Randoms Days and Events - 25th Sept - 12th Oct

As we have said in other blogs we have had less time over here to be tourists, therefore this post is over a longer period of time and I'll only mention the things we have been up to. We have however found a few friends over here and have been enjoying living in a big city with so many things to see and do. Or so many nice places to go out to for dinner and drinking. It is very convenient living in the center of town and being able to just decide to go out for dinner, walking out your front door and being just minutes away from everything.

Any who, for some reason everything happened to come up at once, the evening after coming back from Vegas we happened to have tickets to Pearl Jam (Sept 25th 09). When I arrived in Vancouver there were so many concerts happening and we didn't have enough money to buy any. I said to Cam if Pearl Jam come, I don't care how much money we have we are going. So of course when the news came that they were coming we snapped up some tickets. Once again the band put on an awesome performance, however not quite as good as the last time. I guess we had real high expectations, it also didn't help that they sung Last Kiss (the worst Pearl Jam song in history). Don't get me wrong still thoroughly enjoyed it, they played for just over an hour and then came back on and did an encore that was the same length. So we got a full 2 and a bit hours worth which is better than most bands now days, and they did do Yellow Ledbetter which was awesome.

As my nursing exam was coming up on the 7th October the next week for me consisted mainly of study and for Cam work. We did manage to get out to one of our local pubs again for a few drinks and to watch a hockey game. Do you think its a bad sign when the waitress at the pub knows what you normally order to drink?? This pub is Doolin's Irish pub, what more could you wish for than a pub that plays sport on the TV's (including Rugby), has live music (which also plays kiwi music at times), and sells alcohol? I think this is why its become our local.

As we finally have two incomes we thought it was a good time to do some shopping. Cam desperately needed work shirts, and I well needed what ever I could find. Its awesome shopping here, I manage to find something I can fit and looks good every time. Cam ended up with about 3 things and I ended up with 2, ha see girls don't always get more things.

October 7th was my nursing exam, unfortunately I had to be there at 7.15 am which meant I had to get up at 5.10am to get the train and bus out to the venue. I had to leave real early as the public transport system doesn't run as often at that time of the morning. The exam runs for 7 hours which is crazy, its so hard to concentrate for that amount of time normally let alone after getting up at 5 in the morning. You do get an hour break in between but its still tough. I must say its the most stupid exam I have ever had to do, we all thought it was stupid, I mean really these sort of questions decide whether or not I am good enough to be a nurse. Hard to say how it went really, I guess I'll see in about another 3-4 weeks time.

The end of the exam called for a good night out drinking. Of course we headed out to our local again (Doolins) for dinner and drinks. What do you get when you have several Brits, 2 kiwis, an Aussie and an Irish girl in an Irish pub??? Chaos!! We started drinking about 4 and by midnight most of us were ready to head home, I know we must be getting older, but to be fair we had been up for a long time and had a long exam that we sat. Had an awesome night out with new friends, pub food and drinking.

The weekend from the 9th till the 12th was a long weekend, the 12th was Thanksgiving, we were very excited to be having our first ever real thanksgiving. The Friday night (9th) Cam, Emily and I headed out for dinner at Sip a restaurant in Vancouver. Places were pretty full being late on a Friday evening so we took what seats we could, which happened to be sitting at the bar in front of the chefs while they were cooking. It was like Hell's Kitchen however the head chef wasn't horrible. Its quite interesting watching to see how they manage to get all meals cooked and out on time together. I had ribs of course which were beautiful, the head chef actually stood there and asked us how our meals were going, we said they were beautiful and the chef that cooked them was actually there to over hear and say thank you. It was fun.

Saturday was Emily's birthday, we headed out for lunch with her to a diner just down the road, we had heard good reviews and they even had the worlds best $5 shakes which we just had to get. The food was great but unfortunately the waitress was the worse person I have ever been served by, she was just down right bitchy, so after telling Emily that she couldn't have a side of half salad and half chips she then we on to tell me that my meal was huge and that I could share my chips with Emily. I think we'll prob go back and try it again, she may have been just having a bad day. After this we went to another one of our favourite places for drinks, this one is called Milestones, its a chain over here. We had a few drinks out then headed home.

