So let me start off what will probably be our final post from Vancouver with a hearty Happy Christmas to all our friends and families who we're missing more than ever. It's both of our first Christmas away from home, but we put our heads together and somehow managed to have both an interesting and festive Christmas despite the chaos and homesickness. We had an interesting Christmas Eve, mostly spent selling all our crap on Craigslist - hosting multiple visitors to our apartment who came to pick up woks, mattresses, hairdryers, broken laptops, computer speakers, tables and chairs and all manner of random stuff. Christmas day was mostly food based (our Christmas dinner was fantastic - I'm recovering as I write....), although we did manage to take a stroll out to Commercial Drive between meals to road test my new camera.What follows is the promised retrospective. The only way we could think of trying to encompass the craziness, good and bad, of our year here was to make a list of the things we'll miss and the things we won't. I'm not sure which list is longer or even how important that is. Anyone who's visited, or any of the Irish contingent who spent time in V Town may or may not recognise some of the stuff listed below. It really depends on how food-centric or bipolar you are. To most other people, particularly Vancouverites, I'm sure it comes across as a shallow and hackneyed reinforcement of alot of good and bad Canadian stereotypes, but I think that's more a reflection of my lack of imagination than anything else. Anyways, here goes. Happy New Year to all. The next post will hopefully be from sunny Buenos Aires.
Things we’ll miss about Vancouver
A lot of this is food based so brace yourselves…..Living over the shop. Our short but sweet introduction to Winter sports. The mountains. The amazing central library, a book for every day of your life. MEC. Snow ball fights. Picnics on the beach. Our early morning friends on Denman Street - (He Who Sleeps With Gardening Tools). Having a daily excuse to wear my waterproof boots. Sea to Sky Highway drives. Phonecalls home to get all the news, even when there wasn’t any. Henry. Chats with Dad on his way home from work. Google chats with Aine (before she went to do the post). Our Vancouver dance floor/sitting room. Autumnal colours in the city. Commercial. Our arses singing from the same kimchi. City living. The gyoza and spring rolls in Gyoza King - (We say we love Japanese food – what we really mean is we love deep fried food). The Ks love Gyoza. Beep Boop. Making up songs to sing along to Beep Boop. M’s animated re-enaction of bus conversations or episodes encountered on her daily commute. Caper’s organic, healthy and filling convenience food. The politeness of bus drivers. Medium Milk Mochas – no whip. Walks at dawn along the seawall. Walking to and from deadly gigs in deadly venues.
Buying the New York Times every Sunday morning and spending the rest of the week reading all the supplements. Cheeky squirrels wandering up the middle of Denman St. early in the morning. Our beautiful but expensive view. My winter afternoon snoozing perch. Chocolate martinis in Hapa Izakaya. The retro sit down listening posts at Zulu records on 4th.
Free travel for Shamie and Mamie on a Sunday. Skunks, frogs, raccoons, squirrels, swans, all wandering around the West End. Interesting tattoos. Old Ford Mustangs. The beautiful old and colourful wooden framed houses.
The smell of hotdogs and onions on the corner of Burrard and Robson. Free education and lifetime magazine subscriptions in Chapters on Robson. The smell of weed while strolling through Stanley Park. English Bay sunsets. The smell of weed coming from alley ways. The crossword in the free 24hr magazine. The smell of weed while passing Safeway. Leaving work at 4:30 and being on my bike in Stanley Park by quarter to 5. The homeless punker who belts out Green Day songs in perfect Billie Joe nasal twang at 3 in the morning. The smell of weed everywhere in Summertime. The 9 o’clock gun salute. The daily parade of hard bodies on the sea wall. The strawberry margheritas in Las Margeritas. Denis’s nonchalant jumble sales of Sartre books, hi-fis and ladies shoes. Turning up for a SkyTrain and one arriving straight away. The fragrances on public transport. Cupcakes.
