There's a guy canoeing in that cloud, hey?

Karyn Ellis said she'd always wanted to write a song with the word "Canada" in it, and I agree.

AAM NAAM NAAM!

Always sad to say goodbye to family, and always excited to be back in Canada!

YEG->YVR->YYZ->BNA

You'd think flying through 4 airports in 4 time zones would be enough to get me off the continent

Diversity

Thanks to poor battery planning, the only picture I took in Vancouver was this sign for the espresso/crepe/chicken wings/beer restaurant that takes up about 10 square feet.

Then we took the road to Vancouver, where the mountains were just as photogenic

And the hotels were just as classy

bahkybep? ekc|-|pecc?

We had Soviet breakfast on the Quay today, with Anna Pavlova and Karel Gott:
Then we, like, did stuff downtown. I guess I got tired of taking pictures. Until, that is, we got on the plane and I had the chance to settle an old bet with AMT:
... who rightly believed that the row behind 3 should be row 4, no matter how classy the people in row 3 are. But alas.

Vacation Vacation

Tonks took most of the pictures today, which is why there's more Phil in Phil's Life than usual.
We started off with fancy cakes for breakfast, and proceeded to the zoo, at which I found part-time employment:
Then it was across the seabus to see downtown.
We saw the steam clock by contractual obligation:
From there we decided to go to the Sun Yat Sen Chinese Garden. I choose a direct route, not realizing that the part of Hastings we were going to pass by was East Hastings. I didn't stop to take too many pictures other than this one. Anywho, Japanese Dollar store shopping was much more interesting (and less expensive) than the Chinese Garden, so we stopped off at the International Something-or-other mall. Lunch was Indian food, bubble-tea, and fisticuffs:
After walking around downtown for a while, we eventually found our way to the art gallery, which was closed but otherwise a great place to rest.
[UPDATE: we actually went to the museum on the 6th.]

More Vancouver

Being savvy West-coasters, we knew well enough to avoid the expensive suspension bridge and head to the free one instead:Then we headed downtown, which was welcoming in a surprising way:
Our first goal was the Museum of Anthropology, which was welcoming in a more subversive way:
I loved the museum, which had Salish writing for me to pronounce everywhere. It was full of unhappy faces, though:

Actually, this last one looks pretty content. It could be because he's the Tsimshianic representation of the first European.

The museum is on the UBC campus, which made it easy for us to go see Steve's lab. Here he is pretending to do science for us:

And here we are blatantly disregarding a biohazard warning
We finished off the day on the beach, flying Steve's attack kite:
which was totally rad.

Vancouver!

It turns out Billingsworth reads this blog as much as mechanically possible, so I'm glad to get a chance to put her on it. We've known each other since before she moved in to the Brothel, but I haven't seen her much since she moved to Vancouver, where she works as a college math instructor and part-time enforcer:
She took Tatiana and I to Lighthouse Park, where you can only fish using really long polesA good time was had by all.
After seeing the beach, heading up the mountain, eating some sushi, and buying a car, we went back to her apartment for some well-earned rest on her outrageously scenic balcony:

Canada

I miss LSA a whole lot, but I still got a little lift looking out at those mountains and being back in Vancouver.

Vancouver Rocks!

After escaping terrorism and snobbish bouncers of all stripe, I flew to Vancouver to be whisked away to this forest retreat for a night of long overdue sleep. Did I mention that the forest retreat was also an art gallery?
Thanks Laura!