Sunday was a great day, but very expensive. Several snow shops were having thanksgiving sales so we decided to take up the opportunity to go out and buy snowboards and boots for the season coming up. We got a bargain, managed to get 2 snowboards and bindings, and some boots for me, for the cheap price of $1000, we had a look for retail prices in New Zealand and we got ours for about 1/3 of the price of what we could get them for over there. It was all very exciting, we couldn't wait to get home to try them out. First we had to cart them on the busy bus home, ah fun times. This evening we were supposed to head out for a night out at a nightclub however plans changed so Cam and I decided to head out for a few drinks, a few drinks turned into several drinks and several pubs, well actually only 3. There are so many places to go here, we decided to walk down Granville street, the main night life street in Vancouver and stop in at a few places we hadn't been to. We managed to find several nice places. At about midnight we decided to head down to the waterfront for a walk, its so beautiful along the waterfront looking out at North Vancouver and all the lights. then we decided to call it a night.

Monday 12th was thanksgiving, our first actual thanksgiving and we were both off so decided to head out for dinner that night. During the day we were going to go to the Capilano Suspension bridge however got down to the seabus and it was going in 25 minutes so decided to head to Van Dusen Botanical Gardens instead. We had been told that it was really nice going in Autumn as all the trees are different colours and leaves are falling. It was beautiful out there and much better for the price compared to the last botanical gardens we went to.

In the evening Cam, Emily and I had booked to go to Four Seasons Hotel for a three course thanksgiving dinner. It was very flash and a great excuse to get dressed up and buy an expensive bottle of wine. It was funny we had just been talking about how most places don't seem to give you wine like they are supposed to with the whole showing us the bottle, letting us taste it etc, but they did here and we even had a fancy stand thing with ice. It was very exciting. Oh and when we got there they lady that showed us to our table even took our coats. The dinner was absolutely beautiful and we ate far too much, well worth it though. It was a nice evening out but unfortunately we forgot to take photos, woops, I guess we were caught up with good conversation and food. We'll have to remember next time. We did however remember to toast to what we were thankful for.

Las Vegas 21st -24th Sept

After Jacki's visit to Vancouver we hadn't had enough so we headed down to Las Vegas to catch-up with her again. It was well timed to because I got a phone call on the Friday before from UBC offering me a job. It meant we didn't have to worry so much about our budget while we holidayed.

We wanted to cram as much Vegas in as we could so Rach finished a night shift on the 21st and basically came home and changed before we headed to the airport.
The flight down was great, we headed down the coast then inland over forests around Portland, over a few remaining Californian fires then over the desert to Vegas. We knew where we were as soon as you step off the plane, they have slot machines in the waiting area.

We got a cab to our hotel, Excalibur, and met Jacki. We had prebooked tickets to Cirque du Solei at TI (used to be treasure Island) so we went for a trek down The Strip to collect the tickets. The Strip was crazy! It was packed with tourists and the two mile walk to TI took us two hours. We did stop for photos a few times along the way, just like everyone else. We had tickets to the medieval show at Excalibur that night so we had to get back quick so we got the monorail back. The Medieval show was good, pretty similar to do show Rach and I went to in LA. Its a medieval 'competition' between the different seating sections. Its really a good show with some American cheese thrown in. Surprisingly Rach had managed to stay awake all this time - 36 hours! We were well overdue a sleep when the show was over so headed back to our room.

On Tuesday we had a lot of Casinos to explore. We started by heading south to the Luxor and grabbing some breakfast/lunch. We then continued south to Mandalay Bay. This is as far south as we went, each of the hotel/casinos has a different theme and it is amazing the lengths some of them go to with the themes. After exploring Mandalay Bay we caught the free train back to Excalibur. We then continued north exploring New York New York, Monte Carlo, Paris, Ballys, The Flamingo and back to Excalibur. I can't really explain how cool these casinos were, hopefully the photos do a good job of it.