The talking bin in McDonalds. Tofurkey Spicy Italian sausages. The foccacia at Incendio’s Pizza – oh jesus (many’s the wet evening we trekked down to Gastown drawn solely by the prospect of some warm focaccia drizzled /smothered in olive oil and balsamic). Smiling to ourselves each time we experienced the small dog theory or the X5 hypothesis. The dysfunction and rampant flirting at the Friday night AA meetings in Blenz on Robson. Camping trips to where there’s bears. Critical Mass Bike Rallys – especially in the Summer. Storm watching. The highly diverse and record breaking hot, wet, windy and snowstormy weather we experienced during our year in Van.
The plastic jamjar with our rapidly depleting life savings in it. Trying to figure out what perogies are. Independent Flixx video store on Denman. Having a gym downstairs. Coming home for lunch everyday with lunch invariably made. My 2 minute commute. The Woodwards building (now mostly demolished to build apartments).
Guessing what the next cross street will be. Denman, Bidwell, Cardero, Nicola, Broughton, Jervis, Bute, Thurlow, Burrard, Hornby, Howe, Granville, Seymour, Richards, Homer. Brushing my teeth on the balcony in the morning, the fresh morning air slowly waking me up. That scary looking matt grey 1970 Dodge Charger that rumbles around Robson / Denman at all hours – sometimes without a visible driver. Cheap, efficient and dependable public transport. Watching free cable TV on the humungous plasma TVs in the building opposite ours. Discounts from Irish shop assistants. Yacht porn on Coal Harbour.
Bumping into Wolf Parade at the video shop. Railtown. Listening to a stream of BBC 5 Live’s “Up All Night” when we come home from work giving us a media lifeline to events outside of Canada (I mean Burnaby). Cheap beer. Watching the seasons change in a place other than home for the first time. Vancouver blurring the lines between friendly rustic charm and cosmopolitan aloofness but mostly just confusing itself. The H streets (Hornby, Howe, Homer, Helmcken, Hamilton, Haro). Tasty murals.
All human life on public display on East Hastings. Living in a city where it’s cheaper to eat out in a new place every night than it is to buy and prepare your own food. The Lazy 5’s – those people who ride the 5 bus up and down Robson when they’d be better off, and probably quicker walking. The Festival of Light. Retro bicycles in perfect condition on public display like street furniture. Finding things that The Bone Crusher under our sink couldn’t digest (Corn on the cob – I have problems with that myself, tin cans, elastic bands, ginger, avocado stones). Calhoun’s 24 hour coffee shop on Broadway – probably out favouritest coffee shop here. The disco lights of the Lions Gate bridge peeping out over the trees in Stanley Park at night. Moonshine in Gastown. Exploring a new street just one block up from a street you travel every day. The zig zag walk through town to discover new street corners. Clean and safe streets. BC wines. Using the map of the world as a Gannt chart. Our tall home at the bottom of the hill. Our two blue camping chairs on the balcony all Summer and all those visitors who made good use of them. The lady’s voice on the skytrain who tells me where to get off – I think she’s hot. Edamame (toss up between Kitto and Hapa Izakaya for the tastiest edamame award). Watching the Master Baristas at work in Café Artigiano.
Gooey Cinnamon Rolls from Cobs. Almond pretzels from Capers. Waving in through the window to our elderly brethern every morning at the Grove Restaurant on Denman. The Fairmont Hotel turning the otherwise uniform Vancouver skyline suddenly Gothic.
Being able to hear the cruise liner’s horny harmonics resonating all over downtown in the Summertime. Spinach & Tofu Samosas in the snow from Planet Veg on Cornwall Avenue in Kits. Drunken Glow-In-The-Dark Bowling on Commercial. The old environMENTALIST activist guy with the huge “BC is Fucked” button badge stuck to his cap (never trust anyone who has a collection of button badges stuck to their hats. Also never trust a man over 30 who wears a Che Guevara T-shirt). Hiring a car and driving for 10 hours without leaving the province. Planning your trip on MapQuest first. The views, the sheer scale of things. Meals on the balcony in the summer.
