Just another week in Vancouver

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Nothing overly interesting or exciting to report since my last blog so I thought I’d pass on a few random thoughts on Vancouver.

Weather - Vancouver is jokingly referred to as Raincouver but so far things have been pretty good, there have been a few wet days but mostly fantastic weather.

The city - as I cross over the bridge on my daily walk to work I am constantly reminded of how damn lucky I am to be living here, the views of the bay area with the mountains in the background are just fantastic.

Homelessness - there’s lots of it here and can be found on most street corners and then you get to ‘East Hastings’ and its just crazy with a couple hundred homeless people lining the streets. The crazy thing is that the posh, touristy Gastown shopping area is but one or two streets away from all this despair.

Why so many? Ranges from closure of mental hospitals, mild weather, prohibitive housing prices, drugs (a major problem), proximity to the USA and that Vancouver is a port city and so easy for illegal immigrants to get here.

And generally the homeless are non threatening, heck some even have a sense of humour like the man I ran past who commented on the ‘enter at risk’ sign on the docks by saying “whoa, that was one risky ride”.

The people of Vancouver try to do their part and there are many opportunities to donate to the homeless at the grocery store (food bins, buying a $2 food donation, donating your bag recycling refund to charity etc) and often I see people giving food to the homeless (I even saw one woman give a bag of clothes from H&M to a homeless lady).

The people - Vancouver is definitely an expat city, a lot of people I meet are not from Vancouver but from other parts of North America, Europe and of course Oz/NZ. Around 30% of the population also have Asian heritage (mostly China, Korea, Japan and India).

Their friendly reputation is warranted and at times I find them almost too polite, especially bar and restaurant staff - although of course this is to encourage tips!

Drivers are generally unbelievably friendly, rarely do I hear a horn used in anger and if you step onto the road drivers will just stop and let you cross even if you intended to cross after the car had passed (maybe this has something to do with the number of Prius and hybrid cars - there are lots of them around, did someone mention the word smug?).

And if a driver accidentally blocks an intersection or a footpath the driver is really apologetic and a few times have actually said sorry to me and felt really bad about it.

Famous Vancouverites - some of the cool (and not so cool): Pamela ‘Baywatch’ Anderson; Richard Dean Anderson (of MacGyver and Stargate fame); Michael J. Fox; Sarah McLachlan (awesome singer); Tom Welling (Smallville) and errr Bryan Adams and Nickelback …

Everything is going well with my flatmates and the new job is great - I’ve moved on from conflicts and matter openings to billing. The billing process is a little complex but its also amazing, again, how similar some of the practices are to Mallies.

I’ve managed to have some great times lately.

Recently I played tour guide for a guy from France who has been doing an internship at Microsoft in Seattle. He got my details from this website for couch surfing and although I’m yet to host or stay at anyone’s place, I’ve made some friends from the site and I’m hoping to be able to couchsurf when I travel Europe next year (I’m already building a list of cities with friends I can stay with: so far I have Cologne, Amsterdam, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Paris, Berlin and Copenhagen - not bad!).

The other week it was Wendy’s (Kelly Underwood’s sister) birthday so we had a Gin’occe party which basically involved drinking lots of gin and playing bocce in the park. Naturally I was crap at bocce and that was even before I started to get ridiculously drunk!

This weekend I also partied heaps as Jen from my Tofino trip was in town so we partied Friday night and ended up having a crazy, awesome night getting thrown out of bars, losing my camera (luckily Jen found it) and other silliness.

Gigwise things were pretty mental:

The Walkmen - New York rockers, a curious and hard act to get into live but still enjoyed myself

Sondre Lerche - Norwegian singer, very entertaining and heaps of fun - he even remembered the gig I saw him at in Manchester last year (I had a quick chat to him when I bought his limited edition ‘Polaroid Pool Party’ EP which I had him sign and wish Happy Birthday as a gift for Wendy

Stanley Park Singing Exhibition featuring Neko Case, Andrew Bird, Destroyer and others - Andrew Bird was great, the first act were a zany Wiggles meets TISM band (check out the singer playing the keyboard whilst crowd surfing) but the star of the show was Neko Case, possibly the best female singer in modern music.

!!! - this gig was straight after the Stanley Park festival and lots of crazy antics from this dance/rock outfit

Battles - third time I’ve sent these guys this year, totally crazy gig, so much dancing I left dripping in sweat

John Vanderslice - great singer songwriter, ended the set with John and his band doing a few acoustic songs surrounded by the crowd as we sung along: so cool!

Mogwai and F&^% Buttons - both bands were awesome, Mogwai are such a revered band that I was glad I got to see them live, although the gig was the same night as the Gin’occe party so I was too drunk to fully appreciate the music

Spiritualized - a so so gig from this rocker, some good tunes but a few too many boring bits

So that’s all from me, next weekend I am off to San Francisco! Woo hoo : -)

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