The Cirque du Solei show was on tonight so we got dressed up and jumped back on the monorail to TI. The show was amazing! We left a little disappointed that it hadn't gone on for longer - that's got to be a good sign. There were amazing tricks on the trapeze and an old guy was hilarious playing/interfering with the show, although he was obviously part of it. While way up that end of the strip we stuck around to catch the show outside TI, Sirens. We waited around for almost an hour to catch the show... and it was disappointing. Apparently used to be a great battle between pirates... now its like that but with softcore porn included and a script written by testosterone OD-ing teenagers. The volcano outside the Mirage was great. They use water, light and fire to simulate the island in the middle of their water feature blowing up, and the effect works really well.

After the show we continued inside the Mirage and had a look around then onto the Bellagio. Unfortunately by the time we got there the water fountain display had stopped for the night. After finding that out we decided it was time to start heading back to the hotel for bed. On the way we thought we should do a little bit of gambling while we were there. I put a couple of dollars into the machine and managed to spend it all in one spin, my Las Vegas gambling was done in a couple of seconds. The others managed to carry on for a couple of minutes before the money ran out. After all that excitement it was definitely time for bed.

We still had a lot to get done on Wednesday. We still had some time left on our 24 monorail tickets so we decided to make the most of it and head right up the north end to the Sahara and the Stratosphere. These hotel/casinos were obviously a lot older than the ones we'd been exploring at the southern end of the strip. The decor needed a bit of an update. Joined to the Sahara there was a roller coaster. Rach and I were real keen to go on the one at New York New York but while here we thought we'd go on this one too. It was only a short roller coaster but it was cool that it started inside, shot outside, went underground then up again... then the same in reverse. Rach and I then went for a look in the Stratosphere while Jacki went souvenir shopping. Unfortunately we didn't have time to go up the tower but we do have to go on those rides at some point.

We then headed back to the main section of the strip and had a walk through Paris on our way to the Coke store and M&M World. They were both cool, M&M world was four stories of M&M products, it also had a 3D movie. After all this walking and shopping we were exhausted so headed back to the hotel to drop off our bags. We then splashed out and went to the Hard Rock Cafe for dinner. This was a new restaurant, it opened only three weeks earlier. It was fitted with Microsoft Surface's in the waiting areas, I had fun playing around with it... then Rach and Jacki did too on our way out.

We then headed back up the Strip to explore the Venetian and go up the Eiffel tower at Paris. It was great timing as the Bellagio fountains started just as we got to the top. We watched that show and explored the views from up the tower before heading down and seeing the show again from the ground - just like in Oceans 11. After that it was getting late again and Rach and I had flights back to Vancouver the next day so we made our way back to the hotel for bed.








Our last morning in Las Vegas was quiet, just breakfast at the hotel then off to the airport for us.

It was a shame our trip was packed into only a few days but I'm so glad we made the effort to go. We've got a list of things that we need to do next time we're there.

More Visitors 7th Sept - 12th Sept

With Rach working on Sunday night we made Monday morning a quiet day. Jacki, Katie and I headed up the Vancouver Lookout. The weather forecast was bad the entire time we had visitors so unfortunately there was a bit of cloud around. After about an hour of me playing tourist guide up the lookout we headed for a nice walk around the waterfront to Stanley Park.

Like we were when we first arrived, Jacki wanted to get a photo of a squirrel. In Stanley Park that's usually an easy task... for some reason it wasn't this day. What was weird was that Raccoons were suddenly more common. We managed to get some good photos of them instead and had to abandon finding a squirrel. Rach had got up while we were 'going on a squirrel hunt' so we headed back to regroup.






It was still relatively early in the day so we decided to squeeze a visit to Granville Island in. Its always nice wandering around doing a bit of window shopping. We also grabbed a quick bite while we were there and watched a couple of the buskers. Once we had explored all the Island streets and had enough on the swings we headed home for some dinner. Rach, Jacki and Katie went back up the lookout after dinner to see the city at night since the tickets were still valid.