Al Fresco ketchup and red wine evenings
The interesting hairstyles of the lesbians on Commercial. The eerie effect of the lights on Grouse and Seymour shrouded in fog, looming over the city. The quirkiness of East Van living. The overwhelming variety of quality food and ingredients. Special occasions in the Water Street Café. Enthusiastic public displays of abject soccer ineptitude by middle aged office workers at lunchtime on the green below our apartment. Vancouverite’s civic pride and almost daily public family events. Reading in the Georgia Straight that one of your favourite bands is coming to the Commodore. Robo Sushi. Wearing no socks in the water taxis and thinking I’m Don Johnson. The people you meet on buses or skytrains and their conversations.
The influx of provincial misfits for the Gay Pride weekends. Whitespot’s Western Plate (Salad, Onion Rings AND Endless Fries) the ultimate hangover cure. Racing Maeve along the wide boulevard sidewalks of Georgia Street under the shadow of our apartment block with me handicapped by having to run backwards. That homeless guy who spends all his donated coins on batteries for his ghetto blaster and who can be found grooving to 2Unlimited and Johnny Cash under bridges at the strangest of hours. Old-school cars and trucks in showroom condition in daily use around the city.
….“Though its darker than December what’s ahead is a different colour”. My lovely bike. Special occasion breakfasts in the Fairmont – particularly the Belgian waffles swimming in maple syrup.
The FairmontI don't know why I feel the need to counterbalance the rose tinted view of things outlined above with the negative aspects of our year. But in the name of fairness balance etc we give you :
Things we won’t miss about Vancouver : Emily Carr. TAXES! PST and GST. The “nightlife”. Snippets of life issues on the seawall - Vancouverites are absolutely obsessed with relationships and relationship issues and the sea wall in Summertime is their psychiatrist's couch... Rich old fairweather bikers rattling our 15th floor windows while demonstrating their virility via the noise of their incredibly loud Harley’s. The inanity. Asians in Mini Coopers. The smell of roasting half-meat lingering around the Babylon Cafe on Robson street. That fucking hill in Stanley Park. The coca racha ringtone waking us up in the morning. East Van dykes. No local papers on a Sunday. Paying $10 for the New York Times every Sunday morning. The biblical rains.
The Duncan Stewart damp. The Saturday night queuing. Text messages from the machines. 4am pages from JP Gateway. Starbucks every half block on both sides of the street – they’d put a Starbucks in your fuckin eye over here. Each apartment in the building across from us a TV Channel with the most boring reality TV show on repeat. Hangovers with super powers and more depressingly, staying power. The same sky high neighbours with nothing on. Being followed around shops by commission hungry shop attendants. ESL schools. Surrey & Richmond - probably a bit harsh but they're both scary places for different reasons. There always being someone, spandexed to the max, running around the seawall no matter how early you think you’ve gotten up. Newly weds and nearly deads. Aggressive gay superhero rollerbladers. Rancid pitchers of beer-and-bleach cocktails. Hildy’s (our building manager) prozac binges “I love you goyjuss” as she breaks down in your living room AGAIN. Siong’s (my boss) tentative grasp on the English language where every sentence includes the following phrases at least twice “I don’t want to regurgitate myself….” “If I say…. essentially… we shoot for….taking it to the next level....regardless”. The complete lack of decent art or photography galleries. The complete lack of decent art - except for the murals and illegal graffiti. People eating full takeaway stinky meals on buses and in the cinema. The urge to step on the bonsai dogs of ladies who lunch. “I always said if the kid thing doesn’t work out I’d get myself a Porsche”. Nail bars. Cold phone calls from banking institutions on Sunday mornings…… “Hi may I speak with ……. Mr KYOG”. 5 days for cheques to clear. The chaos caused by me getting a pay cheque from a different “shelf company” every month. That puddle outside Blenz on Cardero Street – I somehow end up with one wet foot EVERY time it rains. Our living room like a page from a Ikea catalogue.
