them: Hi there! Who are you? (They look confused at me)
Me: Hey, I'm Dylan, I live in this room (I point to my room), who are you people? (I look confused at them)
We had a good laugh talking for a little bit, so they seem like nice people.

Wednesday - I was meant to write an update to this blog, but ended up going to bed at 12, and walking up at 9 the next morning, that's right 9 hours sleep! Today was also Thanh Mai's Birthday, happy birthday! woo! Oh also, me and Ashley argued about words. Is it a "Zee-bra" or a "Zeb-bra"? That then lead to other words to complain about. Funny times at work, I'm going to miss them guys.

Thursday is today, not much to say, but had a BBQ at the Irish girls house. Good BBQ, food, conversation, company. It's all good! We also discussed more about what to do in our last few weeks, such as road trip to the Rockies, and Christmas in August+Sabrina's Birthday. I like the sounds of all of these, so watch out for them in future posts!

Tomorrow is when it gets interesting again, my parents are randomly arriving in Vancouver. So I have tomorrow and Saturday off. They will be doing their own thing though, but I will hang out with them for a little bit, before returning to my life here.

Dunno whether to get another bike though, I would do that tomorrow, but I have about $50 on me, so I can't buy a bike yet, also, I've spent a fair bit on bus tickets now, I don't know if it is worth it any more, especially if I will be travelling about. Meh, whatever, after Friday next week, I will be posting more interesting stuff here! So stay tuned!

saturday (week 8, the rain has stopped!)

2008-08-03T11:01:00.000-07:00

Hello again. Once again I'm doing nothing, so here is another day update. I basically rant about life being annoying in this one, for the most part. Enjoy!

This week gets better as it goes along!
OK. this is yesterday for you.
wrote blog and emails. Walked out of the door to learn some ninjitsu, and then I get a text from Lynda saying the A.J. (A guy who does the training) was at her work place, and that the other guy was not available for training, so there would be session today. Slightly annoying, still good thing I got that as I walked out of the front door, rather than onto the bus.
So I decided to go back inside, get my laptop, go into the backgarden, and use the laptop while relaxing on the hammock. That was good. Lovely sun, that's right, sun, for the rain has stopped. Finally. Actually, it's sunny now, I will go to the garden again.

Chilling in the hammock, laptop by my side.

Oh wait I remember why I went back inside after about 30minutes. The Wasps were annoying me. Well actually, not the wasp, they did buzz about a bit, but then This giant Wasp-like creature landed on my foot. I did not know what it was so I thought, 'hmm, I've never seen one of those before. I wonder what it wants with my foot. hmm. I don't think I want to find out. I should go inside before it gives me a little sting and I realise that I am paralysed or something.'
It was rather huge... I will find a picture, or draw one.

Ok, after some googling, I think it was a Hornet of some kind. So not fatal, unless they all attack at once, good to know. I will not be bothered next time it lands on my foot.

Right, to the rest of the day. Well Helen had organised a Meal for us all at a nice looking restaurant in downtown called Wild Garlic Bistro. I put a shirt on top of what I was wearing so that I felt just slightly more classy. That was for 7.30, the fireworks were at 10. So the first place to go was obviously the place to be, Mink. Got a lovely iced dark chocolate drink made by Lynda's workmate Jason. He is awesome. (Why is it now that I am in Canada, I say this word all the time?)

Picture of the inside of Mink. Look there's Jason on the right, and Lynda on the left.

Ben was there too, (no surprise, after his double pay at work today... git), and so we chilled for a bit. Well Ben quickly went to H&M (yes, they have that here!) and bought a shirt to put on top too. While he was doing that I was trying to discover why I had no sound coming out of my headphones. The answer was that they were busted on the plug, crud. They are really great sounding headphones too! Also to add to my list of good things to have happened this week, I dropped my sunglasses. Now this has happened many times, and not much has happened. This time however, I caught them before they hit the ground, and thus broke them. So no more sunglasses, music, or bike. Good good good.

Yep, that's definitely broken.

Right, so when Lynda eventually left work (Jason finds it hard to get her to stop working when she has finished. She keeps wanting to help, it is hard for Jason), we looked for some sunglasses. They were all Kanye West style. All good, but I also have a lack of money from paying the rent, so no sunglasses today. Must wait until next weekend for the money to come in. But I will keep an eye on them.
Walked to the restaurant, and may I just say, walking is rubbish, we all need bikes! The Wild Garlic Bistro Restaurant is small, but classy, open kitchen, so it smells amazing, and candle lit. We decided to have Tapas, lots of everything to share was a great idea. especially garlic mashed potatoes. It was all good, and we all shared a chocolate cake for desert. By the time we finished, it looked like we were not going to be able to go to English Bay for the Fireworks final (Oh yea, all these fireworks recently are for the festival of lights, if you were wondering what is with all the fireworks). To get around this problem, we decided to walk to Burrard Bridge, as this was a location that was good for viewing and allowed all of us to get to our homes easily. When we were only half way to the bridge, the fireworks had started, so everyone but me and Sabrina went home. We continued all the way to Kitsalano Beach (Opposite English Bay) by bus, and saw a few fireworks along the way. We got there finally, sat down, saw a few giant explosions, then it was finished. Only we could have timed it better. The final was only half an hour, we thought it would be longer. We weren't to happy about that, so we ignored all the people leaving and sat by the beach in the park chatting and watching stars... and having the Beach patrol on the quad bikes almost run us over. I swear they couldn't have ridden any closer to our heads, they think they are so cool on their quads! It was good just lying down and relaxing, but fireworks would have been great.
Now a little sidenote, Bus tickets here work as so; when you have used it for the first time, it will work for any bus, skytrain, or seabus for the next 90mins. We realised this, and promptly got to a bus stop and waited. As the bus came, it didn't stop. I ran after it, hastily saying/waving goodbye to Sabrina and almost caught up to the bus, but it left at the next stop without waiting for me. My bus ticket ran out by the time next bus came, but that wasn't a problem, it was a packed bus. 5 people got off, and none were allowed on. I was very annoyed at this point, it was midnight, so I decided to walk home. Of course this wouldn't be a problem in the first place if some theif hadn't stolen my bike! It has been so much of a hassle without the bike, I've spent $20 on bus tickets, and need to buy more! This leaves me with little to buy another bike and to be able to have food! It's just ... annoying (add profanity, I did). I wish they knew how much so, maybe they do and don't care, in which case they are heartless people, but I guess we knew that.
It took 1 hour to get back home. I did however manage to get one headphone to work for most of the way. Still, it was annoying. Very annoying! I did meet a random old lady on the top, who was sympathetic, she said that's why she doesn't bother going to the beach anymore to see the fireworks. She put a smile on my face, so that was good.

Yep, that was the day called Saturday 2nd August.

Well, today (Sunday) is looking at the UBC Botanical gardens. I don't think anything bad can happen from that... hopefully!

Wed/Thurs/Friday (week 8, it is still raining!) - 1 month left!

2008-08-01T07:53:00.000-07:00

Ok, so 1st the story on my bike is: no-one knows where it went. So assumed stolen.

Figures.
Ashley helped me do a police report, where they asked this question,
"do you know the serial number of the bike?"

Umm? no.
Who does? I would like to meet that person, then tell them to get a life possibly.

Anywho, this week is the week that was full of rain. I mean, loads, and loads of rain, it in fact feels like I am back in merry ol' England. There's rain - check, there is a cold breeze - check, there is a lack of sun - check. This isn't sunny Vancouver! One of my workmates was saying that this has actually been the rainiest month for Vancouver in many many years (I can't remember the number). Normally Vancouver is normally rainy all season, until the summer months, when it is sunny. Hmm, maybe it is a good thing that I am here only for the summer then! This is funny in the sense that I often find myself wishing that I was here for the whole year instead. It would definately give me more time to explore.

Right, enough ranting about that, here is what I've made of the week so far.

My bike, My Beautiful bike! Nooo! Me and Ben have lost bikes, and thus have noticed how there seems to be a rampant trade stolen bikes, or bike parts. As you walk around Vancouver, you will always see some random bike with parts missing, and not because the owner took said part away. For the first few days taking public transport, I looked out the window and kept thinking. "OI! that person has my bi... oh, wait no, that's not my bike".
Yes, I do miss the bike, even if it ate 2 trousers (yes, it did a second pair two, the eating slipped my mind, and so I was punished by the bike). I got bored one night and looked up bike stealing on the internet, and came across this video. I think that says it all really.

Rain, I hate rain when I am working because it means only one thing; a very busy day.
When it rains, Everyone suddenly decides to come to the science world building, which means that there is lots of hungry people wanting food from us. It's quite annoying, but I guess that's the reason this place exists.

Burrard street when raining at the bus stop.

Me unimpressed at the wait for the bus in the rain on Burrard street.

The fireworks on Wednesday (China's effort) was rather cool. We watched it from English Bay. It was rather loud, and large. The view was definitely better than on Saturday, it was also so packed. Everyone wanted to see the fireworks by the beach. It looked great so I was regretting not taking my camera as the location before looked poor in comparison. However, it was not as amazing as the Canadian crowd were making it out to be. It was like they hadn't seen fireworks before with all of their 'ou'-ing and 'ah'-ing. After every big explosion there were massive cheers and hooting. Seriously people, it's what fireworks do, it's not mind blowing. It was good mind you, I liked the set of fireworks that had a few go off in different directions so everyone could see the same thing (including people in planes above), fireworks in the shape of a smiley face. Yes, very me indeed. Seeing these fireworks made me wish that I had seen that Godzilla one, as that was meant to be amazing. This was just lots of fireworks, not in any discernible theme. The Godzilla based fireworks was meant to sound, look and feel spectacular. Oh well, maybe today's (Saturday) fireworks will be even better.

Hmm, back to my work, here is a list of things I have noticed:
i) A lot of people can't understand or talk English, which makes you wonder how much they take in when all the exhibits are in English.
ii) Admittedly, some of these people are only the parents, the child speaks perfect English (Perfect Canadian, which is wrong!). So you end up taking to the child, it's odd, but nice too.
iii) People don't listen to you when ordering! Argh! Ok, imagine this you tell them that the kids meal comes with a fountain drink (aka pop), milk or chocolate milk. They think about it, and then say yes. No, you choose one, so I can enter it in the till. Also, this isn't a language problem, as the non-native speakers listen and understand. Some people are fools.
iv) People really like my english accent. They really do. Everyday I will get a complement, or be insulted when they ask if I am austrailian. That happened once. I do like the English customers, they are baffeled by why I came here by myself, but think it is great that I did. We agree that the coins here are silly, the 10cent piece is smaller than the 5. Fools.
v) Tourists will always have a $100 bill, and use it to pay for a $8 dollar meal.
vi) American tourists will also have american $100 and $1 bills.
vii)Some people can't read menu's, as they use names from other places. People have asked for frappachino's, Bigmac's, Chicken nuggets, Supersize, to use there Starbucks coupon here... the list is endless. THIS IS A DIFFERENT PLACE PEOPLE! Baka. The starbucks wannabe's are the worst though, they are arrogant.
viii)None of us knows the name of this one science world guy that comes in every morning and asks for an americano in his coffee mug. He is a really nice guy, we all have a great chat with him, but none of us know his name! We all feel really bad because of this.

umm, yea, that's all about work for now.

Yesterday (Friday), was the start of a new month, which also means that I have only one month left! It's so weird thinking that my time in Vancouver is almost over. Kinda sad, I really do wish I was staying here longer, for the whole year. Oh well, with one month I still have many things I want to do, like see whales/dolphins/sealions, go to Vancouver Island, Lynn Valley, rockies/Whistler. Lots of places to see. Don't know if I will be able to do all of them though. To make sure I have the best chance though, I will be leaving my job in two weeks. So I should tell them this sometime soon! haha. Then much exploring! Hopefully other people can join me, otherwise I guess I will have to do this alone! Until I meet random people along the way that is.