On Tuesday we we caught the seabus over to the north shore to go up Grouse Mountain. If you remember back to our post on June 28th, Rach and I had already been up here and its great cheap fun. Its really cheap if you do the Grouse Grind but none of us had the energy or desire to do that. We got the cable car up this time which I found rather over priced - but I'm comparing to a free walk up there. There is a good amount of entertainment up the top for free so I guess its not so bad.

Up the top it was a lot busier than last time, not with people it was animals. The bears were roaming around their enclosure giving everyone a good look. There was a family of Black Tailed Deer and we even saw a Grouse up Grouse Mountain. There was also a bit of wild Black Bear activity up there this day. We didn't see them but did find a fresh looking foot print - I honed all my tracking skills to identify it. We watched the lumberjack show again, for Rach and I it was our third time now. Its a little different when you know all the secrets but its still a good show. We got the chair lift up to the very top peak which we didn't do last time we were up here. There were spectacular views of Vancouver from up there, you could see right down into Washington too.








It was a long day and we were all exhausted, too exhausted to cook so we went out for dinner at The Keg. Its a chain restaurant but like most chains here the food is fantastic. We then walked around the corner from home to visit one of Katie's friends and her spoiled dog. Had a quick drink there before heading home a collapsing in bed.

We were finding it exhausting being tourists so took it easy on Wednesday morning - all we had planned for the day was heading to Vancouver Island. I got some good news (and bad timing) that morning; UBC wanted me back for a second interview... this week, when I was meant to be at Vancouver Island. I couldn't really reschedule too much so made a time Friday afternoon so I could have a day on the Island still. It was about 2pm when we headed off for the Ferry. It was a bit of a trek, but also surprising how far we could get for only $18. We first got the Canada Line to Brighouse Staton where we caught a bus to Tsawwassen where we got the Ferry over to Swartz Bay. It was funny that we were able to use a train, bus and ferry all in a couple of hours to get over to the island. Jacki's uncle, Bruce, picked us up from the ferry terminals and took us round to their place in Sidney. They have an amazing place right on the water, we were so spoilt there. Bruce had been out fishing that morning so we had fresh Salmon for dinner that night, just like real Canadians.




Thursday was now my only full day on Vancouver Island so we packed as much touring of Victoria as we could. Bruce gave us the scenic route down to Victoria and did a good job as a tour guide to get us started. Bruce eventually had to head off and do some work so we were on our own. We started with a short walk around the waterfront past the Legislative Buildings and the Empress Hotel. We didn't get far before deciding to catch one of the water taxis for a quick tour around the harbour. The first boat we got on to was great, the driver offered a great commentary. We were told it was a hop-on hop-off type thing so we got off at Fisherman's Wharf. It was a dock full of house boats and one local Seal. The poor old seal looked like it had bad cataracts and would surely be dead if had to fend for itself. It survives now on fish that people feed it at the wharf. It was unusual to have a seal follow you while you walk around. When we jumped back on the water taxi it was more of a taxi on the water, we just travelled straight back to the main dock where we'd started without any commentary at all - it was a little disappointing.

With limited time we decided it'd be best to plan the rest of our Victoria tour so we headed to the information center. We grabbed pamphlets and got some information on buses and headed up Government Street to grab some lunch. We ended up eating at Irish Times Pub - we seem to love the Irish pubs in Canada. While sitting in the pub we had a look through the pamphlets we grabbed and found one of the maps included an Alley Tour and we happened to be sitting at the start of it so we decided to follow it. It took us down some great back alleyways, my favourite had to be the last one, Fan Tan Alley. It was no wider then two people and about four stories high on both sides. There were a few quirky shops down the way and when we came out we were in Chinatown. We headed back down Government Street toward the harbour stopping at a couple of places to try and find a shirt for my job interview tomorrow. I really didn't enjoy my Victoria shopping experience, I felt like I was in a mini 'Queer Eye for Me' episode, and I really didn't like it. We eventually found a polite way to get out of that shop and found a shirt in Tip Top Tailors, they had the right level of helpfulness there.

