Suddenly Summer Moved On...

G'day y'all,

I've been putting off doing a blog update for some time now. Decided it's probably about time I get off my lazy ass and put pen to paper, as it were. No real excuse for it. I've just been enjoying summer here in Vancouver - one of the main reasons I stayed - and it's been a lot of fun. Excuse me now while I sift through 10 weeks of memories and photos to try and find something vaguely interesting to put below.

So, yea, summer. It's been good. It was kinda late arriving but it has definitely been worth it. After the period of warm weather we had when my friends were over in May it got a bit rainy again and a lot of the locals were saying the summer was going to be a washout. June was quite overcast with a fair number of showers, from what I remember, but since the start of July it has been really nice and warm here for the most part. It's funny because the same locals that were cursing the bad weather in June were the same ones saying we could 'do with some rain to freshen things up' in recent weeks. Reminded me of home.

I guess some of the major news from the past couple of months is that I have moved twice. Firstly, I moved out of Downtown and into a two-bedroom basement suite in a quiet residential area in Southeast Vancouver for the start of July. The main reason for this was to move back in with Daniel, as I'd grown a bit tired of living with random students at Conference Plaza, and also to check out another area of Vancouver. The place was close to 29th Avenue skytrain station so you were Downtown in 20 minutes, so it was pretty convenient and the quality of sleep at night was a million times better than Downtown, where there was always some siren going off or some homeless guy hollering whatever in the middle of the night.

Location of our pad on Slocan Avenue, Southeast Vancouver

It was great living with Daniel again, for the banter alone. However, we hardly actually saw each other because of our different work schedules! The odd day where we had the same day off was usually spent kicking a football around or down at Stanley Park playing Pitch and Putt. Daniel's friend from back home, Eoghan, joined us towards the end of July. He arrived on the same visa as we're on and crashed at ours during his first few days. The plan had been to find a 3-bedroom place to move into for the start of August but unfortunately there weren't any viable options to be found. Trying to find a 3-bed place that's in a decent location and furnished seems nigh on impossible. It's hard enough finding a 2-bed place like that. In the end I ended up moving out of my room and Eoghan took it over. I was pretty keen to try living in another area of Vancouver and so I ended up in the West End on August 1st - where I'm typing these very words.

Anyway, more on that in a little bit. The rest of July was filled with working and just enjoying the summer really. I tried to get out and about, down to the beaches, down to Stanley Park, going for jogs, etc as much as possible to make the most of the nice weather. Vancouver really is a fantastic city when the sun's out. There are so many nice locations to spend a day - Kitsilano, Spanish Banks, Stanley Park, the North Shore - all amazingly beautiful locations. Having the backdrops of the mountains or the islands in the distance is quite incredible and you feel really lucky to be here. I recommend everyone comes to spend a week here in the summer at some point if they get the chance.

Evening stroll around Trout Lake - a few blocks from our pad

Clear blue skies above Hermes in July

Hazy summer afternoon at Spanish Banks beach

Gull chilling on a sign

Strolling around the Olympic Village area on a sunny July day. Looking towards BC Place stadium.

Olympic Village views of Science World

Sun setting behind Stanley Park

Arm party: Me rocking Gina's jewelry and 11 diamond Hermes H-hour watch :P

One of the major events of the Vancouver summer is the annual 'Celebration of Light' at the end of July. This is comprised of 3 separate nights of firework displays - each hosted by a different country - down at English Bay. The three nations competing this year were Vietnam, Brazil and Italy. Literally hundreds of thousands of people packed onto English Bay and the surrounding beaches on each night to watch the fireworks launch from a huge barge a few hundred yards out in the water. The displays are also timed to music, so they make for a pretty good show. I managed to get down to all 3 nights. I'd say Italy had the best fireworks but Brazil had the best overall show. I think the samba music made it! Here's a selction of snaps from the 3 nights:

 
The other side of my summer has realy been one of money-saving and sobriety. With my visa due for renewal on September 9th, I put myself on a mission to save as much money as possible for this date. Firstly because I need to have a decent amount of money in case the immigration officer asks for proof of funds and to pay for another year's worth of insurance (not cheap!) and also so I could go and have a real blast over in the States for a day or two. I decided that I could combine this with a real drive on the fitness front and save a decent amount by not drinking any alcohol for a few weeks! A few of my friends were a little skeptical and/or disappointed that I'd chosen to do this right as summer arrived but it has worked out pretty well for me. I think it's been over 2 months now and I haven't had a single drop of booze. Feeling great for it and been feeling good down at the gym too.