Hmm, yea, that's my plan for this new month. The weather should pick up again, well according to the forcast it should.

The Weather forecast for 2nd-6th Aug in Vancouver.

Well, as for today (Saturday), what I have planned is fireworks at night, but something SUPER AWESOME for 3 o'clock. It is learning ninjitsu with a random person Lynda met. Ben and lynda can't join me today (they are working), but I don't care, it's ninjitsu! mwahahaha, it is going to be so cool!
Yes, I am a tad bit excited about it. I will try and get photo's too. As long as I don't get hurt too much, haha.

Ok. That is all for today, for I want to make lunch!

byebye for now.

p.s. How do people like the new layout?

Tuesday 29th: It rains! (week 8)

2008-07-29T07:50:00.000-07:00

OH NO! it's raining, there is nothing on the front wheel of my bike to protect me from the rain! crap crap crap!
It's 7.53, and I am going to cycle into work soon. fun fun fun!

It's 9.56pm, and I'm eating after just getting back home. So this is today, enjoy:

I. Was. SOAKING WET!, my hat did good to keep my glasses and hair dry, mind you I had to keep one hand holding onto the hat and one to the handlebars whilst going downhill at speed, as the hat always wanted to fly off! Anyway, taking my speedy shortcut to work (see Dyl's google map), I made a new time record, 30mins to work! So I locked up my bike to itself inside the building, through the backdoor. This door has a passcode lock on it. This is what I do every time I go to work. More on this later.
Anyway. So I walk in, and people look confused, maybe it was because there wasn't a dry spot on me? This might of been the case, but it was more to do with the fact that I wasn't meant to be there until 11am. What had happened was that Celina, my manager, had changed the schedule, but forgot to change the one in the staff room. Whoops on her half! What this did mean was that I got to explore science world, and I tell you; it, is, amazing! Random toys/machines to play with, puzzles that are actually difficult to solve (obviously I can solve them =p), and exhibits. The first one I looked at was the optical illusions, a subject I'm particularly fond of. As well as that, there were other exhibitions, including a Disney exhibit. It is rather good actually! I also found a staff member that I often serve, and until that moment, she (Elissa) had not realised that I was in fact English. Anyway, she was telling me about the flying carpet pictures that can be taken, and how staff take their own pictures in silly poses! (when no-one is there). She said I could do that too, so watch this space for Dyl on flying carpet photos! That and playing on a giant keyboard that you walk on.
Ok, so the general rule for where I work is that it is very busy on rainy days. Today was no exception, and it was actually the busiest that I have ever seen. The line was humongous, and We barely got to go on our breaks, I had mine at four. After making as many milkshakes as humanly possibly in the space of 10minutes!
Closed the shop today, and this was followed by the orientation for new people. That's right, I've been working here for almost 4 weeks now, and so I get my orientation. Just before that started one of my workmates asked me a question or two, it went like this:
Hey Dyl, did you ride your bike in today?
Yes, yes I did.
Where did you put your bike?
Out back.
Really? It's not there.
? Sure it is, it's behind the dumpster.
*we walk to where I know the bike to be*
My bike is where this big space is. Wel it should be...

Yep, my bike has GONE! I asked The manager if they had seen it, and on that question they were instantly shocked. Stuff does not get stolen from the back, ever! There is no way to get in without the code, unless you are the garbage removal people, in which case we let them in. They were quite shocked, as was I, but I was just, you know, a little bit annoyed.
The science world building was closed, and so we could ask if one of the staff members had moved it, if it was in the way. Also, the dumpster company would also have closed shop by then, so no calling them either. What is going to happen is that we are going to check with them and science world, if nothing comes of that, then the police will get involved, and if no bike is found, then Celina said that there would reimburse me for the bike. Which is nice of them.

So yes, the end of my day was spent listening to crap I really didn't need to hear about greeting "guests" and proper handling of food procedure etc, whilst being annoyed at missing bike. Celina was helpful, and very caring though. So not all bad, I guess. It wasn't raining by then either. Did some shopping, and here I am.

Thus ending the first day of rain. woo.

week 7 (really)

2008-07-28T01:11:00.000-07:00

why not really? (EDIT:IT IS NOW!)

For I am sleepy! I am going to sleep soon, but thought I would mention a few things before writing a proper entry tomorrow.
1st, it was my cousin's birthday on Wednesday, so Happy Birthday Dilani!
2nd, its been a long week, long long long. Mainly due to the 5 days of 9-5.30. It's not as bad as some of my friends here, but still, hard work. Most days after work were spent wither going to mink and meeting up with, you wanna guess? Ben and Lynda. That or just cycling about, and exploring.

On Wednesday there were fireworks. It was part of the countries competing against each other and showing off how awesome fireworks really are. Now I would love to say that the fireworks were great, but, well, I missed them. The plan was, go to the spaghetti factory and eat (obviously), then watch the fireworks. What happened was we ate and ate through the fireworks... oh well, nevermind!

Thursday had some random food at Helens place. 'tis was good I say!

Friday... hmm, ok, maybe this will be the week blog then
Friday was pretty boy's last day at work.
Who is pretty boy? Well his name is actually Chris, a legendary person to me at work. Actually I have mentioned him before. Anyway, long story short on the name, the manager gave one of the reasons for not considering him to go out with is that he is too much of a pretty boy. haha, yep, great reason, so it stuck. Ashley ended up calling me tall person, and him pretty boy, kinda like we were super heroes! (ok, yes it's sad, shut up). Anyway, what made this day good was that it wasn't (overly) busy, I may have messed about on the job,

Does anyone recognise this character?

and that we changed two peoples lives!
Well, ok, they were just unhappy looking people. The first guy came to the window at the side and his natural face was just an upside-down smile. So to see if we could make him smile, we gave him his burger in a kids bag, and even gave him some skittles! This was while Chris had a little badge I had made for him on his shoulder saying, "I am too pretty" pointing towards him. We gave him a little smirk. his life was changed, for he has smiled... kinda. The second person was a mother who looked fed up with the child, just ever so slightly. It was at the end of the day, so we tend to just give the food to customers rather than calling out their number. So my task was to wear a kids bag on my head, and give her, her food. It was quite hard to keep the bag balanced actually, but I prevailed, and it made her smile! it was fun. Job well done I say.
Oh well, no more random occurrences like that anymore I guess. Farewell Pretty-boy, hope you acting career goes well!

So long pretty-boy, I'm sure that Triple Os will survive without you!

Oh, speaking of work, you get to learn accents, and dialects of the people quite well. What I heard the other day though really surprised me. Canadians love to say "for sure". Now this lady, came up to my till and said,
"I would like 2 of these sandwiches for sure".
Now, I dunno about you, but that just seemed excessive. I didn't really need those extra two words there to comprehend!

meh.
Saturday, this was fireworks! many many fireworks, but before any of that was brunch with Helen at White Spot, so I got me a discount. Woohoo! Something we had planned for a while now. It was good, pancakes, sausages, bacon, eggs, potato and maple syrup, and tea of course. now that is a good breakfast... I mean brunch! Helen had the same but with French toast instead of pancakes.

We were meant to get the food before eating, but we failed. It looked too good!

What we realised is that this Canadian breakfast was kinda like English mixed with a French breakfast. Thinking about this, it makes perfect sense, it's perfectly Canadian with the French and English.
After brunch I joined up with Ben, Lynda and Andrew for board short shopping. Me and Ben were happy with our selections...

Ben models his choice of board shorts

and

and... I'M TOO TRIED! IT's quarter to 2, I'm sleeping!

more on this tomorrow!
...
continuing on...

my pair are orange fading to red. I think they are cool.
After some lunch, which was a nice sandwich for me and a breakfast for Ben (to wake him up!), we went to a thrift store to help find stuff needed for Lynda and Andrew's place. For their place came with nothing, at all. No beds, kitchen utensils, cooking implements, basically everything!
Much buying of stuff later, and carrying back to Lynda's via the skytrain, we went to buy food. Tis' was good, we had random 3 minute noodles with left over Indian food. It worked well, but also, a moment of genius by Lynda, the suggestion of squishing blueberries and mixing them with Philadelphia. This was brilliant! Great when spreaded on bread. Oh but before we ate the food, we discovered a park nearby. A park with slides and swings and a pull up bar, and one of thoses things with 2 hoops that you see in the Olympics, where gymnasts pull themselves up and do spins. Yea, so we played about there for a bit, having swinging wars (by swinging sideways), and general acting like a kid. It is great fun doing so, the gymnast thing we could flip ourselves backwards but not lift ourselves up. That was too hard to do.
Alright, so Saturday was also the turn of America (apparently) to show of fireworks. We decided to go to Granville bridge and watch from there. There was probably little chance of finding a good spot that late anyway. While Lynda took the skytrain and bus, Ben and I cycled back to his to get his awesome camera, and the to the bridge (Map link to show places will be about soon). We did that quite quickly. Found a place to stand, and got some photo's before and during the fireworks, which were above english bay. The view was good, although towards the end there was also quite a bit of a dust cloud from our view too.

Cars on Granville bridge at night

Picture Ben took of fireworks

Me, Lynda and Ben watching the fireworks

The smokey view of vancouver after the fireworks.

After the fireworks, me and Ben decided that after walking Lynda to the skytrain, we would explore downtown on the bikes and get some night shots. Dowtown does look rather good at night. Oh, but as today was an event, there were many many police there. They did not like mine and Ben's way of cycling on the pave... I mean sidewalk when there were many people there.

Cylcing on the sidewalk is not permitted! (Photo taken whilst cycling on the sidewalk)

They told us to get off the bikes. You don't argue with them. Hah, until you pass them that is. We got back on after leaving Lynda and cylcled towards the seabus station. According to Lynda, when we got back on the bikes, the police lady that told Ben to get off his bike was quite annoyed and called up for people to keep an eye out on him. Hmm. Never did see them again. We did however see just how pretty Vancouver is at night, took many many photos. And cylced down many stairs. It's something that me and Ben have been doing, we are getting good at it. However, on this day, being dark, we did not realise that one set of stairs was actually not just 3 or 4 steps, but more like 9! I will tell you this, that is a very bumpy ride! We made it though, so it was good. Taking a picture of a nice ferrari is cool, until girls try to park behind it. Basically, these girls was trying to park behing this car, with not that much luck, so they swapped drivers, the second girl was better. Whilst all of this was going on, Ben was trying to take a long exposure shot, but they were ruining his picuture. THey eventually park the car, and then proceed to take a photo or two in front of the car. Lets just say ben was not best pleased. So lesson learned, don't take a photo if there is a girl parking a car in your shot.
Photos: we found that Canada place also looks great at night. We also discovered that taking pictures near the edges of the road makes drivers nervous, some so much so that they honk their horns as they think you are on it. This is slightly annoying, if funny.
Photos from this night can be found on our flickr's.

Ben and I appricating the view of downtown at night.

Sunday. The only interesting thing today was looking for present for my cousin. Then I went to see a 3d film with Emma and Sabrina. The film was 'journey to the centre of the earth'. It was actually a really good 3d film, fun for all the family style, but the 3d was rather good. It's been years since I've seen a 3d film, and long gone are the days of one red eye and one blue eye. These just looked like sunglasses. It took me about a second to realise that they worked by polarisation. Go me, I know things. Anyway, yes, the film, it was good, some parts had objects flying out that appeared to be going rather close, if not towards your face. Sometimes things came near to you so that you felt that you could probably grab them. It was a good experience. No I am not saying what was in the film!

umm, yep, that is all for this week. Time to sleep. Work in a few hours. I'm thinking of quitting 2 weeks before I head back home for some real exploring time, with money!

till next time.

