Vancouver

I arrived at the hotel at the appointed time to find no one there.  I was at first excited by the prospect of hanging out with everyone, but it was soon apparent that there way absolutely no implementation of anything that even sounded like a plan.  With this information I decided the best course of action would be to have a nap.  I snoozed for a good few hours and went to find people.  I did not find any people.  After a while I bumped into Ellie by chance, and, rather excited about getting ready for fancy dress that night, was disappointed to find that no one was really bothering.  Dinner was average.  It always is when they cater for large groups of people though, so I wasn’t expecting much.  The restaurant was on the 31st floor or something like that, which was rather impressive, but then all the windows steamed up and we couldn’t see anything and it was stuffy.  I had pineapple for pudding and it made me feel ill.

I gave up and went home soon after, my table was ridiculously boring if I can tell you the truth – no one was speaking, and whenever we did find something, anything to talk about, someone else would complain that it was boring.  In the end we sat in silence, and I was scowled at for half the night for making a joke about Aussies. The next day we went and got bank accounts and SIN numbers, which I thought would me really complicated, but was actually quick and easy.  To get a bank account, you walk in, ask to open one, and they do.  That’s about it.  The SIN number involved me sitting there for about 15 minutes waiting, being asked if I was a twin and then told to sign a piece of paper and given a number.  The part I was most worried about turned out to be the easiest!

After that we had some free time so went to explore the city.  Ruling out Stanley Park because it was raining (and because I had already been there!) we went for a wander around Gastown which was lovely and alternative, lots of cafes and souvenir shops, reminded me a bit of Notting Hill type area.  After that we wanted to continue down to China Town which is supposed to be brilliant but accidentally took a wrong turning and ended up on the street where junkies and prostitutes hang out.  I must tell  you, I have jumped out of an airplane before, and I have almost done a bungee jump but backed out in fear.  Neither or those things where anywhere near as terrifying as those 3 minutes of my life.  We saw someone actually shooting up, there was a hooker who looked exactly the same as the daytime hooker on My Name is Earl, and there were shoes hanging off a power line, which everyone explained to me meant that there was a murder recently.  We ended up running across an extremely busy freeway, with little regard for the cars and just sheer terror for our lives.  Interestingly, all the drivers seemed to sense our fear and slowed to let us pass.   It was definitely an experience.  I felt like that bloke from Eastenders who goes to Afghanistan and then runs away all the time.  Should have taken a picture really.

We never did make it to Chinatown.

After that we went to a Canadian bar and drank beer that tasted like watered down urine (American) and what tasted like watered down Carling (which as we all know tastes about the same as watered down urine with some beer in it) [Canadian]  Wake up was at 9am, but as I wasn’t able to find out whether or not we would be stopping of at a supermarket for groceries on the way, I had to wake up at 7 to go to safeway and stock up on essentials.  As it turned out, we did stop for groceries, but I am still glad I went shopping by myself.  Would have forgotten a lot otherwise.  The journey was beautiful but uneventful, and we soon arrived in Whistler, where the sun was blazing down on us and the snow was in abundance.  This was all very, very exciting….

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