I've thought that it'd actually be quite nice never to drink again but it's pretty much impossible to do. Drinking is so ingrained in our culture and society now it's considered strange if you don't drink and it's awkward for the person who doesn't drink. Countless times I've been asked "why aren't you drinking?" "Why don't you drink?" "What's wrong with you? It's summer!" It really does make you feel awkward and like you have to excuse youself - and even apologise - every single time. Now I know how my friend Aaron, who has never drunk in his life, must feel a lot of the time when he's out and about. Anyway, I'd be kidding myself to say it's 100% due to health or some moral conscious decision. Truth is I do like to have the odd pint of ale or two every now and again, so it would also be taking away a pleasurable experience. I've never been a HUGE drinker but when I do I usually take the 'all-in' approach. Maybe I can find a healthier, happier balance in the future.

So, as previously mentioned, I moved again at the beginning of August. I moved into a little apartment sharing with 1 middle-aged Canadian guy just off Denman St in the West End. The location is fantastic - right next to Stanley Park and the shops, restaurants and cafes of Denman St and Robson St are right on my doorstep and it's a five minute walk to English Bay. It has definitely been a great spot to be in during the summer. It's still only 10 to 15 minutes walk to Downtown as well, so it's super convenient but at the same time a bit more green and a lot more quiet than Downtown proper.

Location of my current room

I tried a couple of the local eateries fairly promptly. Nom nom nom! as all food bloggers say. You could come to Vancouver purely to sample all the amazing and varied cuisines on offer.

Korean @ Sura restaurant with Sookae. Really good!

Italian - Tavola restaurant with Jen and Gina. Awesome pasta.

I'm now going to bombard you with a selection of 'Vancouver in the summer' shots that I've collected whilst out and about. (Growing tired of thinking of stuff to write at this point, as you can tell from this picture.)

Back to the summer snaps:

Status to David Oppenheimer, Mayor of Vancouver back in the day.

Gay Pride Starbucks!

The Gay Pride parade! I was just walking by. Honestly. No, seriously. Why don't you believe me?!

Little Inuksuk statue on the seawall. There's always loads of these in amongst the rocks but this one looked particularly good.

Red sky at night over West Van

Monty Python & The Holy Grail playing at the free summer cinema at Second Beach

Coal Harbour summer sky

Perfect summer

Chilling down at Second Beach

BC Place illuminated at night

Vancouver's Olympic Flame in the morning sun. Watching the London coverage here was pretty hard. Really wish I could have been home for that!

Went to the Food Cart Fest at the Waldorf Hotel, East Hastings with Gina one day. Some tasty food to sample!

Gina and I made our own little Inuksuk on the Yaletown seawall. We named it Viggofrank.

In the past couple of weeks I've been out for a couple of hikes. The first was over on the North Shore - The Two Canyon Loop - with Penny, Jason, Irina, Chris, Jenny and Matt. It was nice to stroll around the Lynn Canyon area again. There's some really nice scenery and it was a good day weather-wise for a hike. Unfortunately I wasn't the best company after getting up early beforehand to watch a drab 0-0 draw between Arsenal and Sunderland. Will I ever learn?

Haven't come face to face yet.

Found this guy buzzing around

My second visit to Lynn Canyon's suspension bridge

The second was over on Bowen Island. A 'small' island about 20 minutes ferry ride away from Horseshoe Bay. It takes about 30 minutes on the bus to get to Horseshoe Bay and then it's a quick ferry over to the fantastically named Snug Cove on Bowen. I caught an early ferry there, hoping to spend most of the day. It was a nice place to visit. Very natural, quite old-school. It reminded me of Sweden with the wooden buildings set amongst the trees. The hike up Mount Gardner was a little more challenging than the Two Loop hike. The map that they give you is utterly appalling as well so I'm not entirely sure where I ended up. I definitely made it at least most of the way up for some nice views, anyway. I met a couple of other hikers who said they were having similar difficulties determining exactly where they were on the map, so it obviously wasn't just me!!

The weather on the day was a little disappointing. It looked like the sun would burn through the clouds by the afternoon and while it did get pretty hot when I was up Mount Gardner (very helpful) I scrapped my plan to head to one of the beaches on the west side of the Island in the afternoon. I turned back for Snug Cove, bought 1.5 litres of fluids (forgot to take water) and then ate at the little Tacos stand just to the right of the ferry dock. Still, all-in-all a good day exploring new territory.

Horseshoe Bay

Library on Bowen Island

Killarney Lake

Killarney Lake 2

Spent what seemed like ages coming to the top of one trail to find this spectacular view.

Better view towards Keats Island and the Sunshine Coast

Tacos! (Nom nom nom)

Snug Cove!