The Grouse Grind (week 6: 20th)

2008-07-21T01:18:00.000-07:00

It's a Grouse Grind

What the grind looks like

Ben takes a picture of us at the start of the mountain.

Hello. So I did the grouse grind! Well, me, Andrew, Ben and Sabrina did.
Or more precisely, I cycled to Mink. Met up with Ben (We left our bikes locked together there), Sabrina and Andrew. We then did the grouse grind. It involved walking up many steps, but don't think of a staircase, think more like bits of timber holding up dirt. After the climb cycled back home.
There is more to it than that, but it's 1.21AM right now, and work starts at 9am.
So here are pictures that describe the day on my flickr, starting from the first picture. There will be more on this trip later!

OK! I can be bothered to write now, so hopefully you can be bothered to read too.

So starting from mink. 1st thing me and Ben did was to lock up our bikes together with both of our locks. We aren't paranoid that our bikes will be stolen, honest.

So after mink was straight to the seabus, and from the seabus a bus that goes straight to the bottom of grouse mountain. We just managed to get on, or should I say, we just managed to squeeze on! Yea, so what I learnt was that taking photos on a packed bus while holding onto nothing means that you will most likely go flying without warning (yes I know... duh!).
Well, after learning that, we got to the mountain, which was what we were here for.

The mountain, you'll notice the gondola wires, we could have taken that, but NO, that is not the way to grind your knees!

Now the grouse grind for those that are sitting there confused by the name is basically a very steep climb up a mountain, and by climb I mean walk, and by walk I mean walking up many steps. The hight is 2800ft. The record, according to a google search on the internet is 24 mins 18seconds. So we planned to beat this (yea right). I looked upon the mountain and thought

"This can be done"

Onwards! So, the walk began. I tell you what, it starts off ok, but keeps getting steeper. Also, I hate steps. I feel like there is much more effort in taking steps rather than an uphill gradient. Anywho, there were steps, and walking, and a hell of a lot of people doing the grind! Seriously, some people were like us, people just trying it out, looking for something to do, while others were the serious speed climbers, walking very fast, looking like they had just got out of a shower from the amount of sweat dripping of them. Yep, it was an interesting sight. We didn't take many breaks, but got to the half way point by 45mins. Only just off the pace of the record, so close. Ben and I were waiting at the half way point, predicting the expression of Sabrina at the half way point. We thought one of, 'WE ARE ONLY HALF WAY?!', was likely. We saw Andrew first, he was waving his arms about like a mad man. Followed by Sabrina, when we told her that it was half way, we got the look we were looking for. Hehe.

Ben and I waiting at the halfway point

Much more walking later, and we see some opening in the tall tall trees showing the view. It was a nice view; the people trying to walk as fast as they can probably miss this, but then again, they've probably already seen it. I personally don't see why apparently some people only go half way and then quit. It's not that bad a climb/walk, just take your time people! Me and Sabrina did hear the most stupid comment ever walking up. A lady was on her phone to her friend and said, "Everytime I go up this mountain, I run out of water half way". Now I dunno about you, but if that kept happening to me, I would just take more water, like a second water bottle. This lady we decided was stupid. After more walking at a comfortable pace, some little breaks where we just looked upon the scenery and the people passing by,

A relaxing break near the top

and random photos (superheroes/evil smile/me and a tree), we had made it to the top in about 1hr45mins.

We appreciate the view after all that walking

The top had a rather nice view, not only of downtown, but pretty much all of Vancouver.

The view from the eating place at the top of the mountain.

At the top we ate on an outside table, chatted, looked at the view, and generally relaxed after the walk. Oh, also had some of the nicest smoothies ever. At the top wasn't just a view though, there were bears. Ok, so there were 2 bears that live there since orphan times. As for the bears up close, there can only be one thing said about them. When not wild, they do look cute, fluffy and friendly, you just want to go hug them. That is until they give you an evil bear look.

The bear is not happy with the situation

Hmm, what else. What else indeed. Well being a mountain, there was something up there that was white. Despite being summer, we had a snowball fight. Ok, so it wasn't really snow as much as solidified snow, also known as ice. It did the job though, as we found out when getting hit by the snowballs!

Andrew throwing snowball at me, but cannot see the one heading towards him from Sabrina... Nice photo Ben!

Andrew has a rather good shot. Me and Sabrina both got him in the ear. Apparently it makes it very cold, so says Andrew. Actually, just as we were walking away, Andrew decided to throw a random snowball at this girl fighting with her friends. Now this was quite a distance away, but what happened was that the ball hit her leg. She yelped. It was hilarious! We all suddenly looked away, but couldn't stop laughing, so made a quick exit. As you do.
As for Ben, he does not like snowballs being thrown at him when he is holding his beloved camera. Fair enough I say, but it's still funny.
The way back can also be done by walking, but we decided that would be insane. So the gondola was the way we went. It was kinda like a rollercoster, after each pylon-like structure holding the wires, people let out excited cheers as the gondola went faster. The view again was just so beautiful.

The view from the gondola.

Yep, that was pretty much the trip. Got bus and seabus back. Chilled at Mink, talking with Lynda's workmates. Oh, and also had my first taste of an amazing drink called a London Fog. Basically, its a shot of vanilla, with earl grey tea served in foamed milk, but with the added greatness of cinnamon on top! It is very nice indeed.
The others took the bus back, Andrew was over an hour late for work, but no-one is ever there to check on him so I guess it wasn't all bad. I however was dumb and decided that no, I would use my bike. The next day to and from work on the bike I realised that I was a little more tired than normal.
So my verdict, Grouse grind is good, not as hard as one might think, good experience when with friends, lovely view, Bears are cool, people doing the grind for speed get very sweaty.
Oh, and everyone should either make there own, or get someone to make them a London fog. It is yum.

week 6 (14th july - 19th)

2008-07-19T00:13:00.000-07:00

This has been an odd week so far.

It is the week we discover heartless people!
I think me and my group of friends have discovered that some people in this world are ... completely horrible.

Nothing bad has happened to me! Don't worry, but two things occurred this week. The house Lynda and Andrew were looking at turned out to be a scam. They were given a sob story by an "old lady" who owned the place, and who had had a hard time with other tenants. She had gone back home and currently wasn't in the country. So she kept asking for proof of money from them. This was done through sending a moneygram between their bank accounts as proof of funds. This would then mean that only one of them with their ID can release the money.
On monday however when this old lady was meant to fly out to see them she never got back to them by email. She always had before, but after sending a receipt of the moneygram (with all the important information blacked out), she never contacted them again. On the Tuesday Lynda tried to pick up the money from the moneygram, but had found out that it had already been taken from elsewhere in the country. So they have lost a load of money, and to lose the money, some fake ID must exist too. It's really annoying when trusting people are taken advantage off, with no remorse apparently.
Also, the bike that Ben toiled over was stolen! How sucky is that? Some people just make you want to kick some sense into the world...
anyway. The week as it has been so far, minus the bits above:

---
Mostly been working this week, so, umm, here's some stuff that happened.

Had soup on Monday. Lynda was staying at the Irish girls house as you can only stay at the hostel for so many weeks, and besides, there was a place to stay in downtown Vancouver on the horizon. So she decided to make soup made from many many vegetables. 'It was very good', is what me and Sabrina thought of Lynda's cooking. Ben may have too if he had remembered that there was soup. Soup and bread with much butter. Yes, I have said soup many times now, but it really was good! It just took about 3 hours for it to be cooked properly. Also I got to see Seun again. We thought maybe the other Irish girls had 'disposed'/'taken care of'/'KILLED' her!

A workmate (Nadia), who also has a bike, suggested riding along the seawall of Stanley park. So on Tuesday me, Ben and her went. Yes, this is the second time I have been, but this time I threw a stone at that tall pile of rocks. They did not fall over. I knew that they were stuck somehow.
You know what? Having a bike is great! I can't believe I have lived without one for so many years. I can get to work in 35mins if I completely belt it downhill. Back home is a different story however, uphill is, you know, a little more effort. Actually here is the route I take.

After work on Thursday I ended up on English bay again. This time I cycled from my work to it, taking some photos along the way (some pictures below for you).

Near the science world building, the start of the ride.

It's me cycling!

This was a nice spot to relax in.

At English bay. I borrowed Sabrina's sunglasses, for the world looks cool in them.

Very pretty as you can see. Are you jealous?
Anyway, met up with Emma and Sabrina and decided to join Ben and his work mates at the cinema watching Wanted. I likes, not a very deep film, or any amazing plot, but good for a laugh. Oh yea, and Thursday is also the day Ben's bike got stolen. Yea, he was not a happy bunny. However, one day later and the awesome-ness of craigslist later, He had bought an even better mountain bike (with suspension) for 100 dollars. So all is not bad I guess.
Oh in other bike news, my bike was fun today (Saturday). On the way to work, my front tyre came off. That's right came off! I was at the traffic lights, they changed, now, I normally end up doing a little wheely when trying to accelerate. This time however, when my front wheel returned to the floor, the front tyre popped of, and I was left cycling on the metal rim! I looked behind me at a fellow cyclist with a face thinking, "holy sh**, this should happen!". With the front wheel coming off I discovered some of the reason why my is so rough and bumpy. It's not just the seat, it's the tyre, it has no air, they are solid rubber, so no punctures. After this discovery, I popped the wheel back on, and continued on my way, constantly watching my tyre, just in case it wanted to jump off, when I was going downhill at speed.

Today, (being saturday as I write this) I did the longest shift I have done so far. 11.30-8. Yep, long day, The science world building, and so my work at triple o's normally finishes by 6. Today however, sciencve world was rented out and wanted us to be open for that time. Well this is all good, but what we discouvered was that There was also cake being served inside the building. Hardly anyone came in to buy food. What this basically ment was that there was much spare food, ie We got free food again. Christophe (a french kitchen guy) asked us all what we wanted, so I asked for a double chicken burger. I must say, it was awefully good!
Oh actually yesterday at work was good. In the morning Chris and I wer talking, talking about how I was the "new model" of staff, as I have a new top, and a better, newer name-tag to him. Anyway, so we are handing out some food, and he asked to pass something, and going along the lines of a new model, I do so in a robot-like fashion (including the sound). Then Chris gives it to the customer, also in a robot like fashion. The customer then moves to grab the tray, and also makes the robot sound! It was great, we all laughed. It's always good when customers...wait wait wait, I mean when "guests" (as we are supposed to call them), join in on our fun. This only really occours in the morningm by lunchtime, all hell is let loose!
On the friday, between 12 and 1, we took in $1300, and a hell of a ot of milkshakes were sold. I'm glad I wasn't doing beverages that day. Bein the beverage person is normally good, only when not busy though. Mind you, I had a major milkshake incident on thursday.
Ok this is what happened,
First, this is how we make milkshakes; 1st take milk, add Ice cream, then add chocolate/vanilla/strawberry, then put in blender stand thing, with the most tiny support to hold it in place, then let it blen, while doing something else. What happened to me was that on the blender, the cup jumped out of the blender throwing milkshake evreywhere! Alot just in front, a fair bit on me, some on the floor, but luckly, missed all the "guests". I was not too happy. Stupid strawberry milkshake.

Tomorrow (Sunday), I shall be meeting up with Ben, Andrew and Sabrina to do the Grouse Grind. I will take pictures and whatnot. That and probably come back home and collapse, as next week is 9-5.30 Monday to Friday. This does leave the weekend free to explore properly. Should be fun.

week 5 (7th july - 13th) Complete!