After that stress we needed ice cream so we all grabbed sundaes and sat around the harbour eating them. We were then ready to continue our tour. We headed up and explored The Empress Hotel and then the Legislative buildings. Unfortunately we were 5 minutes too late to go inside the legislative builds so we wandered around the grounds and stumbled upon horse and carriage tours - between the four of us we couldn't come up with a reason not to. We took a 15 minute tour around Beacon Hill area looking at all the old houses - it was very romantic :-). It was almost 6 when we got back so we found a bus stop and got a ride back to Bruce and Debbie's place in Sidney.







Friday I had to get up early and catch the 8am ferry back so I could be ready from my interview at 3pm. The interview went ok, it was a practical test this time and I got the impression it had gone well - even with a few answers that I was disappointed with. The guy interviewing me basically said at the end of it that I knew what I was doing and he was just concerned about my work permit and me being over qualified - not in those words of course. It was good to hear that after three months of disappointing job hunting.

Meanwhile - on The Island Rach, Jacki and Katie had a quiet day in Sidney. Checking out the museum there and walking along the beach. They then left Jacki behind and headed back to Vancouver. On their ferry ride home they were lucky enough to see Orca's breaching - that was disappointing because I really wanted to and had been looking hard for them on both rides. Rach was also loaded up on frozen Salmon before leaving so we now have a freezer full, we're so stoked about that but need to learn some recipes - we've never cooked Salmon before.

Katie had an early flight home on Saturday morning and Rach was working again. I gave Katie a hand getting to the airport and watched some more planes before heading home and back to reality.

It was so nice seeing familiar faces again and it was fun being tourists again - the budget hadn't allowed us to do that for a while. It was also tough going back to reality.

Many Changes 31 Aug - 6 Sept

We seem to have managed to get ourselves into a bit of a routine so not much tourist-ing going on and not been too much to write about - hence the fact we had nothing to write about last week.

Monday was packing day. It was a brilliant plan to have Monday free to pack so we could move on Tuesday morning. According to our lease we had to be out by noon so preparation was key. Fortunately we got a little more time to move because we couldn't arrange a time to meet the landlord to hand it over, unfortunately someone slipped too much alcohol into my Beer on Sunday night so I wasn't contributing much. Rach put her OCD tendencies to good use and had the place looking better than when we moved in by the time I managed to roll out of bed.

Moving day went well. It took us four trips on the bus with our suitcases to move. The buses were relatively quiet. The new train, the Canada Line, opened a week earlier which made the 98 B-Line bus a ghost train at times - this worked well for us trying to squeeze on with our suitcases. While lugging our suitcases to the bus stop on one of the trips I missed a call on my cellphone - they didn't seem to leave a voicemail so I thought nothing of it. After the fourth trip and finally putting my feet up in the evening I got a txt saying I did have a voicemail after all. It turns out someone wanted me to come in for a job interview - tomorrow. It was now 5:30p.m. so I left a voicemail message for him saying that was fine and I'd call back tomorrow to confirm. That was the best I could do in the circumstances.

I got up early (by unemployed standards) on Tuesday to call back about the job interview. It turns out that they couldn't do the interview that day anymore so we rescheduled for Wednesday. This worked well for me, it gave me more to to decide what I'd wear and to unpack it.

After the successful move and me finally getting an interview after three months of trying we thought we'd earned a night out. Sunday was still haunting me so it was never going to be a big night out. We headed down to Milestones in Yaletown - a nice wander from our new apartment. Emily joined us for our celebrations - I blame her influence for Sunday so I was on high alert. We had a fantastic meal and some nice Mojitos - it was a great evening out. Being the gentleman I am we walked Emily to her apartment before heading back to ours. On the way we saw this:


Its a skunk in case you can't tell. I never thought we'd see one of those in downtown Vancouver. We still find seeing squirrels exciting so we were ecstatic about this sighting.

I hate interviews and this one was no exception. I felt the overall feeling of it was good; conversation flowed, I came across as knowing what I was doing. I was however disappointed with a few um... err... ahh, answers. Generally when I feel good about an interview, as I initially did about this one, I don't get the job. So I wrote that one off as a good practice run.