And that's about as much as I can remember from the past couple of months! I'm off to Seattle on Monday for two nights to check out the city and activate my new visa on the way back into Canada. Fingers crossed everything goes smoothly.

See you on the other side,

Simon x

Familiar Faces & Grand Prix Races

Hey everyone,

Hope everyone is well.

The last few weeks have been pretty much vacation time for me, starting with 5 of my best buddies from back home coming over to Vancouver to see me. It seemed to have been a long time coming but when the day finally arrived I was so excited to see the boys again.

In what can only be described as another classic case of 'Green Light Cottrell', the weather in Vancouver was absolutely incredible. (See below forecast - and it actually stayed that way. Incredibly I don't think we saw any rain in the week and a half that they were over! Unheard of in these parts.)

I think it's fair to say that we made the most of the sunshine. Here's a small selection of photos from the various places and activities:

Whitecaps v Toronto at BC Place

The lads! Aaron, Jared, Mark, Ben and Nick.

Chilling in Stanley Park. Frisbee and footy for most of the day. B-E-A-UTIFUL

Liccle Raccers at Stanley Park Pitch and Putt

On course at the Pitch and Putt

Unbelievable tekkers.

Down at English Bay with Daniel

Strolling along from English Bay - view through Burrard Bridge

The good old Granville Island Bewing Co. Tasting Room

Rogers Arena tour

Lynn Canyon suspension bridge

Jumping from rock to rock across the water in Lynn Canyon Park

Friends reunited. On top of a boulder.

People chilling at 30 Foot Pool

Rewarding scenery by the lake walking through Lynn Canyon

More Stanley Park. Surely the world's most picturesque cricket pitch.

More fris and footy in Stanley Park. Scorchio.

The boys also took a couple of days up in Whistler, which they really enjoyed. Zip lines, mountain biking, bungee jumps. I think they did it all! Unfortunately I couldn't go as I was a tad concerned with the bank balance with Montreal on the horizon.

Overall, it was an awesome week and a half. The guys really landed on their feet with the holiday rental apartment they got. Turned out to be a super sweet place and only a few minutes walk from my place. We had more than a few drinks and a couple of decent nights out as well. I really didn't want them to see them go back at the end of it! As it usually is with the boys, it was almost 24/7 banter and laughter. Loved every minute of it and I'm very grateful they made the effort to come over. Hopefully I gave them a good taster of what Vancouver has to offer!

No rest for the wicked, anyway, as the evening the boys went home saw Penny and Jason's 2 year 'Can-niversary'. They hosted a lovely shindig at their place with plenty of drinks and food in celebration of hitting 2 years in Canada. Congrats Penny and Jason!

In other exciting news, the Grouse Grind re-opened again recently so I had to seize the chance to get up that mountain again, one of the first activities I did when I arrived in September last year. My goal is to do the Grind at least 10 times over the summer. After remembering the struggles of the first ascent I arrived much better prepared (actually had a bottle of water and a banana this time!). I just wanted to go nice and steady, not too fussed on my time but aiming to not stop at all on the way up.

The task ahead!

At the top! Still a decent amount of snow up there. Was basically walking through a stream of melting snow for the last 10 mins.

My time for the first Grind of the year. Fairly happy with that one!

Views from the top

View of Downtown and Stanley Park

The top of Grouse Mountain

Looking back to Vancouver in the cable car on the way down

As you can see above, I finished in just under 57 mins, which I was pretty happy with. Now I want to get to under 45 mins before the end of the summer! (Just FYI, the course record is something around 25 mins, which is just utterly insane...)

A few days later, my friend Gina and I had the same day off work and she kindly offered to drive us down to the good old US of A for the day. The State of Washington is less than an hour away and the small town of Bellingham provides many a local with cheap shopping and classic American size food portions - not to be missed!

I ran a bit of a risk at the border, giving a bit of banter to the Officer and proclaiming that I wasn't smuggling drugs or weapons "today". For a split second I thought I had totally blown it but thankfully they recognised a cocky Brit when they saw one. I had to pay $6 to get a visa waiver but we were soon on our way again through the Peace Arch to Bellingham Mall.

The Peace Arch

 My only purchase was a plate at the Old Country Buffet. I think I ate approximately my bodyweight, in true American fashion, which was very satisfying. Gina made a few purchases so it wasn't a completely wasted trip! We also went on a random 'road trip' through the surrounding countryside outside of Bellingham, which was nice.