2008-07-10T00:48:00.000-07:00

Dammit, dammit dammit!

I was supposed to keep uptodate! But after everyday I think, 'I will do it tomorrow'.

Anyway, this week, week five, is the week known as 'the week where dyl has a bike' week.

That's right people! I have a bike! look,

My bike. aka trouser eater...

it's very nice for the $80 I paid for the bike, and $5 for the seat... and $10 for the lock... +VAT...
but it was still cheap! Plus it works, and has gears. This is an important fact for Vancouver, as I live on the top of a hill. Great for getting to work, it's all downhill, but from work... erm, yea, not as easy, especially the first time. Anyway, now to the day to day bits of this post.
---
Monday

Day off work! Well, would have been, but I did a few hours as they asked. This is why I bought a bike, the bike that had a seat missing. I was surprised that it was offered for the $80, and the guy (with an awesome name -> Dylan) gave me the part to attach the seat to (which he said I could change if I would like to try a different one) for $5. I just had to fix it on myself. Which was all good as they had all the tools and would guide you if you didn't really know what to do. I think this store is great.
So with this bike, I decided, 1st I really needed to make sure that no-one could steel it! So to a different shop, and the situation of, leaving the bike outside to buy a lock so that I can lock the bike in such a situation without it being stolen. Very odd. I found out while riding to this shop that the bike likes to eat my trousers. Eat. Shred. DEVOUR!

The leg has been eaten by my bike

A little bit annoyed doesn't quite describe it. I really like them trousers.

2nd, I wanted to show it off. Hello Ben & Lynda. They were first to see it. Us three always seem to meet up as we finish around the same time and work in a close enough area.
On the ride home I decided that I would also like to do some shopping. You'll notice from the picture of the bike that there is no-where to put said shopping, nor the manbag that I was wearing. Which by the way isn't that comfortable to have around you when riding a bike.
Ok, so I saw Robert on the way to safeway too. Thanks to him I now know how to lock up a bike.
Confused?
well ok, I know how to lock up a bike, I was just being extremely dumb that day. This is what I did: I took the lock and tied the wheel to the frame next to the bar that holds all the trolleys. What Rob pointed out was basically that I failed. He picked up the bike. I had forgot to tie it to the bar that holds all the trolleys!
So there you go folks, remember, tie your bicycle to something, not just to itself!

Well, as I was saying, nowhere to put bags. Now this in itself wasn't so bad, I just put it on the handlebar. What was bad was that on my first ride home I decided to take a route that involved THE STEEPEST CLIMB EVER! A few pedals upwards and I thought 'screw this, I'm walking with the bike'. Yep, I haven't ridden a bike in a while, My legs did not like what I was doing!
Actually, my knees were complaining lots. I figure it was because the seat was not high enough. I will say this however, the view was very nice indeed. It kinda made up for the poor choice in direction.
So lesson number two, plan a route that isn't so steep.

---

Tuesday

No work for real this time. Ben and I met up with Lynda at her place of work. ie we went to see the chocolate coffee shop known as 'mink'. I have to say, the milkchocolate drink that I was given was rather nice. We were meant to watch the film Hancock, but It was such a beautiful day that we decided to go to English Bay and just chill. While waiting for Andrew, me and Lynda decided to practice kicking each other... ie pretend we know kung fu.

These photos on Bens flickr... and yes I chose these two because I thought when compared it was funny.

Anyway, when we did get to English Bay, it was so beautiful. I didn't have my camera though. But you can all be jealous from this photo that Ben took.

Yes this picture is very nice, but being there looked even better.

After this, as everyone was taking a bus home, I joined them, despite having taken a bike. Good thing that these buses can hold bikes. So me and Ben took the same Bus, and ended up waiting forever for said bus. While waiting we met an odd old man (why do they always appear when buses are involved?). He was just yabbering to us about random crap. He mentioned tai chi, and so I mentioned that I do chen style, and then he did it. He was rather good. The oddness really came in when he mentioned that he was once talking to a random teen on a bus, and told us that he wasn't doing so to chat her up... Now I don't know about you, but if you have to say that, then maybe you were.
Anyway, long story short. He was odd. The bus arrived eventually. I got home.

---

wednesday

Work! Ok, so the kitchen staff liked calling me Nigel as it was an english name. Grr. However, today they thought of another name, London. So now I am known as London to the kitchen staff. yay. Still, better than Nigel. It's all fun though, I don't mind, besides, I'm teaching them proper english swears, and general english words/phrases. One thing they pointed out that I completely agree with is the stupidity in using the word tea, for dinner. It's true, and I never use it this way. But, then again, its not as confusing as these Canadians make it out to be.

So as not much happened today, I am going to tell you all how to talk and act canadian.
1st: Say 'eh' (aye) after most sentences (especially questions). Although, to be honest, most Vancouver people don't say this, other Canadians do.
2nd: Don't ever say bathroom, or toilet when you are out, you are looking for the 'washroom'.
3rd: a list of things canadians don't really understand, and the equivalent canadian.
plaster = band-aid
clingfilm = ceram-wrap
washing powder = laundry detergent
single cream, and all the varieties of milk = they don't use words like semi-skimmed etc, they have a percentage showing the fat content.
surname = lastname (some canadians understand this though)
CV = resume
blutac = tac/putty/I don't think they really have a name for it!
route = pronounce it as rawt. (although, once again, some canadians understand this)
'ickle' = they don't know this word! Nor do Australians. It's only people from the UK that have.
Canada Geese = They are just called Geese here.
4th: always do as the lights on the road say. Canadians, seem to lack the ability to walk across a road unless the light says they can cross, even if there are no vehicles!
lastly: recycling. This is second nature to them, we suck at recycling.

Oh actually, I took a nice route back from work on my bike, not too steep and full of nice looking houses. One day I'll have to show my bike route (scenery) somehow. Taking the cycle roytes means less traffic and nice scenery... and no stupidly steep hills (so far). I'm not sure how far to cycle to work is, but the straight line distance is about 6km from the house to work.
Also, there was more riding, from house back to the hostel (about 5km away in a straight line) to celebrate Andrew travelling for 1 year now. I am rather jealous. The cake was good. Plus I took some photos, this is my personal favourite.

SuperAndrew, and his adoring fan Lynda. They weren't even posing, this is normal

Andrew has amazing stories, and it is great to hear them. Just so so jealous that he has been to so many places and has many stories to tell.

I discovered on the ride back, that riding the bike was faster than waiting for the bus. woohoo!

---

thursday - I have a house warming!

Work - all management disappeared an hour before the end of my shift. This ment we all took free food. (Should I write this here? meh, I'm sure I'll be long gone before they see this). Also if anyone messes up (like throwing stuff in the bin, catching something, walking with wrong tray), we like to say to each other, 'Fail!'. Also, for some reason, using the word 'face' is still a great insult.

HOUSE! is a doctor,
and my housewarming is not,
a random haiku.

umm, yea, so we had pizza! I was happy, so returned the favour with strawberries and grapes in cream. People seemed to like the house, it's garden (despite not having been mowed for a while), and the many floors. Ben 'Secured' his place on the Sumo Bean bag, and we watched a film. Helen came later, this maybe because I accidentally told her the wrong bus. Sorry! Really I am, we shall have tea some time to make up for it.

Everyone but me here

I'm in a photo, yay! Emma is deeply focused on the film.
Lynda is napping, so you can only see her legs. Also Helen really likes her "nest seating".

A few people left early due to sleepiness or 'need to call girlfriend at the same hour everyday' syndrome. That left Me, Rob, Sabrina and Emma. Not enough for scumbag really, however my housemate Edwin showed up. We got him to play with us, and so Scumbag returned, however, Rob was always king.

---

friday

NOTHING HAPPENED!
I bet you would like that, but no, nothing much happened at work. I do like the fact that as a new person, I get to train even newer people. Oh and I got my first pay check (from my first week of work). OH, and some lady said to me, I love your accent, is it Australian? I think she wins the Dumb award today.
Anyway, I finished work an hour early and so decided to make this an evening with my bike. Here's a few photo's from my flickr,

Granville Island bridge

One of My bike and False Creek

some with me in them as my mum has complained that I am not in many of my own photo's.
That's right, I'm following Ben's footsteps, I'm taking arrogant photos of myself. I tell you what, it is addictive. Although in some of them, you may wonder, how I got the camera in such a place.

Thoughtfulness. Plus the science world building behind me,

A random footpath bridge, with no flat place to put the camera on!

Tomorrow is water fight day in Stanley park! But also, buy a bike for Ben day too.

---

Saturday

WATER FIGHT!
or maybe not as it turned out.

Ben and I walked to bike shop and found a bike he wanted and needed fixing up.

The bike Ben found.

The first offer for the bike was not by Dylan, but by a lady co-worker, she said $150. 150! she was having a laugh, surely! So after she went back in the shop, I said, lets walk to Dylan, he offered a more reasonable price, less than $100. However, there was much to be done, fixing the chain, front wheel, brakes, gears, and general rust-age.

"Pish-posh, I know how to fix this on."

The new bits that needed to be added cost a little as well, that and using the bike holding-ma-jigger thingy, and getting instruction from the staff while fixing it.

That bike holding-ma-jigger I was on about. (Ben in background)

Yea, this actually ended up taking about 2 hours. Which meant that we missed the start of the water fight. We went to stanley park anyway, with a quick stop to starbucks along the way. We had strawberry frappuccino. They are very nice, and so to are the cheese croissants we had at Tim Hortons.
So we found quite a few people still water fighting, and we met up with Lynda. What we did was not fight with water, but chill in the sun. Yep, that was out day, chilling in the sun. I hear it wasn't such great weather today in england, haha, you all suck.
Lynda did have a water gun, but it had the strange ability to hit everything but the target. Sabrina joined us later. After much chilling and half napping in the sun watching boats and ferries pass in the Burrard inlet (yes, it's hard being in Vancouver), we decided that we were hungry, and required food. We had a brief interlude messing about on the fallen tree.

The fallen tree in Stanley park.

Attacked on the tree top.

(I personally like this picture. Click HERE!)

Then we had a fake picnic! We found a spot near some Canada Geese (which are just called Geese here), and Ben and I rode our bikes to the nearest corner shop, bought a loaf of bread, some ham, some philadelphia, bananas, apples and some crackers. This was our picnic/dinner. It was rather good actually. It was also a lot of fun, randomly eating like this together.

Umm, fake picnic goodness.

The geese also liked the crackers too, and apparently the not so good apple. Lynda and Sabrina took the bus afterwards, and left me and Ben to cycle home. On the way I used a washroom in a random shop, and discovered, to my amazement, square watermelons!

Look, they're water-melons, and they are square!

I did not know they actually existed! And, yes, ok, they are technically "cube" shaped, now be amazed by it!

Today has been a good day off (check out more photos of today from Ben). Tomorrow is work from 11 to 6.30. Or in other words, I get to help with the closing up. Fun times!

---

Sunday!

Work was work. What did annoy me was the owner of this dog. They left him outside, with no shade, and only a little to drink, and left him for like over an hour! IDIOTS! the poor dog was finding hard in the sun, so I propped an umbrella next to it. Stupid owners, should be slapped with a fish or something.
Anyway, finished at 6.30, and got to take 9 cookies, for they were going to chuck them away at the end of the day. These cookies were for the 'Getting rid of rob party/event', probably more of an event.
I cycled all the way there from work, it took 45mins. Cycled by the water all the way, it was good. I really like cycling now, can you tell?
Yea, we spent a little time back on Jericho beach, relaxing, then had some $8 pizza's on 4th Avenue before splitting up, never to see Rob again... until he visits the uk/we visit him for awesome new year celebrations that the dutch have. He is going to Japan next. Farewell Robert!