Friday was a day we'd both been looking forward to for a long time - Jacki arrived today! I like watching the planes land at the airport so I got there about an hour before Jacki was expected and stopped at Templeton station to watch planes for a bit. I timed it well and saw a 747 and a couple of A340s. After escorting Jacki back to the apartment she was surprisingly wide awake so we went for a quick walk. The weather was fantastic and it was expected to pack up for the rest of her stay so I wanted to show her the mountains while they were still visible. We walked around Gastown and along the waterfront to Coal Harbour. A nice quick look at the highlights of downtown - in my opinion.

Rach was free the next two days thanks to an LOA so we bought a pass for the Museum of Vancouver, the Space Centre and the Maritime Museum. It was good value getting the pass for all three and we've get plenty of time to use them - apart from Jacki's short stay of course. We did the Museum of Vancouver (The MOV for locals) on Saturday. It was fun, they had a lot of interactive displays and things for me to act like an idiot with. On Sunday Rach and I explored the Space Centre. Jacki joined us for most of this time but wanted to go next door to the Maritime Museum in the afternoon because otherwise she wouldn't get a chance. The Space Centre has a lot of shows and scheduled displays so we were basically moving between a theatre and the planetarium. It was a great way to spent a rainy Vancouver day and I think we all learned a thing or two. Rach had to work that night so we rushed home to grab something to eat. Jacki and I had a lazy night in front of the box to rest our aching feet.








It was a busy but not very exciting week. With Jacki and Katie here next week there'll be more to write about then.

Fairs and Movies - 17/08/09-23/08/09

This week there really isn't much to tell. Man working sucks hehe. There is an endless supply of money and I don't have to work, yeah right!!

Monday to Thursday were working days for me and we didn't get up to anything really.

Friday morning I finished my night shift and had a sleep till after midday. Tonight we packed up our picnic blanket and chairs and headed out for a night at the movies, outdoors. We stopped for takeaways on the way and then headed to Connaught Park, to watch UP outdoors and on Big screen. There was quite a turn out. Once again I really enjoyed this movie, still pulls on the heart strings the second time and I shead a few more tears. We'll have to keep an eye out for more outdoor movies its such a great idea.

Annually, PNE (Pacific National Exhibition) a non-profit organisation, runs a 17 day summer fair at Hastings Park. In 2010 it will have been running for 100 years. The fair has heaps of shopping stalls, food and drink stalls, rides, entertainment and of course candy floss. The entertainment included a dog show where different dogs would jump over things and run through things, a car show, Celtic dancing show, and a Lumberjack show. They also had other animal shows however we skipped these ones. They also had different bands playing, the final band was a tribute beetles band, they were very good. Then finally they finished off with a musical/dance pyrotechnic show, this was awesome with fireworks, clowns, old bicycles and lights. It was very well done and we really enjoyed our day. We were here for about 12 hours, Cam described it as a cross between field days and the big day out.

No spoiler involved in the next paragraph. Yesterday we didn't really get up to much. Only interesting thing really was the movies. I can't believe how packed it was, we got there an hour early and had to join a massive cue to get into the movie, turns out we were able to get a good seat, the cinema was completely sold out. We went to see District 9, had heard only good things about it. We came out not really knowing how we felt about it, if you go to see it remember to keep an open mind, very weird and not like anything I have ever seen. Trust Peter Jackson to put some money into this kind of movie. Overall I think all three of us liked it.

Holidays - 10/08/09-16/08/09

Nothing much to report this week. It turns out summer has decided to end for this week. It has turned cold well max of 18 degrees and the rain has decided to start for a little while.

Monday was my second day on my own at work and this was a really good day, nothing too different seemed to pop up and I had a really great team of people to work with. Its great during the day there is lots of support on and always at least one senior person you can turn to for help. Also these senior people don't have patients so its a little easier to ask for help. We'll see how I like it after a really busy day though.

Tuesday was my last study day as such. It was a surgery study day so really relevant for me and it helped for working on the ward. We also got to meet a few of the doctors, physios and other health team members which was nice.

