Grind on the Mind

Wow, time passes pretty quickly doesn't it? Seems like only yesterday I did my last post.

Well, what have I been up to? I left you on Sunday as I was recovering from a mild hangover thanks to Saturday night's shinanigans. We took the opportunity to have a gentle stroll south along Granville St and across the bridge to Granville Island. It turned out to be a really cool, quirky area and has actually been described as "one of the world's great places." There was an awesome public market with dozens of stands selling fresh fruit/veg, meats, chocolates, cheeses, pates, art, crafts, etc. Definitely a place I will go back to once I'm earning. Also on the island were various crafts workshops, an art university, restaurants, small theatres, a nice marina and, my favourite place, the Granville Island Brewing Co. Of course, we went in and sampled one of everything they had! I recommend the Brockton IPA when you get here.

On Monday Mark and I went to Grouse Mountain, a 1200m+ mountain on Vancouver's North Shore. The weather was perfect again so it was a great day to go. After having a big breakfast (including THE best/thickest milkshake I've ever had) at the guidebook-recommended Templeton - a 1950s-style diner across the street - we set off for the North Shore.  The main reason we were going was to take on the infamous "Grouse Grind" hiking trail up the mountain. As many of you will know, "grind" is one of my favourite words thanks to my poker interest, so I was mega-excited for this! I'd heard about it before coming and due to the number of tourists/visitors that had succeeded in finishing the Grind I expected that it really wasn't that difficult a trail. How wrong I was.

The start of the Grind

We started off at a pretty blistering pace. Step after step, rock after rock - we truely were grinding away in an unbelievable fashion. Several people got overtaken and I was feeling pretty good about myself. This did not last long as I began to flag pretty soon after - absolutely ruing forgetting to bring a bottle of water. We started having to take what we called "mini-breaks" fairly regularly, allowing a number of people we had bowled past at the beginning to take us over again - highly embarrassing. The sweat was pouring, the legs were starting to get a little heavy, I was getting dehydrated, and then, after what seemed like a lifetime, we come to a sign of a tree marked "1/2 way". Needless to say a few choice words were muttered under my breath. The Grouse Grind has this amazing ability to keep getting steeper the further up you go. We had been warned this trail wasn't for the novice hiker and our complacency had cost us.

Mark and I kept reminding each other that all we could do was keep grind on the mind (yes, another poker phrase). Several more mini-breaks later we eventually made it to the top. It was such a nice sight to see the sky emerging out of the trees after 1h10 of climbing! We headed straight for the cafe to get a bottle of water and a well-earned energy drink, and we chilled out for a few minutes enjoying the endorphin rush.

The views at the top of the mountain made the Grind so worthwhile. I couldn't remember seeing anything as breathtaking and there were probably more trees in my field of vision than I had seen collectively in my whole life. Unfortunately the photos in no way do them justice! There were added treats in the form of a Lumberjack show, a birds of prey demo (including my fave Bald Eagle) and a couple of Grizzly bears, one of which was appropriately named "Grinder". It was crazy being less than a metre away from a Grizzly. Hopefully I won't have that experience out in the wilds! Here are a selection of the photos (I REALLY need to go and buy batteries for my camera - sorry for inflicting the crappy phone camera pics on you!):

Grrrrrizzly Bear

Best looking bird I've seen so far

Treeeeeeeeeeeees

Amazing scenery

Chump at the top of the Grouse Mountain

Our day of grinding was going great and the excitement was only building as we had poker night to look forward to back at the hostel.  We paid our $10 to get cablecarred back to the foot of the mountain and from there journeyed back Downtown. The poker night was $10, which got us dinner and our tournament buy-in. There were 12 players with $40 going to 1st and $20 going to second. It wasn't the highest standard of poker you'll ever see but it was good fun and we met a great bunch of guys and gals. I shipped the tourny and the $40, which promptly went back into the hands of the staff behind the bar. Mark came 3rd, amusingly. Standard.

Last night ended up getting pretty messy. We started off in the hostel bar, getting through a number of jugs with a couple of Aussie guys we met at the poker, Andrew and Tom. We ventured out up Granville St a little later, first of all going into a place called Republic that a promo girl had given us a free shot ticket for. The place was truely awful - basically empty and REALLY pretentious. 2 small bottles of beer cost about $16. I quickly scanned their cocktail/drinks menu and they had bottles of champagne on there for over $1800! It seemed to be trying to cater for completely the wrong market. So after our free shot and about 10 minutes we bolted for the door. Thankfully we hadn't paid to go in. We walked a few doors up to a place called Roxy which was a lot more down-to-earth. A mixture of the cover band, the DJ and plentiful Canadian ales kept us going on the dancefloor to the wee-smalls.

Needless to say it was a hangover this morning. I decided to go for a walk to Kitsalano and left Mark to fester in his pit. Kits is quite an affluent area with nice houses and a fantastic beach. The weather wasn't as good this morning so I'll post some pics when I go on a nicer day. I did spot this on my way round, though. Thought it was quite cool:

The past couple of days have been less adventurous, taking the time to sort out my Social Insurance Number and a bank account. Unfortunately I discovered I put an old version of my CV resume on my USB stick, so I've got to re-write that. The apartment and job hunting process has begun and I just need to get myself a Canadian mobile cell phone. I've booked another week in the hostel today. The vibe is good and the people are awesome.

Simon out x