On our way back to Canada

The other major trip I took was last weekend. All the way over to Montreal, Quebec for the Formula One Grand Prix. I was so excited. As many of my close friends know, the Canadian GP has long been my favourite in the entire calendar and so to actually have the chance to go in person was a dream come true! I took the red-eye flight on Thursday night, which turned out to be a killer after I hadn't really slept much the night before either. The flight was around 5 hours (I found it incredible that you can fly for that long and still be in the same country) and I didn't sleep a wink. Fair to say, I was fairly exhausted when I arrived but it was pretty much straight to Circuit Gilles Villeneuve for Friday practice!

The tickets my Dad had bought for me for my birthday turned out to be awesome. I was in stand 31 at turn 8 and 9, right by the wall that many-a-driver has succumbed to over the years.

View from my seat

I took sooo many photos over the 3 days I was at the circuit, I'm only going to show a small selection here. The weather in Montreal on Saturday and Sunday was absolutely amazing - pushing the high 20s. I even came away with a bit of a tan!

Heikki Kovalainen's car after he met the wall in practice.

Lewis Hamilton - eventual race winner

JB - the man I came to see - had a shocker

The Ferraris

Ham going at a rate of knots

Mark Webber - one for Rich

JB

Downtown Montreal from my stand

By far the fastest thing on the track all weekend

Dude with the craziest hat IN THE WORLD.

The McLaren lads

Crossing the bridge over the St Lawrence river back to the Metro

The biosphere at Parc Jean-Drapeau

Kimi the legend!

The 3 days at the circuit were a fantastic experience. The cars are SO loud. I was very grateful to have packed the earplugs that Mum had sent me for my birthday! Unfortunately I didn't get anywhere near the pitlane. I wasn't sure whether I would have been able to get anywhere close and couldn't be bothered to walk all the way to find out. Jenson Button had a terrible weekend but I was happy to see a Brit win it!

Between times I was staying at the Hostel Alexandrie in the Latin Quarter of Montreal. It was a cool little place. It didn't seem to have too many dorms/rooms but there was plenty of space inside. I met quite a few cool people, the place was really chilled out and I'm happy I stayed there in the end.

The cross-street for my hostel. Just can't get Robin Van Persie off the mind!

Heart attack in a box or what? Montreal is apparently the place to get poutine. What a joke of a dish.

Strolling through Parc du Mont-Royal

The Cross of Montreal. Commemorating city founder Maisonneuve.

Schwatz's smoked meats - absolutely delicious!

Francofolies festival was on at the time.

Gate to Chinatown. No way near as significant a Chinatown as Vancouver, I can tell you!

Start of my Old Montreal walk. Statue of Maisonneuve at Place D'Armes.

New York Life Building - the city's first skyscraper apparently

Aldred Building

Basilique Notre-Dame. Site of Celine Dion's wedding and Pavarotti's Christmas concert.

Oldest building in the city apparently - the Old Seminary

Rue Le Royer

Rue des Artistes. Where's Liam when you need him?

Hotel De Ville - 'Vive le Quebec Libre!'

The Old Courthouse

Nelson's Column. Yes, THAT Nelson. Good on the Brits.

Ben and Jerry's shop. Didn't go in.

Marche Bonsecours

Chapelle Notre-Dame-de-Bonsecours

As for Montreal itself, I wasn't too impressed to be honest. There were some nice areas, such as Old Montreal, with its narrow cobbled streets and street cafes, the parks and Parc Jean-Drapeau, the island on which the grand prix circuit sits. However, I found the rest of Montreal to be a bit grubby. I guess maybe I'm just spoilt by how nice Vancouver is. A lot of Canadian's love Montreal because it has a very European feel to it and I guess has a lot more history than most places. To a European though, it's no Europe and whilst Old Montreal had its charms, I found it to be a bit underwhelming on the whole.

Anyway, I made the most of the recommendations people had given me before I left. I ate a smoked meat sandwich at Schwartz's, a bit of a legendary outlet from what I gather and it was as delicious as people claimed. I also ate that great Canadian national dish Poutine (aka Potato fries, melted cheese curds and thick gravy - apparently Montreal is THE place to get it) with my new friend Natasha from a place called La Banquise, just above Parc LaFontaine. The classic ingredients were topped with 3 other meats (picture above). Terrible nutrition-wise and I could only manage half of it, so saved the other half for before my flight home. I quickly squeezed in exploring a few of the other major streets people had told me about before heading to the race on the Sunday, knowing I'd have to make a dash for the airport straight after. 

Overall, the Grand Prix was fantastic and the trip was fun. It was great to be able to catch a few rays again after the weather in Vancouver had sucked in the past couple of weeks. Seems odd that I was essentially half way home!

In other news, I've had my 2nd letter of introduction through from the good people at the Government of Canada. It's official: I'm allowed to stay for another year! Guess some more of you are going to have to make the trip over to see me now! :P

Ciao for now,
Simon x