Umm, the only other thing about today is milk. Yes milk, the type of milk I bought is called... well look at the picture.

Yes, that's right, it's and excellent source of calcium!

nice.
And thus ends week 5! Tomorrow is a day for soup.
and random photos too that I have not shown yet.

something new!

2008-07-08T12:15:00.000-07:00

OK, here's flickr stuff, for those that want to see more random photos.
Enjoy.

week 4 (30thjune-7th july)

2008-07-05T23:59:00.000-07:00

monday

1st day on the job! It went like this.
WAKE UP EARLY SO THERE WAS NO CHANCE OF BEING LATE! Even if it is a 10 o'clock start.
Wore black trousers as requested for work, took bus then the skytrain to workplace.
I get on the bus, but realise that I don't know the combination number to get into the building. I left the code at home. The manager "Maureen" told me it when I rang her up thankfully. Enter me looking confused about what life will be like working.
To anyone reading this thinking, 'wait. Dyl with a job? This is a joke right?'
NO, it is not, I REALLY have a JOB!
Ok, so 1st day. I was shadowing a girl called Hilary. She seemed unimpressed at having to teach a new guy. But she taught well. She has been doing this for many months. By lunch time I was using the till my own. Not exactly the hardest thing in the world.
Oh right, yea, my job. I am working up front, taking orders, making drinks (non-alcoholic), and being me. It's fast food, with some very nice sandwiches, muffins, cookies, milkshakes, coffees, teas and salads.
Things that annoyed me today:
People who don't know what they are ordering.
Me not knowing what the menu is, but still trying to enter the order!
People changing their mind about an order half way through ordering.

Things I liked:
50% off the menu, and free drinks.
Fun/cool co-workers (some new like me).
co-workers fascination with how english I am. (Why do people think I have a really posh accent? I don't do I?)
Finishing at half three, and not having a busy day. Easy does it.

That was my day at work.
Ben's day was like this apparently.
Get there early, wait an hour for bosses while talking to other temps.
Bosses talk to them, tell them to take a rather long lunch break.
They get back, more talk until about 3 (I think). Then they tell them to go home as they have no usernames, but they still get paid a full days work.
Or
Got paid for not doing any work.
Lucky, lucky, git!

Ben left the hostel today, others are moving out tomorrow. So I've decided I too will move out tomorrow, before the start of the jericho beach canada day party! That and get $23 back. Woo, no work tomorrow, and new house. All is good!

---
tues = canada day! = july 1st = awesome!

Well, started with me moving stuff to the house. Well all I had to do is pack my stuff up as Colin came and picked me up. Very nice of him, I know! From the house I decide to take the bus back to the beach. I just didn't count on not finding the bus stop. Ahh! I did eventually find a bus, just about 7 blocks further than I should have gone.

Well I made it back to the hostel, and canada day party went like this:

Food - good
Beach - brilliant. I shaded myself, others wanted a tan. An Australian named Mark went swimming in his underwear. As you do. Also, there is a rule that you cannot drink in public, including the beach. However on canada day, no one cared, even the beach patrol (guys on quad bikes, patrolling the beach) were out having a laugh, drink in hand. There was also a mini sand fight.
Boatrace (the beer kind) between countries - Austrailia lost to Japan. Japan were happy, austraila hung there heads in shame. England didn't enter! There were many irish though.

Lynda and Andrew showing just how canadian they are.

People around the table, chilling out, having fun.

Football, bearfoot - Fun game. I love listening to italians talk, they sound so cool!
Canada day cake - Oh the canada day cake was very good. It was Carrot cake in fact.

The Canada Day cake, it was very delicious!

We had a mini water fight, kind of - Sabrina and Rob throwing water from bottles about. Then I helped Sabrina get her own back. I came up with the idea of filling regular balloons with water. We waited until we could fill them up secretly, however he suspected us. He found us walking with the water filled balloons. No suprises for him. But he did slap mine out of my hand. Damn. He won again.
ball tag - Exactly what it says on the tin. It's tag, but with a tennis ball. You may run about with the ball, all you have to do is throw it and hit someone. That someone may catch it though and not be 'it'. This was actaully a really fun game. If a little slippery when barefeet on the grass. We stayed out until it was a little too dark to see the ball. So then it was time for...
A running race between us guys across length of football pitch (american) - The walk to the other side to start the race was funny. Rob was saying he would win, we thought, really? The Ben and andrew thought I would win. I kept silent. Ben lets it slip that he used to do professional running. Oh crap. So who won? I know, you are all dying to know aren't you? Well Seun did the on you marks bit. and...

I slipped at the beginning. But I didn't come last! Ben won. We all agreed that the grass was somewhat slippy.
Watched fireworks - I'll be honest, they were pathetic. There was a nice atmosphere though, but that might have been from the day in general. Ben and me agreed that we have nothing like this in England. Well I suppose there is St Georges day, but nobody cares about that. I think Seun put it nicely by saying, "There's a St Georges day?".
Home! - I have one, and housemates informed me that soon there will be better fireworks. All to music and as a competition between countries. Sounds good.
Then there was sleep - it went like this: Zzzzzzzzz.

end

---

wednesday - 2nd day at work... and bike ride!

Not much to say about work, 9-2 was today, so it was pretty chill. Didn't get too busy before I left. The only concern was the morning and finding the damn bus stop. I knew exactly where to wait for the bus, for my housemate Adrienne told me. Yep, I have helpful housemates.
It was fairly busy by the time I left from the lunch madness. But I didn't care about leaving co-workers, for I was going on a bike ride. Well, it was Robert's idea but he was a 'lil busy trying to get his visa for china. long story short, he got there at 9.30, was still there at 2.30. he left at around 4ish... with no visa. Yep, so sucked to be him then. So that left me and sabrina to go bike riding around Stanley park. It was good, we cycled around the park for 2 and 3/4 hour. came to $17 on the rental bikes.
Admittedly, some of that time was probably taken up by going the wrong way, and heading back to downtown! Yea, we back tracked that bit. I blamed the fact that all the maps on the boards had a tiny bit missing, showing where on the map you were! someone had ripped it off! twats.
Sabrina blamed me for guessing where we were going.
Whatever.

Some cool water fountains found by getting lost.

Sabrina looking at the totem poles.

Going around the outside was quite beautiful, and our rental bikes came with little bells, this was great amusement for me!
When pigeons are in your way, or just nearby, ring the bell.
If stupid man is on the cycle path, ring at him, again and again, especially with bike riding buddy to make a point.
Besides from pictures, all I will say about this is that there was a tall pile of rocks. Ok, this may not seem interesting, but look at them!

Random pile of rocks.

See, they are interesting, and now that you see them, don't you have the impulse to find another rock to whack it with to see if it stays standing?
I think everyone does, as both me and sabrina did, then as 2 random guys walked by, we heard them say the same thing.
So did we find out?
No
There were no random stones near by. I wonder why this was?

Anyway, riding a bike again after so many years made me realise 2 things.
1: You never forget to ride a bike... very true.
2. I want a bike!

After the bike ride we decided that we deserved ice cream. The Ice cream was 3 different flavours in a tub, and it was gooooood!

Also, on a separate note, I saw a giant dog today. I was going to get a photo, but the sabrina said she would take one, and FAILED! however we did see it again later on, just sitting down, so the dog doesn't look half as impressive.

Giant Dog! Lying down

---

thursday

work: started off with random whipping match between me and tony (someone who has had 2 days more experience than I) with our wash cloths. While we were cleaning the counter of course. Pain was received when we were distracted, ie when listening to anyone. Work is fun. I am certainly appreciating how it has a relaxed atmosphere, and so far doesn't seem too taxing. Plus the fact the dates of work are flexible is also very good. On this morning shift I discovered that I don't like wrapping the cookies and muffins up. Why? Because they smell so good, and I want to eat them all! Then by the time my lunch break has come, they have all been eaten.

After work met up with Ben and Lynda. We went and ate some food at a place called steamrollers. It does really good burritos. They also fill you up just before you can finish it, and they are green coloured!
I tell you what though, today we discovered why some of these "homeless" people are annoying.
Ok, so we are finished, just chatting away, and this man, on a bike, cleanly shaven walks up to us claiming to be homeless. Now ok, maybe he was, maybe he wasn't. What he did is the annoying bit, He gave us a sob story about how his guitar just got stolen, and how now it is harder for him to make money to go to vancouver island... blah blah blah... So could we spare some money so he could buy some food.
Now, we had some spare food, so we offered him that, he takes it, and just rides off, without even a thank you. The whole story thing was pointless, it just makes you want to ignore him as he might be making it up. If he just said he was homeless, and hungry, and could we spare some food, as he was looking at it the whole time. We would have just given it, we weren't going to eat it.
grr

anyway, tomorrow is go to Irish girls house for house warming party. It is also a day when I finish work at 6. Fun times!

---

Friday

Work started at 3, so I missed the lunch rush... Or so I thought.
It was wave after wave of people queuing up for food. I was on the till, and making many milkshakes. Really tasty looking chocolate and strawberry milkshakes. I didn't even get to go on my lunch break until 5!
I wanted it! But instead I was serving it.

After work was straight to the bank to sort out a VOID cheque. This lets me gets paid for my work. Then on the bus to the meeting point of the house-warming (safeway), I found a Ben. Well he was at the back and saw me about a minute before I was him. Apparently I looked tired.
We were both hungry and so decided to buy food. At safeway we met Rob, Sophia and Sabrina. Rob and Sophia wanted food too, so there was one thing for it. An excessively large Pizza. We bought 2. These are the kind of pizzas that wouldn't fit a normal UK oven, but canada is HUGE, and so are its ovens! Also, as I had been making milkshakes all day, and had told Sabrina, it was decided that I should make some of that too. and for the hell of it, we bought some houmus and croissants.

House: Pizzas. Yum. With humous too, also yum. Croissants yum, with humous, errm, a bit much a thought, but ben liked it.
Milkshakes, everyone liked. I should take a picture next time. They look awesome.
We ended up playing a card game that lynda just taught us, called Scumbag. It is a simple to learn game, where after each go, you end up with a king (the winner), a queen (2nd place), a scumbag (2nd from last), and the dodgy scumbag (last place). I ended up king at the end. But admittedly, I was scum alot of the time.
Lynda also brought a housewarming present, it was fridge magnet words. After a few people left, We decided to make random stories/sentences up. Ended up with some very funny stuff. Will link some photo's up when I get them from people.

---

sat

No work! Jogged to Ben's house. Wouldn't have taken to long if I didn't get last half way. This at first seems impossible as I live on 36th Ave, and he on 35th. i.e. almost a straight line. In my defence, the road disappears half way through, but I saw a back road, went through that as I thought maybe it was a short cut. It wasn't, I ended up further away. More jogging got me there, in the rain. Fun.
We then were going to walk to Helens place for a tea party, but on closer inspection of a map, we realised that that would be stupid. Besides it was really raining now. So we bought some muffins and cupcakes and found a bus stop. Helens place is nice, and the tea party was good. Her landlord randomly walked into the living room, and says he is having dinner with some friends here tonight, and invited us all to have dinner with him. Obviously we said yes, free food!
And wow, it was gooooood food. All grown from the garden, except the chicken. Desert was also rhubarb and strawberry crumble. Loved it. Also the people were all friendly, and from different places, and made good conversation.

Everyone on top of garage. Random people everywhere!

