Here Comes the Sun

As we speak, I am sitting on the beach in English Bay, it's about 25 degrees and the sun is shining from a clear blue sky. Brought my laptop, as I thought it would be nice to write my blog out here :) Some nice or ignorant person even left his/her wireless network open, so I have Internet access as well. Not bad.

The evil dark clouds finally started to retreat on Monday, and we've had glorious weather ever since. Slowly, I have started to understand why people love this city so much. From the beach I'm currently sitting on, I can see both skyscrapers, hundreds of Vancouverites reading, napping or chilling in the sand, the ocean, huge trees and snowy mountains - all at the same time. People here are just like I expected them to be: Extremely down-to-earth, cool and friendly. Vancouver is a very multicultural city - all sorts of people live here. Asians, Greeks, Italians etc. etc. But the interesting thing about it is that the multiculturalism actually works. Unlike at home, each nationality or race is not isolated into it's own little ghetto. The many heritages also gives Vancouver a wide range of delicious foreign food for cheap - not like Australia where could only choose between fish 'n' chips and... fish 'n' chips.

On Monday afternoon Fallon and Seth took me for a ride to Whistler, possibly one of the worlds most popular resort for year-round skiing, mountain biking and other sorts of mountain activities. Sadly the Whistler and Blackcomb mountains were still hidden behind clouds, but no matter, the scenery on the way up there was stunning! After just 20 minutes of driving, we had an awesome view over all the islands in Howe Sound. I kind off see why people compare Canada to New Zealand. The town of Whistler itself was the typical ski resort like we know them in Europe: Lots of overpriced stuff in the usual "we are all here to have fun"-atmosphere. Even though you actually can ski in Whistler during the summer, most people rip around on downhill mountain bikes. From the bottom of the huge mountain bike trail, we saw some pretty talented riders doing back flips and other stunts, quite entertaining to watch. After treating ourselves to a decent dinner and a couple of drinks, we headed back to The Bloody Baron aka Seth's old Pontiac Grand Am (we named it after reading HP7). Now, I should explain that Seth got this car for free from a guy he works with. It has been sitting in a back yard for two years, it's extremely dirty, the engine reeks so much you have to leave the window open in order to be able to breathe, only one of the windows can actually open and you can start the engine without a key. Seth was a bit worried the car couldn't handle two hours of driving up a mountain, with good reason. But it went fine! So no reasons to worry about the car not making it all the way back. Wrong. We got held up by roadwork crews several times for twenty minutes at the time, and when one of them finally let us through after half an hour the stupid car wouldn't start. So Miss Roadwork Crew Supervisor helped us get the car out of the way and told us we might as well call road service since they weren't able to help us out. Luckily, the first passing car we signaled for help pulled over and we got the car started using jumper cables. The car kept going all the way home, but it had started to make a clacking noise which grew louder and louder as we moved on. When we made it back to Vancouver city, four hours after leaving Whistler, the engine was so loud that everyone turned around staring at us :) To no ones big surprise, the car broke down completely when Seth drove it to work on Tuesday. It was towed away to the scrap yard today, so may the Bloody Baron rest in peace.

Tuesday night I met up with Morgan, my faithful travel buddy through Singapore, Malaysia and Vietnam. Surprisingly, she dared to meet up with me again even though lured her into joining me on the bike trip in Vietnam where she, as she puts it herself, nearly died a couple of times :) Morgan does indoor climbing now and then, so she invited me to come and have a go. Maybe she was planning on cutting the rope while I was hanging 10 metres above the ground...? Anyway, I had superb fun! Might have found myself a new hobby...

To compensate a bit for the exercise I had the night before, I went to Granville Island Brewery with Seth the next day. We took a tour of the so-called micro brewery, were taught about the whole process of brewing. Nice little tour followed by a couple of tasters afterwards. There's nothing like a good local beer...