Another lazy post

Here's the second BUNAC entry, documenting the hectic fortnight with Kate here!

With Kate here for a fortnight, I just haven’t stopped, and I’m so tired! In a packed first weekend, we had skydived and gone to Vancouver Aquarium, and then for Labour Day Monday, we were off to Pacific National Exhibition Centre (PNE).

It was the final night of the summer festivities at the PNE, which include food stalls, shows, gymnasts, a casino and concerts. Add to that the rides at the fairground Playland, and there was plenty to do! There was a farm section with lambs, piglets, hatching chicks, thoroughbred horses and pig racing. There was Superdogs, a show where rescued canines show off their Frisbee catching, high jumping, dancing and racing skills. There was a market where there were hilarious demonstrations of ridiculous inventions. It was all very family orientated, but the Big Dipper was fun, and the entertainment well…er…entertaining!

I was back to work during the days, but once Friday came, we got the plane to British Columbia’s capital, Victoria. It was just like an English south coast town. I had to have the Fish and Chips, which had chips instead of fries for once! We took the floatplane over from Vancouver, which offered great views of the city and the Gulf Islands, and also only took half an hour. The ferry ride back was longer, but was great again for different reasons – very relaxing, and more landscape to observe.

In the city, we mostly just chilled out, drinking rose wine and enjoying the sunshine. I ended up like a slapped tomato, keeping up an English tradition! The government buildings were as old and decadent as you can get in Canada, and the bay was just beautiful under the setting sun.

Arriving back in Vancouver, and there was more mid-week fun with a tandem bicycle ride around Stanley Park, and we also took in the views of the city from the top of the Harbour Centre.

The weekend following and I surprised Kate with a trip to Kelowna – Canada’s wine country. I hired a car, which was the first time on the right-hand side of the road for me. It was strange driving in the passenger seat! About four hours, and we were in the picturesque Okanagan Valley. Blessed with more perfect weather, we arrived in the early afternoon, and made our way to a lake that my friend had recommended.

My friend had said, “take the country road to Oyama Lake”. In retrospect, she should have said, “take the rocky, off-road mountain track to Oyama Lake”. The tiny, cheap(est) car I had hired struggled up the side of the valley to the isolated lake, but it was worth it. Not only could we enjoy the fishing haven, but on the drive back down to Kelowna we were greeted by the best views I have seen in Canada.

The next day, we went on a wine tasting tour of the region. I was glad we were driving, because the tour was fast and furious. We visited a range of wineries, and were just taking back mouthful after mouthful! We received some instruction on the tasting, and I am now a professional wine taster – I will be to the annoyance of my friends back home, anyhow. The Mission Hill Estate winery included a tour, and was absolutely stunning. The buildings framed the valley around an amphitheatre, and the only winery bell tower in the world rang out to give the impression we were in a village in Tuscany.

The trip to Kelowna, although short, was a real highlight of Kate’s visit. Canada keeps impressing me with the scenery, and the Okanagan really was breathtaking.

Two hectic weeks

Kate being here has been brilliant, but I haven't stopped! The eternal paradox is that the more I do, the more I have to write about, but the less time I have to write! So I am just adding my BUNAC entries, because it seems they will never get put on the BUNAC website (but I'm still getting paid, and that's the main thing!).

Here's for September 1:

After a quite couple of weeks, post-Whistler, Kate finally arrived in Vancouver. Amidst bankrupt airlines (which luckily she wasn’t booked on), and cancelled flights (which she was on), she completed her 9 hour flight just 9
hours late.

It wasn’t the best start to our action packed fortnight, but it soon got better. That was Friday night, and Saturday morning we were off to Abbotsford for a sky dive!

We caught an early(ish)coach out to Abbotsford, which is about two hours away. The way the bus schedule panned out, it was looking like we would have to hang around the airfield for something like four hours before we could get back to Vancouver, but we hitched in a taxi with two people who were also jumping out of planes, and who had caught the same bus as us. That meant we would jump a couple of hours earlier, which gave us less chance to build up our nerves!

I wasn’t half as scared as I thought I would be. Everyone around the airfield was really calm, which you would expect from seasoned pros. It was once we had been kitted out, done a quick training talk, and were squeezed into a small, camouflaged plane that the nerves began to come – no going back now.