Also a bike shop was suggested to me "our community bikes", they received donated bikes, do them up and sell them on. They are non-profit, and also let you build them up yourselves with guidance. Sounds pretty cool.
This is one thing I've really been loving about vancouver so far, the fact that everyone is friendly, meeting the random people and talking random stuff. I wish this would happen more often at home, instead of people thinking everyone is going to do something to them if they are a stranger.
Blah.
Anyway, We ate the food on the roof of the garage (there were stairs to it), and the view was quite nice. We also looked around the vegetable garden, and were given mint leaves.

Helen and her landlord, apparently thinking of something good.

Also, as there was spare food about, Ben and I got it to eat. Woohoo! free food, and free food to take home, good food.
food food food. I like food.

---

Sunday - Ben has house warming party.

1st however, work. Today people were trying to say stereotypical English things. NOPENOPENOPE, most of the time, it was IRISH! I do not say, "top of the morning to ya". DUMB!
I think the award winning dumb statement goes to a girl called Wanner, she said, 'do you come from British then?'
Everyone took the piss out of that. It was all good though, and I got off work early.

With this extra time, I looked for the bike shop called 'our community bikes'. I got to it, just as it was closing, but I saw a bike I liked the look of, It looked all ready to go... minus the bike seat, which was non-existent. Tomorrow, I will be there!

Ben's place.
We sat outside for a bit deciding what to eat, as someone irish forgot the pizza. However there was cake... I mean, there was no cake Helen, you missed nothing.

Everyone chilling out in Ben's back garden

We decided to get Chinese. Ben's landlord was also quite cool, finding the best Chinese food places to eat for us, and giving us chairs to sit on outside.
The food was good, well except for the one vegetarian dish, which sucked. Well, ok the rice was god, but the tofu was bleh.
Ben made us all some lovely mint tea with honey (He is a good host), while we all once again played scumbag.

Ben making tea, being the perfect host.

SCUMBAG!

Its good to relax with friends, in the lovely weather, talking random stuff, and jobs and houses etc. This is the life.

Hopefully there will be more days like this to come.

end.

why is there nothing new?

2008-07-05T13:55:00.000-07:00

Umm, yea, been busy at work, and having fun.
Work is just fun, easy, and at times, BUSY AS HELL!
I do however get tonnes of time off. So I will have something else up soon, promise!
right now... I'm going to walk to ben's, then helen's (we live quite close apparently).

so in the mean time, have a picture!

what has happened so far - week 3 (23rd-29th june)

2008-07-01T10:11:00.001-07:00

part 3 (week 3)!

Monday (23rd)

Gah. been looking for jobs for what seems like forever now! Well, ok, it started last week at some point. Today I started at 9am by walking down 4th avenue (type "4th ave vancouver" into googlemap to see. I'm at Jericho beach on the left, downtown is to the right). Now the thing I didn't know was that almost everywhere is closed at that time! Stupid places. Well, I carried on looking so I can look into them later (like in a couple of mins). I found a few nice coffee shops, and the few restaurants that seemed very nice were still closed. Oh yea, I actually found the most amazing coffee place that does excellent smoothies.

A random picture from inside the coffee place

I in fact stayed there for an hour just so I could see the manager. The staff were cool, and the food/drinks looked nice, plus they had random drawings. Basically, it was very me. When the manager came he informed me that if I were here until december, then that would be great. However all the front positions had been taken up last week.
LAST WEEK! dammit! That could have been me talking random crap to customers! If only I had known.
Oh well, off I go again (might come back here later, still have no laptop).
Later!
Yea, no more. Write about the rest of today tomorrow.

---

Tuesday 24th (longest entry ever!)

Writing this at 6.10pm... and oh my oh my, ooh, myyy! I might have a laptop in 30mins!
For $200!... wait let me check my money... ok, I need to get out another $20, but then it should be all good!

Umm, yea, anyway. Today has been an ok/interesting day. Later I shall be looking at a house (7.30). It's an old heritage house too. Know nothing about the housemates though. However, there is another house with 2 housemates that are really cool, by their description anyway (see link). They seem quite random, and like doing odd things... so very like me! However I got this from them today

Hey Dylan,

You sound about the right person to fit the place. We're just trying to figure one thing out with the room as there might be one of our good friends in need of the space, which would obviously work great to give it to her. We should know in the next few days, so if it's still available, we'll for sure give you a call (or email).

Sorry that's all I can say for the moment...

Cheers,

hmm. this sounds all so familiar! Also, I love the way the canadians are always saying stuff like, "for sure", "whatever", "it's like" and etc etc. It's sooo canadian. But yes, what to do. Well 1st, find out where their house is, I've forgotten!

Ok, it's almost been an hour, and laptop guy is not here. Grr. I will have to look at the house soon.

Anyway. Today, Ben had the perfect job for me... or should I say 'perfect'. It's a job and pays well. Oh yes. It's what he has got. His company told him if he had any friends that would want to have a job, and if he referred them, then he would get $100. So yes, I went for an office job interview today. A 2 hour interview! Well ok, there was about 10mins of interview in the middle, and the rest was on the computer, proving your skills with using Microsoft products. fun times, typing tests and excel tests, but certain buttons could not be used. Data entry testing. Yea, stuff like that. Oh and it ended with a safety video from the 80's. Oh that was painful to watch, so instead I read the leaflets they gave and partially watched it.

###
OH wow last night was amazing! Although after I just finished writing the above, I had good and bad things happen.
Goodthing: The laptopguy came with a laptop with 2 spare batteries (1 a bit crap) and 2 chargers, a laptop bag and the laptop. The laptop ran very fast indeed. It looked old, but I don't plan to keep it, just need it for internet. For geeks or others that are interested in what I got for $200, read inside the stared section below.

****
1.6GHz pentium 4 (but can control the speed), 1GB RAM, win XP, IBM thinkpad.
a lil old so has no USB2 though. has wireless firewire and that nipple for a mouse.
boot time just over 10s!
****
now the BADTHING: i didn't want to carry this bag of laptop stuff about to the house viewing, so I decided to go back to the hostel first, and change there while I was at it (for I was in my, "Dyl looks very cool and smart" get up). So I call them before I leave to make sure I can if I get lost, and the guy informs me that there has been a change. The room is only available in August.
What a bunch of ... people described by rude words! could of told me before! well, guess I won't be living there.

So I was half happy half sad. Laptop worked well when I used it. Also friends seemed impressed that a laptop that cheep actually worked. Although the guy selling it did seem to be a bit of a weirdo. He was bouncing about as he was illegally parked because I wanted him to show me the laptop. But he was also half dressed like an 80's gym person (clicky is an example). Rather odd. But I did like the way he cleaned the computer (hard drive, not literally, it was dusty as hell!), and seemed to know what he was on about. Just the bouncing was conerning, however, the laptop could not be faulted.
ANYWAY!
the WOW-NESS OF LAST NIGHT!

Ok. So I end up having/making some burger with some Australians, Lynda and Andrew, who were also cooking for ben (uk) and rob (crazy dutchman!). The food was good, and now I have grown an appreciation of eating burgers with lettuce tomatoes cheese and carrots. Thats right, carrots. It works, and is good for you!
anywho, so while I was cooking burgers, the guys started talking to some random irish girls (also real irish!) called Seun (I think, and really hope is spelt like that. sounds like shun) and sabrina (whom you should not follow up with saying "the teenage witch"), and a french girl called emily. Anyway. We finish eating and play the card game arsehole. I invetibly say the word arsehole, to which Seun starts laughing! Apparently I sound really posh. "Arse'h'ole". Yes, from then on she was complimenting me... I mean "complimenting" me on my accent. She did like it to be honest, just also liked imitating. I got my own back when she didn't know the difference between a Jack and a joker. ONE SAYS JOKER ON IT!

anyway, we also played with an italian lady 'Daniella', and chris. The girls got confused, and ben. So then we tried poker but with pretending to bet, so we had bluffing. This really confused the girls, and ben.
SO THEN WE PLAYED SNAP!
This confused nobody! And ben won. He was well chuffed!

After this, it happened. The awesome of awesome! We decided to play... Hide and seek! We also found rosa and got her to play too (even though she was very tired). It was late at night and outside. It was great! We had been trying to gather people to play for 3 days, and finally it had happened. Although ben had to make his usual night time call to his girlfriend, so we waited like, I dunno, 2 hours (ok, 30mins maybe?) =b .
Went to the beach late at night. The view is even better, downtown in one direction, nothingness in the other, starts alight above (no pictures from this today, also the video camera can't be adjusted well enough to take pictures of what you see).
But, yea, three games. It lasted 'til about ... half 2? Yea. The last game took longest.
Think we might play again.
Anyway, after that was green tea with jasmine and listening to a french guy play classical style guitar, all improve style (mostly scale like). Then me and chris played, also cool. Oh but what was surreal was the convo between frenchman and daniella. They talked for ages about finding a 10/20 note. Just plain odd. Then Rosa decided to start some improve. Here is the back story... (to the frenchman)

So you are sitting on this couch, and this here is the TV. Then you look down, and it becomes a bowl of strawberries, and the couch becomes a cloud.
Now act!

Oh yes! This is one of those moments I wish I had my video camara at that time! The frenchman just couldn't comprehend this randomness, also he had had some drinks by then. So mix that with listening to non-native language and comedy occurs. He just didn't get why he suddenly looked down, or why strawberries. To be fair we didn't either.

...and I'm realising that this isn't half as, no remotely nearly as funny written down as it was last night.

Oh well.
The night ended with a few of us left watching "into the wild" and not from the beginning. I seemed like a really good film, must watch it sometime.
Anyway, the night ended at a quarter to 4. Sleep was required.

----

Wednesday (thats today! (well was on the day of writing))
ok, so I woke up at 8 (not bad considering), washed, brushed, changed, ate. Added stuff to laptop. Then it was Watch germany play turkey! This hostel is all about the germans, as they are awesome! And run the kitchen. I have some pics and video footage too!

loads of people watching the game outside.

We all got to wear german flags (mini ones on toothpicks). Well rob didn't want to as he only supported them now, but wouldn't wear their flag.
The second half was most annoying. The satellite went! Apparently this happened in Europe too, but I don't know.
So when this happened, we were all most annoyed (especially the germans!).
What was annoying more so for me was that I was filming people being happy, then pressed the pause button as turkey scored the 2nd goal. I just missed the reaction of everyone!

After that was open interview time, and I took lynda along too, as she was looking for the same type of work. We also went and handed in resumes at a place called Sciue (Shoe-eh), that had good ice cream

---
thursday

So today was a day of achieving absolutely nothing.
seriously. I sucked. (yea, I'm not feeling too happy right now)
I was supposed to look for jobs, and also look for houses and then come back to the hostel and have some fun.
What I actually did was sort out laptop
...Geek bit...
It's very old, and had been restored to it's original settings. Or in otherwords Windows XP, service pack none existent.
So there was much updating to be done. Like all morning, while russia sucked at football.
...end geek bit...
anyway.
So I go and have dinner today with helen, and bring random hostel people too. She informs me off the fact that she is going to look at a house today that also has an extra room for two months.
So I thought that sounds good, no having to look for houses today. It was in north vancouver however. So also no job searching either as it would have been busy time by the time I would have got back.
Although there was one thing. The owner of the house sound like he was a bit mad on the phone to helen. The plan was to meet him at the seabus port, and he would pick us up. Although helen really appreciated the company as he seemed a lil' odd. When we got to the other side, we discovered that he was in fact mad, a mad-hatter if you will. His name is Jerry.
Hawaiian style shirt, crap crap car, and a straw hat. I was in the back, and wondered what I was sitting on. Crazy convertible ancient ford with random burn marks and I think bits missing. He had no seatbelts in the back either! Made worse by the fact that he couldn't drive at all.
He didn't watch the lights, twice had to go hard on the breaks, and once had to reverse back as he was in the middle of a crossroad! I was not feeling safe. Then he was asking if we had heard of random country western people who played before we were born.
It gets worse though.
He shows his other cars. Both look like banged up pieces of shit. When we got out the car, helen shoot me a look of, 'is he really this mad?', and 'what have we got into' rolled into one. I think I replied with a look of, 'where have you taken me? WHY have you brought me?!'.

