Vancouver – Day 6

I had a bit of a rest day today, not that I particularly needed rest but I thought I’d better get this updated before I forget anything and I get so far behind I give up!

I treated myself to a lie-in and didn’t get up until 9:00. I threw some clothes on and wandered into “The Village” (full of little cottages I’m sure) to get a cup of coffee. I thought this plan was best as all the showers were taken – one needs to hit them earlier or later, 9:00 is not a good time.

I found out what is being filmed across the road from one of my fellow air polluters. Apparently it is one of her favourite TV shows. It is called “Men In Trees” and is set in Alaska – but is recorded in Vancouver. I don’t know what it is like because I have never seen it, but I’m sure any of you people who pay Bastard Murdoch for multi-channel babysitting, or just for 85 channels of shit, will be able to pick it up somewhere, after all if it is on Sky-Shite TV it will be repeated every hour in between twenty minutes of adverts every ten minutes!

Having consumed my coffee whilst catching up on the blog entries – I must get some Internet access soon so I can post them & catch up with emails – I then went & had a leisurely shower.

I did some more typing and got closer to catching up, by which time I needed another caffeine fix – not to mention something to eat as I was very hungry. The nearest place is Denny’s Diner. (Sorry I can’t find a maple leaf symbol to type it properly as the apostrophe is a maple leaf on the sign.) They do this wicked sausage special which consists of sausages (no surprise there), sausage patties and smoked sausage (delicious) with two eggs and hash browns. Add coffee and a side order of bacon and heaven as a concept becomes a little more real.

After this I thought I’d better walk of the glut of calories I had just taken on; so along the sea walk I went. This was much safer during the week as one doesn’t have to contend with over active nutters on mountain bikes, skateboards and roller blades. The path is divided for walkers and “the rest” but apart from the guilt of watching all these athletic things coming past some of the female skaters in tight lurex were a definite distraction! (I have to confess I did walk into a bench whilst I was watching a pair of disgustingly sexy women skating past instead of looking where I was going. I should have stopped and looked! (I did laugh at myself though.) Second thoughts; perhaps I had better take an honesty check on this blog.)
I almost got to the science museum but ended up walking around the BC Stadium instead. This is an amazing structure – stadium shaped, sure – because it is the only building in the world whose roof is held up by air pressure. The roof is made from Teflon coated canvas and is lashed down by hundreds of wires. The entrances are not called entrances but air locks, and that is because they are. They are revolving doors with seals on them so that as one goes in a similar amount of air is inducted as is exhausted – very clever. It is the home of the local hockey team (that’s ice hockey) and also holds concerts and soccer matches. This was very obvious as there were loads of posters up advertising “Beckham id coming”. There were also competitions to win VIP seats to the forthcoming LA Whatevers that David plays for against the Vancouver Somethings in early October. I will sadly be in Alaska so I won’t get the chance. I figured I’d live despite missing him though (I’d much rather have seen Rush in Toronto – no, I haven’t forgotten).

My feet told me that the calorie count had been sufficiently depleted to return for more blog writing, so I headed back up Georgia Street past The Centre in Vancouver for Performing Arts. Sorry if that appears an awkward way of putting it but that is what the sign says and not The Vancouver Performing Arts Centre – perhaps they translated it literally from the French.

Having returned to the hostel armed with a large latte (I am getting to like these) I proceeded to write up some more before seeking out more food. This just consisted of two slices of pizza from one of the village shops – about the equivalent of half a pizza in the UK!

This was enough to finish me off for the day and so I returned to the hostel for my evening smoke & bed.

This was where plans went awry. I met Dianne outside the hostel and we started chatting about various things and then along came Chris. We asked him how his van purchasing went, and he said “good”. Apparently they didn’t like the look of the first one as it started belching black smoke out of the exhaust on the test drive. The second one was ok though, so they got it. He was laughing as he told us about it. Apparently when he checked the handbook for the model number (it’s a GMC seven seater people carrier) he said “Shit man, it’s got a seven litre V8 motor in it. It’s going to drink fuel like it’s going out of fashion!” I pointed out that when they get to the States and put a gallon in (bear in mind a US gallon is not an old Imperial 5 litre gallon) they will be putting in less than the engine capacity of the monster they have bought! He saw the funny side of this and decided they would not use any air conditioning or heating or anything in it apart from driving!
After chatting for ages we decided to turn in, especially when we noticed it was ten past midnight. As I was travelling light I didn’t have Central Control with me (magic bum bag containing everything) and didn’t have a pen or paper for the exchange of emails. Chris was planning to be away by 10:00 the following morning and I was intending to be up for breakfast at 8:00, so we agreed to meet for breakfast. Dianne was leaving at 7:00 the next morning in order to catch her bus back to Seattle from where she was returning to South Carolina.
We parted company and went to bed.