As the plane climbed, I found out that it was me going out first, which didn’t encourage me. At 12,000 feet, the door opened, and I slid my feet out of the window. There was no chance to worry, because in a second I was freefalling! It was fantastic, the wind rushing past, and flying through the clouds. It seemed to last for ages, and gave me plenty of time to think about the small chance that I actually still might die. Well, I didn’t! Once the parachute was up, we could take out our cameras, and I got some great pictures of the view and the other sky divers.

It was definitely an experience I won’t forget, but I don’t think I need to do it again!

Back in Vancouver, and the next day was another packed one. We visited the aquarium in Stanley Park, which is definitely a must see. Quite expensive at $25, but it is a tourist attraction, so therefore a bit extortionate.

We got our money’s worth, and inside there were thousands of different sea creatures to observe. People gave talks on the sharks and otters, we saw the baby beluga whale (who was only born a couple of months ago) and took in the burping sea lions.

The highlight was the dolphin show. Three dolphins showed us their acrobatic skills, leaping ten feet out of the water, splashing spectators, and generally demonstrating their intelligence.

In the evening, I showed Kate Commercial Drive, with its great bars and restaurants. We had a Mexican, and then went and sampled some Latin Jazz.

It’s just the beginning of a packed fortnight, including a seaplane to Vancouver Island. Call back for more in a couple of weeks!

Hairy times

It was a momentous day today - my second haircut of Canada. It's in preparation for a visit from Kate - just half a day away!

Then we've got a packed couple of weeks, which I have already gone on about plenty. First, the skydive on Saturday, then Victoria next week. Mix into that lots of restaurant food, some Latin Jazz and a few more surprises, and it'll be an awesome fortnight!

So my hair is short for only the second time in 10 1/2 months. Just thought I'd let you know.

Mooning and Cranx

Three days in Whistler, and I have returned to a rainy Vancouver city. I had visited Conor, Fran and Adam. They moved up to Canada’s premier ski resort in the end of May and love it. I can see why.

I began the 2 ½ hour journey from Vancouver on Friday night, after work. I was full of cold, and not particularly looking forward to a busy weekend in some ways. I didn’t feel very well, but I had already missed a trip North due to a landslide and wasn’t going to postpone any longer.

Adam met me at the bus stop, and we headed for the bar where Conor works. Whistler was very similar in style to the other ski resort I had visited in Quebec, Mont Tremblant. It had a very surreal feel, with mainly pedestrian streets, hardly a shred of litter on the floor, and all the buildings perfect and quaint. It doesn’t seem real and, at the height of summer holiday season, is packed with vacationers and therefore a very fun and carefree place.

On the Saturday, we were hoping to go to the first National Cheese Rolling Festival. It is basically a silly race, where a wheel of cheese is rolled down a steep bank, and everyone has to chase after it, causing hilarious pandemonium. Unluckily for us, a waitress incorrectly told us that the festival was finished, so we changed our plans, when actually it had just been moved to a place we didn’t know about.

It wasn’t a problem; we headed for the BMX competition – The Cranworx. For the best part of the afternoon we watched skilled riders pulling back-flips, supermen, front-flips and many more tricks I hadn’t heard of. It was spectacular, and we were cheering on a British guy who came a close second. The winner performed a ridiculous double back-flip, to the delight of a packed crowd at the base of Whistler Mountain.

Afterwards, we went back to the house. With a few beers to prepare us for a monumental night, we settled into the hot tub and relaxed. This is the life in Whistler! A few of Fran, Conor and Adam’s friends came round and we all got ready for the Full Moon Party. This is basically a party out in the middle of The Interpretative Forest, a few miles outside of Whistler. It happens once a month (at the full moon, surprisingly), and carries on all through the night.

The party was immense. We arrived well after midnight, and in the pitch black could only see a psychedelic projected screen, and a DJ booth on the back of a truck. People were dancing, the music was blaring and fire dancers lit up clearing that we were in. As the night grew old and the morning came, we sat on a log at a rushing river a small distance through the trees, and watched the sun rise from behind the mountains. It was quite a surreal experience, it can be said.

Needless to say, Sunday was almost a write-off. We did make it to Lost Lake, where families and groups of friends were taking in the scorching sun (it was hotter than the Mediterranean!), swimming in the water, playing guitars and just relaxing on the grass. It was a great finish to a fantastic weekend. I hope to go back again, work, money and time permitting.