Wednesday we booked a flight to Vegas to join Jacki on her holiday, a bit impulsive but they had a seat sale on and only had 3 seats left on one particular flight so we bought them. Will only be for 2 and a half days so may have to go back another time. Very exciting though.

Thursday tickets went on sale for Pearl Jam in Vancouver, well the presale anyway but unfortunately we weren't quick enough, we will have to try for the public sale to see what we can get. Another average day at home, was a bit cooler here, decided to do some more baking.

Friday we managed to get tickets to Pearl Jam and pretty good seats if you ask me, so can't wait for that show on September 25th 09, woohoo!!

Friday we went to the Museum of Anthropology which according to our book is one of the 1000 things you need to do before you die in USA and Canada. So another tick off our list. The museum is part of UBC which is the University of British Columbia, it used to be on the same site however it is now just across the road. The museums collections, exhibitions and programs are renowned for giving incite into the cultures of indigenous people from around the world. It holds many ethnographic and archaeological objects, many of these originate from the Northwest Coast of British Columbia. Some of these objects include totem poles (or story poles), carved boxes, bowls and feast dishes. The museum also has sections on pieces of gold, silver, wood, ceramic and other materials. It was very interesting and once again we were just in time for a free tour which went for 1 hour. Its great to catch these tours as they show you the things which are the most relevant or significant, it enables you to hear a bit about most things and then you can go around and take a more detailed look at what interests you. Totem poles (story poles) are carved by the indigenous people of British Columbia. They are made out of red cedar and are used to tell a story or to identify which tribe/community they are from.

There was a room full of European ceramics which was bought over by Dr Walter. C. Koerner, who made his money in Canada in forestry, this whole collection was his own and there were 600 pieces collected over a span of almost eighty years. Not really my sort of thing but there was a really cool tiled stove which is still used in Europe as a source of heating.

The exhibition at the moment even has a touch of kiwi, it seems we pop up more than I expected over here. The exhibition had photos taken by a kiwi photographer who had taken pictures of Samoan families or communities in New Zealand. These photos were showing the culture of getting tatau (tattoos) within the Samoan community. Not a lot to read but the photos were interesting.

The last room we looked at on the tour was the Bill Reid Rotunda room. Reid is from the Haida community, he was originally a jeweler however became a sculptor and painter after learning about his first nations history. His sculpture called "The Raven and the First Men" which is made out of yellow cedar is in the museum. This depicts a moment in the ancestral past of the Haida people when a Raven, a wise and powerful yet mischievous trickster, has just found the first humans in a clam shell on the beach and is coaxing them in and out. This man has 7 honorary doctorates from different universities, seems pretty smart if you ask me.

So Saturday was another free event in Vancouver. It was 40 years since Woodstock so Kitsilano (Kits) decided to put on a 40 years since Woodstock, summer of love, car free street day. They had 4 stages with bands playing 60's music and the street was full of old 1950/60's cars which were awesome. They also had some stalls, shops were having sales and off course food and a beer garden. It was a nice day to walk around and look at things, there was not as much to see as other days we have been to however the music was great and the bands had done well to dress up in 60's gear.

We had invited Emily along a new friend of ours from work, we had a drink at Kits and then decided to head into town for another drink, we had come this far and it was only early in the evening and dinner time so we decided to continue on for dinner and a few more drinks. I enjoy the frequent martini, margarita and cocktail specials they have each day. It was a good day and evening. Spontaneous drinks and evenings are the best.

Nothing to tell for Sunday just a relaxing day.

BC day, Apartment searching and new people - 03/08/09-09/08/09

Another public holiday in Canada, I think its great the way they have done it here, there is a public holiday pretty much every month except for 3 months. It just so happened that I had this one off as well. We didn't do too much this day just thought we would take it easy. Apparently there is a world police and fire games which happens every 2 years that happens all around the world. There are about 50-70 countries competing depending on what site you read. Basically it is police and fire people, correction officers and customs officers that compete in many events such as: athletics, ice hockey, rugby, shooting, swimming and many other sports. All events are free, we decided to head to Burnaby (a city within the greater Vancouver area) to watch the track and field athletics. The main events we could see were long jump, running, and high jump. We mainly watched long jump, some of these people could jump really far, in the 18-25 group one guy jumped 6.98 m, considering they don't do this for a living that's pretty far considering in the Olympics they get to mostly 7.5m some up to nearly 9m. I thought they were pretty good.