The inside of the house. Oh inside the house, that was the worst. I can't believe he was asking for $500-odd. What kind of joke was he playing?! Ok, so we walk in from the back, it was like a construction/tip site. His "new bathtub" was outside, looking used. He was saying how he doesn't like paying for electricians and plumbers so he does everything himself. Yea, he was a handyman. And looking at the house, not a very good one. He was doing up the house, and it looked like the house could be nice, it was just that the way he was doing it was making it look like a hole. The living room had a pool table, (waiting to be built), and some draws (waiting to be demolished and others to be built), and a cat (which helen is allergic too, and left a load of orange fur on my lovely black trousers for interviews). It did have one good thing, a nice view... when looking out of the window.
Yea should have gone then as there was no point in looking if the cat is a problem for helen. But I thought, why not look more. Bad idea, waste of time, except for the funny-sad factor. The room wasn't too bad I suppose. Just a bit ... plain. Nothing good about it, and had a internet cable that didn't work.
Yea, we left and said that we didn't need a lift, we would walk back,
'So that we could see the how long it takes to the seabus'

Yep. The walk back was full of, Oh my god about the house. Especially as the guy said that after I leave (assuming I stayed), he would fill the place up really fast. 'In a flash' I believe he said. We were just thinking, to who? Blind people?
But even they would feel and generally sense that it was not a good place.

I decided to buy some Bisto gravy from the quay market. I found the shop guy funny as after every sentence/question/statement he said 'aye'. Or is it spelt 'eh'? Well that sound, anyway.
On the way back was good news for helen as she got her job with the travel company. Meaning ok pay, but free flights to anywhere in canada.
good good.

I however was in sucksville. Apparently rejoined by ben (I found when I got back). He had had an unsuccessful day house hunting. Had fun walking 2-3miles to a cash point as the first one was out of order. Lynda got a call back from a chocolate shop where she handed in a resume. They wanted to have an informal interview over coffee.

Tomorrow I make food with her, and everyone else pays for the shopping. Woot! We're thinking chicken mash potatoes gravy (hence the bisto), and salad. But we also have to make some veggie food.

---
friday

RARRR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Thats all I can be bothered to say about the day.
Evening was good, for the food was awesome and we had table cloths and everything! including gravy served in a teapot.
Then we went to see the sunset. We technically missed the actual sun setting, but still could see the colours disappear. Which is still great. Oh, and ben took some long timed exposure photos of us. Mostly in fighting poses! It started with 2, then more people were added, then more and more. until we had everyone trying to hold really random poses for 15seconds. I'll link the photos up.

Here's the link! +my favourite photo from the set

---
sat.

I hate this job hunting and house searching. hate hate hate.
At 5 I will play football with the random canadians from the week before. That will make me forget.
Is it bad that I'm getting seriously annoyed that other people have jobs, and or houses and I don't?!
Stop rubbing it in people! Lynda got the job at chocolate and coffee shop. Very nice, I wanted to work there! But they didn't need someone only there for summer! Grr. But, you know, go her. But my brain still thinks grr! However... JERRY IS BACK! Ben didn't know who he was. But it is in a location where me and helen looked that day. And the guy sound similar, so me and helen warned ben to STAY AWAY.
however, Jerry has saved bens number and keeps asking when is he going to look. oh dear, oh dear indeed.

Oh my!
ok, so I emailed a resume this morning for a random cashier/cook position at a fast food restaurant inside of the science world building. Now every time I have emailed a resume, I have had no replies.
Today however, at lunch time while I was still thinking along the lines of,
'This place is great but finding a job only 'till september is a bitch! nd a house.'
I received a phone call. I was called for an interview, tomorrow at 9.30
like what the hell? I am being called up, that is odd. I was more baffled that happy.
plus its minimum wage, $8-10per hour, but you do get tips too. -EDIT nopenope, no tips.

Today I discovered that playing football in the bright bright sun when you are hungry just makes you increadibly tired. No random canadians, so it was a 2 on 2 match, me and andrew vs ben and rob. OR, europe vs austrailia and sri lanka. We lost 9-10.
it was very close, we had skills, but by the end we just didn't have heart (Well that's what I'm saying).

Today was meant to be stay on the beach all night, with a fire, and stuffed potatoes, marshmallows, and other stuff. Mainly as ben didn't have a room booked this night.
Actually, he could have if it wasn't for us being good Samaritans.
A tawanise (is that right?) girl called Jane was on the bus, and was asking how to get to NW Marine Drive. Which is to the hostel. But a smelly bum was trying to give her directions... to the wrong place! This man did really smell bad, I mean, it was a mix off puke, alcohol, and possibly some pee. I wasn't too sure (I was sitting next to him, until I made way for a baby carriage), and didn't particularly want to figure out what the smell consisted off.
However, rather randomly after some irish guys on the bus whistled and he asked them if he could do this. This turned out to be a really good donald duck impression. Which made everyone on the bus laugh/chuckle.
Anywho, our good deed.
Yea, I asked Jane if she was going to the hostel, but the smelly man continued to say the incorrect stop, so I took out my youth hostel card as proof of being truthful. Luckily the smelly man got off a few stops earlier than us, so we could take the girl to the youth hostel. She hadn't actually booked a room though, and so we thought she may not get a place.
Well there weren't any beds in the female dorm rooms, but there was a bed available elsewhere, just the one. So she got that, and ben who had been looking for it had nothing. Sucks to be him!
mind you, if I don't find a place to move into by tomorrow, I too will have to add a few more nights.

Oh yea, the night with no beach was turned into a movie marathon night. Starting off with finding nemo, then Dogma. I'd say the rest, but I went to sleep after that so I had no chance of missing the interview.

---

sun

OK! I've got a job!
Well. It's not what I planned for at the beginning, you know work in a bar/restaurant as server/barman/waiter/something! On the other hand though, I still get tips and won't die from starvation anymore! I start work tomorrow at 10. Now to watch german play spain. I think spain will win. To everyone saying what do you know dyl? Well, ok, I know nothing, but I can still have an opinion!

haha, spain won!

later: Yesterday I was meant to get a phone call saying to look at a house. Never did get it, so I left a voicemail message. At 5, I got a call. It was the house! I could go look. Really nice people, girl called adrienne and guy called colin picked me up and drove me to their place. It was really nice. The house is Mahooooosive!
loads of room, there will be 3 housemates, 4 later when an original inhabitant arrives.
In the house then will be 2 canadians, a columbian studying english over the summer, me and then an indian.

Oh but the house was gorgeous! I am going to take pictures when I go back there (as in when I move in, on wednesday). You'll see.

We have pictures!

Outside of the house and inside my room as I walked in.

there are also videos. Soon people. Soon.

Although, this news may have pissed ben off now. He is the only one without a place to live.

However, I can't be too sad.
I HAVE A HOUSE AND A JOB!
WOO!
Sophia (a german girl) is cooking us a jamie oliver style chilli con Carney.

Ben decided to use my laptop for extra house searching.
He came up with a few places, but all failed. Some taken, one was to be looked at, but as he walked out of the door he got a phone call. It had been taken.
Then he found one, from the notice board. The person said that they would take him there. This meant he missed having dinner with us. But when he got back, He also had a place!
And also got back in time to eat warm food!
So pretty much everyone has a place and job.
Well ok, me, helen and ben do. Seun and sabrina have a house (no job, but they've only just got here). Lynda and Andrew both have jobs.

Anyway, tomorrow, is job at 10. Leave here at 9 (so I really can't be late!). I'm finally up to date!
Next, sort out the blog (put these onto it, with pics). -And this is what you are reading now... oooou.
Last day of the month goes with a bang. Have a laptop, job, awesome house, great friends. All is good!

What will happen next month? Well it starts with canada day (1st).
Me tired, untill tomorrow all.

dyl

what has happened so far - week 2 (16th-22rd june)

2008-07-01T00:36:00.001-07:00

it's part two! or week 2

Monday (16th)
Went to SWAP office, still waiting for my Serving it right certificate/card to arrive so I can prove that I am responsible to serve alcohol! On the verge of my perfect resume! (The weekend before I applied for some jobs online anyway, but not with a perfected resume, or covering letter in the form of an email.)
Met up with some friends I made before from uk! Ben and Helen.
yea. We had a slice or 2 of pizza (trust me, that is enough here), and then decided to go to north vancouver, by the 'seabus'. Yes I know, what an adventurous name. So in other words, after a morning of sorting out covering letter, I decided no more job/laptop/house hunting! Lets have some fun.
Here we discovered The Lonsdale Quay market.

Here's the outside sign at an odd angle, just because.

What was discovered was much glorious food, and a shop selling lots of english foods; including mushy peas, gravy, irn bru, Cornish pasties, but which they spelt as pastries, fools! Oh, but they had REAL cheese (I will get to this 'cheese' point later), not some lame canadian cheese. That and lots of cider. We do not know what cider is out there. They have some weird and wonderful flavours. Every fruit has a flavour. I will have to buy some, maybe bring some back.

Ben & Helen, both wishing I wasn't taking a picture... probably.

Downtown from north Vancouver. Another stapled image.

More pictures on flickr soon, including: a large seagull we called Hank, and Ben with a headache, but looks cool while doing so.

Oh yea, this is the day I tell the house with fun roommate, I want to live there! The girls living there seem very happy about this, but have another viewing, so say they are happy but will let me know tomorrow.
I can't remember how I spent this night, possibly I spent it playing cards with some austrailians? maybe. Oh, by the way, there is a difference between the aussies and the new zealanders (NZ). The austrailians can speak better! well, ok, maybe not, but here is an example.
the word 'text', now a NZ person says 'tixt'. So you end up looking at them thinking, 'I'm sorry what are you saying?'. Better yet is 'Beard', they say 'Bear', but in their fast way. its odd, shaving your bear... but yes, there is a difference! And now you know. Kind of.

---

Tuesday ... and the rest of this week, to be honest it's a bit of a blur now (writing this tuesday 24th-sunday-29th).
This is the day I discover that the house with fun roommate is not available! nooooooooo.... and what not. But I gained a friend from it! Yay. What I did do however was sort out my resume, and made a few copies of it, along with a 'generic covering letter'. Why? As it was time for Dyl to go into random bars/restaurants and other places asking for the manager and any jobs! I didn't go looking on this day, as I wasn't really dressed I decided. Especially for some of the upper market (fancy) places, like Cactus club. So instead, I looked around seeing where I could go. Then after lunch, being a cheese and ham sandwich I made, the library was called for.

Oh yea, cheese! Canadians can't make it. It is rubbish! That's all there is to it! They plain suck. Oh and the shop I went to buy the ham from (this was before I discovered safeway) was out of date! I should have listened to the friendly old man at the youth hostel. He said, there are two places you can go. The first one is closer and cheaper, but they will often change the price at the last minute, and generally be underhanded. The second place is safeway, and will involve taking a bus, but they will not be deceitful. Out of date ham! Grr, no wonder it didn't taste so good! Now, ok, maybe I should have looked at the date when I bought it, but I was TIRED! OK! plus, I was thinking that, you know, they wouldn't sell me OUT OF DATE HAM without telling me! never going there again. Grr. What's worse is that I only discovered this on the monday... 23rd!, I had the ham for a week! I ate it at least 4 times!

hmm... the rest of this week was pretty much spent like this:
Wake up, go to library, check for jobs/houses/laptop. Get back to hostel have fun (while thinking, ahh not having job sucks!).