In other news Mat was in Vancouver for a few days, passing through on a mammoth road trip. He had hired a car with some of his friends and driven across the breadth of the country. We went out for a night, and reminisced about the time we met. In reality, I have only known Mat cumulatively for only a few days, but we have kept in touch throughout the year. Before this weekend, I had only seen him once since last November, and it was great comparing how our paths had been made over the course of the year. It was funny how we had both started in the same place, at the same time, and had such different experiences.

Whistler while you work

I have to admit, I haven't managed anything of too much interest to the outside world recently. Mat was over from Toronto. He'd hired a car, driven for eight days, and stayed in a few places along the way. Of course, he had managed to test the extent of the nightlife and gambling in choice cities such as Saskatoon and Winnipeg.

Talking of nightlife, I have become a little reacquainted with the beast. Firstly, with the Irish contingent at work, and now with Mat visiting. I can stretch to these few nights recently but I won't make a habit of it. For a start, it means I have nothing to write on here! I am beginning to recall the vast expense that comes with entry to a club and the furore beforehand.

So a Friday night of festivities managed to waste the best part of my weekend, and create a dent in my bank balance too. Thankfully, I could revert to halving any dollars to figure out how much it could have been had I been spending pounds. This usually warrants a huge sigh of relief.

This weekend, I'll be back into productive mode. I have purchased my tickets to Whistler mountain today, and am looking forward to meeting Conor, Fran and Adam in their hot-tubbed 'castle' at the famous ski resort. Saturday will be the First Annual National Cheese Rolling Festival, and the weather forecast is promising, so bring it on!

It means a thankful break from writing, although I have to admit that launched my text-based assault on the world gives a fantastic feeling that I am actually doing something for once! As of today, I am up keeping two blogs (this one, and http://grahamcreid.blogspot.com/), writing two entries per week for http://www.vagablogging.net/, writing countless replies via email and Facebook, and the pinnacle of my life to come - my novel. I have definitely regained a love for the written word, after becoming disillusioned post-university.

Per the previous paragraph, tonight I am currently all written out, and this entry is merely a jotting down of the basics of my current existence. My throat is sore, my head is thumping, and I am due a hot chocolate and a bath to suit.

So, to celebrate my poor attempts at Gaelic this afternoon; Slán agus beannacht leat (Goodbye and blessings on you).

Vagablogging

I am now blogging every Saturday and Sunday on Vagablogger, so go and check it out!

Up all night

My head aches. My eyes are puffy and red. My hair is matted and my skin is greasy and stinks. I'm sleep deprived. I'm hungry, but my stomach doesn't want to consume anything. It's dark outside - it was light when I went to sleep. My mind is still trying to comprehend the night I have just had.

It's not drink. Sure, I had a few whiskeys, and the beers were flowing around the Irish house party in South Kitsilano. Merry is the word. I love the Irish. With all my penny pinching, itineraries and travel plans, I think a good ol' knees up was exactly what I needed.

I had been planning to go to Whistler this weekend, but there had been a landslide that devoured the highway between there and Vancouver. The clear-up is still ongoing, so I have had to reschedule for a fortnight from now.

Maybe it was a blessing in disguise. My new pals from Computershare have reminded me that it doesn't have to all be about museums, sightseeing and effort. Sometimes just enjoying yourself, with a bunch of other people enjoying themselves, is just a fruitful.

I'm not too bothered that it wasn't Canadians that I was mixing with, either. With 90% of the party being Irish, I was launched into another culture that I am really quite clueless about. At times I struggled to understand a word of what was being said, and at others, people gave each other jibes about places I had never heard of. But it was fun!

I didn't go to sleep until 7am, and even then, I was on an unfamiliar sofa. That was after the music, the attempts at French as I tried to translate the slurred Irish babblings for a Quebecois man, and the brilliants singalong we had when one man broke out his acoustic guitar. I'll be honest, for a lot of the tunes I was murmuring half-words as I hadn't the faintest idea what they were.

The bloke on the guitar was fantastic. He even sang a song that he had wrote, about his time on Bondai Beach. I don't think I could imagine this happening with a group of English people. In a way it was disappointing, and at times I felt like us English are missing a trick when it comes to having fun. Live and learn, I suppose.