After this we decided to head to the Night market at Richmond. It was a bit frustrating really, we had heard the night market was great and that they were looking at moving the venue, so we have been looking at the official website for the last 2 months which keeps saying check back for the new location of the night market. However the night market has been going since May yet the website continues to tell us its not on, turns out you don't look for the official website you go to a completely different one, ah annoying. Any who we decided to go, it just so happened the bus that runs to the market from where we were happened to be was full when it arrived, and the next bus was 1 hour away. With Cam having a dead battery on his phone we had to wing it, we walked to another bus stop. One bus trip, one train trip and then 3 more different buses later and about an hour or 2 in time, we arrived at the market. The funny thing was that the people that had obviously waited for the next bus to arrive where we started from, were walking out of the market as we walked in, should've waited. Oh well it was a good trip and wow we can't believe how helpful bus drivers are, we even had one which stopped past the bus stop to get us further.

Anyway the night markets were ok, I'm sure I have seen better, maybe being a public holiday it wasn't as busy as normal, perhaps we will have to go back once the website tells us it is open hehe. They did have some nice different foods, Cam had a nice squid and prawn skewers and I had chicken skewers and some curly potato with seasoning (these were yummo!!). However it was quite expensive. They did have some really cheap things at the stalls though, we did resist a few things.

Tuesday and Wednesday we didn't really get up to much, back to work for me so I'm usually pretty tired, and only get home at 8pm ish.

So we thought hard about our living situation. It appears that our lease agreement actually said that if we wanted to extend our lease past 31st August then we had to do this by June 30th. As it was now the start of August and we had not extended it we though we better look at new apartments. I'm sure if we wanted to stay where we are we probably could, but decided we have had enough of collecting other peoples mail, getting calls all the time for someone else, never being able to get hold of the landlord and living in complete clutter. We checked out Craig's list, like trade me and discovered that all of a sudden there were heaps of apartments for rent that were furnished, turned out to be perfect. So Thursday, Friday and Saturday were spent looking at apartments, in 3 days we looked at about 8 different places. We did have difficulty trying to decide on one as we actually found about 3 really nice places. One would only lease for up to 3 months which was not great for us as that would bring us up to just before the Olympics so that crossed that one off and the other was subletting, which he wasn't allowed to do so another cross, which left us with the one we have accepted. It means we will be moving in to town, first time to be moving by public transport which should be fun. We move September 1st ad will be there for 11 months.

Friday night we went out for drinks at the winking judge pub in town. One of the girls from work who started at the same time as me has just arrived from London and doesn't know anyone over here, so we invited her out for the evening. Just had a quiet few drinks, it was a great evening. We'll have new friends in no time.

Saturday night I rung home for the first time, it was Dads birthday in New Zealand but the day before for us. It was great timing as I got to talk to Mum, Dad and Vanessa. Was great to catch up on all the gossip and hear some familiar voices. Yes we were home on a Saturday evening, but I had to work the next morning at 7am and it was my first day at work on my own.

As I just said Sunday was my first official day at work, I was all on my own. They were really nice to me and I got an easy patient load, still makes me laugh that I only get 3 patients and very occasionally get 4 depending on the patients. Turns out 2 of the patients were what I have cared for in the past so that was good also. Only thing was that everything that I haven't experienced on my orientation days happened to pop up, Murphy's law I guess. For a first day though I must say it was pretty good, it happened to be more quiet that usual and everyone was very helpful. You just have to share the questions around different people hehe, so they don't get sick of you. I think once I get used to the hospital system and policies I will really enjoy it.

This evening we went to our new apartment to sign the lease. Our new landlord is very nice and friendly, also she lives in the building so at least we won't have a problem getting a hold of her. We'll post some photos when we have some.