Look out! Make way for the Brit
I am writing to you from the fair city of Vancouver, as some of you know I arrived safely on Saturday 4th September after a long boring flight where I watched 3 films;
- Shrek 2, green orgre pseudo moral adventure anim
- Stepford Wives, sad remake with Ferris Buller and friends
- Mean Girls, Lindsey Lohan in a messed up blend of Out of Africa meets Clueless, rife with moral undertones
Each film was a welcome distraction but I would not recommend watching any of them unless you are 35,000ft in the air and have absolutely nothing better to do with 6 hours of your life.
Once I got through Vancouver airport (airport code YVR for those who are interested) immigration and customs I was met by my new landlord, we jumped in his car and he brought me to my new apartment which is located in part of downtown Vancouver called Yaletown. Now, when we pulled up to the parking garage which is underneath the apartment complex (and it is complex), Warren brandished a key fob which has now become the single most important part of my life. This tiny bit of plastic gets me into the parking garage, into the building, into the lift and only allows me to go to my floor, into the pool area, into the sauna, the steam room and the gym. It also gives me priority access to the doctors that are in the building, the bike storage and the Kayak storage room. The key fob is tiny but mighty. I use a real key to get me in my front door but I am not sure why.
Now second ranking to the key fob in importance is the supermarket bellow my apartment, I now refer to the Urban Fare as “downstairs”, it is my sanctuary, my retreat, my salvation ? for Urban Fare is not just a normal supermarket, no, the Urban Fare has the philosophy that “no love is more sincere than the love of food”. It truly is an incredible place, from fresh lobster flown in from Newfoundland, $300 caviar, 20 types of bottled water right down to the basics like pretzels and plastic cheese. You can get the best of food or the worst of food in the Urban Fare ? I go for a middle ground depending on my wallet and mood. I almost got one of those lobsters today, they are essentially just ?5 each and they cook them for you, but I don’t know how to eat one.
Anyways, since I have been here I have been to the Urban Fare many many times, I have also been into the city to look at shops and consumer goods. The shopping looks pretty good here, but the restaurants are probably the best part of this city. There are so many nice places to eat and so much good food. Every meal I have eaten in a bar here has been top notch, even eating cheap Quiznos subs is good eating.
Yesterday Martyn, Liz and I took a trip out to Horseshoe Bay in the Howe Sound, just 30mins out of town and when we got there we rented a 17″ boat with a 60hp outboard, you don’t need to have any experience with these boats, just sign a disclaimer, fire up that bad boy and head out on your adventure. We went to find seals to look at, Martyn was the pilot and navigated us up to the seal place and then I, the official signed skipper of the vessel, took over for the rest of the trip. Seals were just hanging out on rocks, sunbathing and generally being seals, I tried to show off my boatmanship but the seals were unimpressed and Liz was scared. If I am honest I was quite scared too, especially when some relatively large waves came in out of nowhere and made my high-speed James Bond pursuit rather bumpy.
After the boating Martyn proudly declared it beer o’clock and we headed back to Lonsdale to a bar near his place where we drank too much and fraternised with the locals. I had to leave at 11pm as the seabus was running on a Labour Day schedule and 11pm was the last trip back to the main downtown area. I drunkenly made my way home, stopped off at Urban Fare for a bottle of S.Pellegrino water to drink, the water that comes out of my taps tastes like it is filtered through dirty socks.
That is all my news for now. If you don’t wish to hear any more news from me let me know and I will take you off the list, thanks for your time and I look forward to bringing you the next gripping instalment of Carr Afar.
September 7th, 2004
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