The Vancouver public library. Apparently libraries are cool.

Even the inside too

On the friday (was it friday? hmm.) I decided to look around downtown for nice restaurants. So for this I decided to wear a nice suit type thing. Basically black trousers, black blazer, but instead of a shirt, my polo neck (turtle neck here) top. I look smart, but can get away with wearing my skate shoes (which are all black anyway). The only problem was that I had a crappy blue bag. This was not going to work. So I bought me a postman bag thing, from the gap. I've always wanted one of these and will use it all the time, and I liked it. So I was willing to pay... $68 for it. Yes, OK, I used girl logic! Shutup! however, I do look awesome, and when I am walking I keep thinking: 'I am Legend'. Oh yes. I will get ben to take an arrogant photo of me... he likes arrogant photo's
(check his blog, or flickr account... how's that for plugging a friend! No photo of arrogant dyl-'suit style' yet)

umm.. anyway, enough about the bag. The reason for it. Job searching! Yep, I was thankful, I went into the cactus club place. It is next to a load of banks, and so the businessmen go there... i.e. big tips! However it was starting to get busy, so they got me to come back the next day. The thing is though that there was some sort of mexican man next to me wearing some scraggly clothes, looking rubbish next to me. I felt good! So yes, dress smart!.. for interviews, and if you want people to think he earns some money, even though you are running of a dwindling supply of money!

Okay, so the next day, I went back, had the interview, she seemed nice, like me, but was honest and said that as they were a new place, they were already pretty well staffed and so having me only for the summer means that it wouldn't be so likely that they would need me. fair enough. I decided to go and ask about another cactus club nearby, and she said that it was an old one, and so may have different needs. It was good, this guy also seemed to take a liking to me, and complained that his english mate was taking the mic out of him as vancouver had recently been horrid weather (that day was lovely though). He said what normally happens is that they look at resumes on a Wednesday, and call back on a friday. So I had till next week to wait.

---
the weekend!

ben has moved from UBC to here. He now wishes he was never at UBC, as it was more expensive, and met no-one! Here everyone is friendly, and cool... ok, not everyone. there is this one ginger haired guy that is really weird, all he does is play half life on his laptop. I mean seriously!? Why come to this part of the world, stay at a youth hostel and on the suuny sunny days, play computer games. What a weirdo.
ok, his not the only one, there are a few odd balls, but he is the worst. I think he keeps staring at me too.

Anyway, this is when we met loads of people.
there was Chris, and Rob (the flying dutchman!) first. We played football, and I discovered that my shoes had NO GRIP! Sliding everywhere is such an annoyance.
Us guys wanted to play hide and seek (well, it was robs idea), tried to gather people for it, but it never happened.
=(
Instead we played risk. Rob killed us all. At the same time met an english girl called Rosa. She was amused at the conversation of our table,
"..but what if I take over africa?", "we will all attack europe if you take it.", and so forth.
hmm. I can't remember much else! I'm sure stuff will come to me.
hopefully the next week is better for jobs/housing/laptop/hide&seek!

rah.

update! We also played a massive game of "soccer" with the local canadian students from UBC campus. Here are pics of Ben and rob in action (rob is in orange for his country, ben is on the other team.)

They are both ready for action.

Ben Is ready to take the ball wherever it lands

Rob at the end of a spectacular run, and about to score!

I also took some video footage. I will put them up on the internet somewhere at some point (I know, aren't I useful)

what has happened so far - week 1 (11th-15th june)

2008-06-30T23:33:00.000-07:00

So here is part 1: the 1st week (originally an email)

this maybe a bit big. take a few days reading. I don't mind!

----

I was going to write a few emails to each of you, but that is just going to take forever. So instead you get this.
until I get that blog setup. which will be when I get a laptop. oh crap, library is closing in 40mins (yes, I'm in the Vancouver public library).
right...

WEEK1 of Vancouver!

umm. ok. I will just start from the beginning.

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day1 (wed 11th)

Wisbech: wake up, put luggage in car, to Heathrow. make sure everything I need I have, and have done. check.
in car: get the feeling that we may be late.
Heathrow: Yep, late. Check in closes an hour before flight. we were there half an hour before, so pay an extra 50pounds to take next flight. Fun times. I blame my dad for his thought (which he told to me and mum),
'... as there was only one person flying, I thought that we could leave later.'
Yes. That worked out well, thanks dad!
anywho.
didn't miss the next plane.
Got onto plane, and halfway through watching 'The National Treasure: Book of secrets', a realisation crosses my mind.
How do I get to the youth hostel I booked when I land?
urm, yea, not the best thought ever, but I came up with a solution. one: don't panic!, two: watch another film (I am legend - great film), three: remember that I know where the SWAP office is (SWAP are the Canadian organisation that works with BUNAC, who are the people that I came here with).
Anyway, got to Vancouver airport.
I have to say, it is not like any other airport, it's full of plants and water features. Very nice, if a bit unexpected. The airport officials are also very friendly. The only odd thing was that we were made to take our shoes of so that they could be xrayed.
cab: took the cab to the SWAP office. the cab driver, umm, he was interesting, a lil racist to the Chinese drivers, but still, ok! and friendly, and really liked me. that cheered me up a bit talking to him, as you know. 'late flight' and 'dunno where to go' does not make for a happy dyl! The weather was dark and not sunny.

"Wang On Blinds", a shop that I saw on the way to downtown from the airport.

The SWAP ladies (as they shall be known henceforth) were cool. and gave me accurate descriptions for the bus to the hostel. One problem though. She told me the wrong side for the bus stop! That was easily figured out. no problems.
bus: the driver was not helpful. I asked him to tell me when to get off the bus (as all the drivers here are friendly, just not this one), and he said, listen to the announcements. Well I didn't care much as I didn't actually pay for the bus, just walked on and showed some paper that he must have thought was a monthly pass.
hostel: The desk people here were nice and funny. Not bad at faking an English accent either.
met a really friendly 'Scottish lass' here at the hostel! She showed me around the beach (as she has actually been studying here this year), and the view of downtown from there at night was amazing.
Never met her again, but as a 3hour friend after a pretty sucky day, she did good.

----------
day2 and 3 kinda

Went to orientation meeting with other swappers. Here it was discovered that they were mostly Irish. As in real Irish not the northern kind. Made friends with some Irish guys, and some English people that actually know where Wisbech is! At the end of the meeting I knew where not to go - East downtown, where no to live/stay - East downtown, and what to do -stay away from east downtown! OK, that and setting up bank accounts, phones, jobs etc. By the end of the day bought a phone. You can set up the number here to have the last 4 numbers as you want. So mine ends in 395. Got a bank account setup on that day. My bank lady was fun (she's old enough to be my aunt apparently but never did say her age), she liked stickers, and put some on my bank card (as they don't have names, and so these stickers identifies it as mine). I also asked for more for my luggage. She obliged. Anywho, cashed in travellers checks the next day and she showed me a Korean place to eat for lunch (she is Korean) with another random person that had also just moved to Vancouver... It was really tasty.

------------
day 3 and the rest... lots of grr-ing and woo-ing.

On this day I also thought I had found the laptop I wanted (a cheap-o internet laptop... ie old and cheap). This however, was good and cheap (found through 'craigslist' on the web), $150. Unfortunately, it was bought by someone else before I bought it.

This pattern, of so close to getting something, then it disappearing at the last minute is a theme for me recently.
It was true with that laptop. I also found another laptop, and a place to sublet on the same day. But I had to go far for the laptop. Looked at the house first, by the time I looked at that, the laptop had already gone.
oh the house. I have learned a lesson from that place.
The lesson is this. If you find a place, that is near the beach, and has a nice housemate; just because it is the first house you look at, don't say, you'll decide soon whether to stay there! Especially, when you meet the person who's room you are taking over on the bus the next day, and she asks 'Yea, jess (the housemate) doesn't like the other people that looked today, but thinks your great. In fact, we can stop looking if you say you want the place.'
again, I said, i wanted to look at other places first before I decided.
OH MY GOD I'M DUMB!
I realised that a day later, told them that I wanted to stay with them. They were happy, but then I got a call the next day. Apparently Jess's friend came over and needed a place to stay. Jess decided that she couldn't let her friend down and so I did not get the place.
grr! However, I still have her number, and we are going to be friends, woo! she said she'd take me to a salsa place.
... well supposedly. I tried to contact her today. no response. maybe she LIED! will update you on that sometime.

urmm... yea
The hostel. First few days were spent: outside at night, eating food, drinking 'dude beer' with the associated jokes that come with drinking a drink with such a name, and meeting random foreigners.
most are on world trips. Some are here for a holiday, and a few are here to find work. Mostly german and aussies. Oh and New Zelanders, but you call them aussies to annoy them anyway.
Oh and a few brits, americans & irish.

ok. What else.
JET LAG: I almost countered this by napping a little on the plane, but I think I miss calculated. That or my body wanted to annoy me. I ended up waking up at 5 in the morning! The second day this happened, I thought, right then. I will try this thing people call 'jogging', I'm by the beach, why not? So, I decided to jog in one direction along the beach for 30mins, the 30mins back the other way.
What actually happened was for 30mins I jogged one way, while stopping every 5-10mins to take pictures, then did some tai-chi/karate on the beach, just because. Then jogged back... with some mini breaks.

The view of downtown in the morning (stapled a few pics together)

Then by night, like 10, I wanted to sleep. Which was annoying, as people were going downtown to the clubs.
The next day (Saturday), I did the same, just less jogging, more tai chi. And that was the last time I did either!
What I did do that day however was take drastic action to no longer get up so ridiculously early. I first took a 2hour nap then, I went out to The Roxy club in downtown with a new yorker that likes coming back to vancouver (he also is in the housing businesses that has places here). It was a good night. Live music, by a bad doing AC/DC type music and other classic rock. The frontman was an amazing singer though. They also did coldplay at the end of their set. 'Tis was good too.
Now the first thing that is noticed about vancouver is that there are many good looking girls! No seriously, even my uncle that lives in greater vancouver says so. Anyway, Roxy is a place where alot of them end up, and more surprisingly, even though my new york friend 'lincon' warned me beforehand, the roxy had a higher proportion of girls to guys, and everybody mixes really well, saying hi to random people. It is very different to a club in the uk (well ones I've been to with live bands, etc). Ok, enough of that.
Yes, so club finished 3-ish and we had pizza, with an amazing garlic sauce/dip thing and talked ages. 4 o'clock and decided to take a night bus I had heard about.
So we sat there talking, and then it became apparent that these night buses do not exist after 3, or at least after 4. But it was about half 5 by then. So I wasn't going to get a cab, I had sat there long enough! I could have actually walked back in that time! Anywho, got early bus eventually. and got back to hostel at about 7. So I decided to stay awake and not sleep! Hello sunday, I haven't slept.
Also, on this sunday, I was going to see an aunty and uncle that live in greater vancouver (By aunty and uncle what I actually mean is family friends that we call aunty and uncle). I decided that meeting them very sleepy was not a good idea. So I had 2 hour nap before seeing them.
They were very nice, even picked me up from the beach, Oh and my aunty made great sri lankan food!

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the rest of the time here has been spent finding a place to live, a job to live of, and a laptop to tell you guys about the life I live. --> concludes in second email (week 2)

2008-06-28T14:00:00.000-07:00

it's created, no-one knows. and there is nothing here.
woo.