Chief Bed Tester hard at work
Empty tables in a restaurant while you’re waiting to be seated. The smell of talc off the ginger barman at Limerick Junction. Memory foam pillows with amnesia. The Black Dog. The Red Flag. The clatter of wheely bin lids and the clinking of bottles in trollies at all hours. Getting ID’d. The walks back from Safeway with elastic arms from the plastic bags. The rampant tipping culture. The congregation of fat cops at the Blenz in Yaletown. Toupes, walking sticks and dogs with more hair than their owners sitting outside Starbucks. Anal neighbours who can’t hack the bass, man. The minimum wage. The unfathomably illogical beauracracy. Those Vans chequered slip on shoes. Budget Car Rental. Dealing with people you meet on Craigslist – we had a Chinese woman in our living room asking us what the wok was….hello? That’s the equivalent of a Irish person asking how a frying pan works. Working for a shambles of a company. S1, M1 envelopes. Liptons tea. Missing births (Hi baby Matthew!), birthdays (21st, 30th, 60th and 80th birthdays especially), weddings and anniversaries at home. 2 slow lifts for 29 floors. Bipolar Safeway Cashiers. Being guaranteed to bump into at least 38 people in the close confines of the lift while carrying your bag of especially fragrant waste down to the basement bins. Hard bodied bonsai-dog walkers clutching the obligatory small bag of dogshit. The smell of slow cooking lamb from the Greek restaurants all the way up Davie Street. Living by the sea and not knowing how to sail. Jaywalking across the 9 lanes of Georgia Street in rush hour, laden down with groceries as the little white man deserts you - not for the faint hearted. Being forced into renting Ford. The dull, stainless-steel-kitchen-polishing lives of the condo dwellers in the building opposite us. Hairy male hands (and feet!) seen through nail bar windows. Those professional chrome polishing youngflas with tights on their heads who drive up and down Robson blasting out bad Indian dance music. Pan handler’s who won’t take a polite no for an answer….Can you spare a dime for a brother in trouble? No change? Howabout small notes? a 5? C’mon brother, anything!…. (at this stage you’re home making dinner and he's still hassling you). Stretch SUVs full of screaming, puking but very well dressed teens. Oncall. Not having a guitar. Maple Leaf Branding of the Proud Candian Herd. Female bus drivers and their pre shift steering wheel de-contaminating procedures. Female Bus Drivers. Knowing you'll never get your head around exactly what the fascination for ice hockey is.
The dishwasher mist of Vancouver’s winter. The chance of a full blown conversation with a complete stranger at any time would generally be something we'd miss, however if your nerves are at you - or more likely in Vancouver - their nerves are at them, then conversation is worth avoiding at all costs. The massive portions and resulting incessant fat coughs at Hon’s Chinese on Robson. Walking across any of the long bridges - Granville in particular. Canadians’ tacit acceptance of the queuing culture. The death stare from our glass eyed Tunisian janitor (howya Ali). Dull, unimaginative revenue maximising architecture. Living above the noisiest street where nothing ever happens. Dreams of being hanged. Kids called Fanny. Semi detatched neighbours. Finding a nice pair of jeans or a tshirt in a store and on closer inspection, discovering the dreaded dragon imprint. Training my Canadian co-workers to reciprocate my "good morning" every day. Heartburn from too hastily despatched Flying Wedge Pizza slices. That interminable 5 seconds bewteen where the lift docks at your floor and when the door opens and you can escape the half formed “lift conversation”. Acura cars. The omnipresent F250 pickup. Sher we’re all part of the commonwealth.. Crows eating the spaghetti out of puke at a park bench very early one Stanley Park morning. Being greeted by a request for your phone number rather than your name at the barbers. Intonation and affirmation….right Buddy? Rain stopping play. Overbites and underbites obfuscated by liberal dashings of facial hair. The faces of homeless people in the rain. Trying to read in bed in the dark after we prematurely sold our lamp on Craigslist. The smell of homeless people in the rain. The zombie late night laptop jockeys indefinitely occupying all the good seats in the coffee shops. One Chinese extended family’s annual outdoor barbeque causing traffic and picnic table congestion in Stanley Park. Bad Al Pacino portraits for sale on Robson. Being on the other side of the world from everyone else. Having to leave.
Our Argentine umbrella
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