I love spring in Vancouver. It is lovely walking around the city and seeing all the blossoming trees. And with spring comes opportunity for other fun outdoors activities like tennis. Today I had a game of tennis booked in to play with Reuben, well actually a game of either tennis or squash just in case it rained. When I got up in the morning it looked like a nice day for tennis, there was a bit of cloud around but it didn't look too threatening. Anyway, as I was talking with Tiffany - as I often do - I looked out my window and noticed it was raining a bit, then I looked a bit more carefully and decided it was hailing. Bother I thought, I guess that probably means tennis is off today. When it came time to leave to meet Reuben I had another look outside, it was still raining a bit but I thought maybe it was just an isolated shower and maybe over Stanley park way it might be sunny, so I took both my tennis and squash racquets with me just to be safe. When I made it outside I realised that the hail was still falling a little, not big chunks of ice but just little ones mixed in with the rain. At this stage I pretty much realised it wasn't going to be a tennis day. As I walked on I noticed a few cars that had a lot of small hail pieces on them, then as I continued I noticed the pavement had a lot of slushy melting hail on it. Then a few blocks later and I realised that what I thought was hail was actually snow, very wet snow, but definitely snow. Snow in downtown Vancouver in late March, that is kind of crazy. By the time I got to Burrard Street I discovered that the slushy snow was quickly finding its way inside my shoes and my socks were getting decidedly damp. A few blocks later and they were totally soaked. The snow was getting deeper and deeper the further I went until by the time I approached Roz and Reuben's apartment it was a pretty decent layer of snow on the ground. By this stage I had decided that my shoes were so wet that it was not going to be such a great idea playing squash either. All in all not a very nice spring day really. But walking through the slush was kind of a nice change I guess, hopefully my shoes dry out in time for my next scheduled tennis or squash game.
For those of you wondering when some more photos will start appearing on this blog you will have to wait a bit longer. As you may recall my camera was stolen in PNG and I haven't replaced it yet. It is on my list of things to get in April.
Saturday, March 29, 2008
Thursday, March 20, 2008
Sorry another long overdue blog
Well, with any luck a couple of you will still be reading this blog and this won't be a total waste of time. There have been a few reasons for the long gap between postings. Firstly I have moved countries again and so have been somewhat busy finding work, finding a place to live, finding furniture and other stuff like that that you have to do when you move half way around the world with just a suitcase and 2 guitars. Actually finding a job didn't take all that long, I had a job within a week of getting here so that was very nice. I also managed to find an apartment within a week too so maybe that isn't such a great excuse for not blogging either. Just today I managed to find myself a couch so that excuse won't last much longer either, I go and pick it up tomorrow. I guess the main reason I haven't been blogging so much is that I find it much more interesting chatting with Tiffany in the evenings rather than writing blogs to whoever may happen to read it. Another reason which I find to be a perfectly valid reason for not writing is that I haven't really thought of much to write about, so any blog that I do write is likely to just be a lot of rambling on about nothing in particular, much like this one is turning out to be. I will try and think of a few things I have been doing to actually write about.
I guess for starters maybe I should update you all on the state of coffee in Vancouver. I have found a few changes in the 7 months or so that I have been gone. Firstly there is a new JJBean store now. Previously I would pretty much just go to the Granville Island branch and get a takeout small latte after getting whatever food I was cooking that night. Every now and again I would take the trip out to Main St and have a latte or americano there, it is a nice store out there, but is often very busy and hard to find a seat in the weekend. So anyway this new branch is in Yaletown, very conveniently just down the road from my apartment, I guess it was one of the contributing factors in deciding where to live this year. I have been there a handful of times so far and each time have been served a very nice coffee indeed. Good work JJBean. Another change is the opening of 49th Parallel's store on 4th Ave. 49th Parallel roast a lot of beans that are used by good cafes like the Elysian Room, but until recently did not have a retail outlet. So anyway I was strolling down 4th ave the other day looking for coffee cups (I had just bought a french press and realised I had nothing to drink the coffee in). As it turned out I had left my shopping expedition a smidgen late as the kitchenware shops were closed. However as I was walking down the road I noticed 49th Parallel was still open so decided to stop in to sample their coffee. As I walked in I spied some rather cool coffee cups for sale and decided that they would work wonderfully for my morning coffee and would make a fine addition to my coffee cup collection when I get back to NZ. So I bought a couple of cups and a small latte. Unfortunately the latte was not all that good, in fact it was pretty bad. I think I may still go back again some time though to give them a second chance, maybe I just got the bad barista or something and they are normally much better. I know they have good beans and a fine looking espresso machine, a mistral which is a reskinned La Marzocco, so the potential is there for a great coffee if the barista does their part right.
It has been great catching up with people here again. I enjoyed the couple of weeks I spent staying with Roz and Reuben when I arrived. It is a big help having somewhere to stay on arriving in a new country, especially when you don't know how long it will take to find a job. They have just bought an apartment in the Westend, a nice spot, very handy to squash courts and tennis courts and not too far from the badminton place either. Reuben has started playing badminton on Thursdays and I plan on joining him there. Writing that has actually just reminded me that it is Thursday and I have just missed badminton again, bother. It has been a long time since I have played badminton properly so when I went and joined him a few weeks back I found I was somewhat rusty. Hopefully it won't take too long to get back in to the swing of things. I have enjoyed getting involved again in the bible study I was attending last year, they are a great bunch of people, as are lots of the nice folk at University Chapel. This last Sunday I was pleased to be back playing bass at church again with a great bunch of musicians too which is always nice.
I had intended on going up to Grouse Mountain a few times this week for some evening snowboarding. Unfortunately I came down with a miserable cold on Monday so have been trying not to do too much to aggravate it. It is not so nice snowboarding when your nose is constantly dripping. The snow report has been pretty good this week too, with several nights where a good 12 cm of new snow has accumulated. The cold seems to be getting better now so maybe I will find time over the weekend to head up. I decided to get myself a Y2Play pass this year, it gives me access to Grouse for the rest of this season and all of next season for a very reasonable price.
I am really missing having a camera at the moment. Early Spring is a beautiful time of year in Vancouver with all the flowers starting to bloom. I have been very self controlled so far and not gone out and bought a replacement camera. As I was researching them a month ago I found that a new model in the Canon Rebel series is due to be released in April. I am not planning on upgrading to that model, but hopefully it will help drop the price of the XTi a bit. So sorry you will just have to wait a bit longer to see photos of my latest culinary adventures, or other things I may take photos of.
I guess for starters maybe I should update you all on the state of coffee in Vancouver. I have found a few changes in the 7 months or so that I have been gone. Firstly there is a new JJBean store now. Previously I would pretty much just go to the Granville Island branch and get a takeout small latte after getting whatever food I was cooking that night. Every now and again I would take the trip out to Main St and have a latte or americano there, it is a nice store out there, but is often very busy and hard to find a seat in the weekend. So anyway this new branch is in Yaletown, very conveniently just down the road from my apartment, I guess it was one of the contributing factors in deciding where to live this year. I have been there a handful of times so far and each time have been served a very nice coffee indeed. Good work JJBean. Another change is the opening of 49th Parallel's store on 4th Ave. 49th Parallel roast a lot of beans that are used by good cafes like the Elysian Room, but until recently did not have a retail outlet. So anyway I was strolling down 4th ave the other day looking for coffee cups (I had just bought a french press and realised I had nothing to drink the coffee in). As it turned out I had left my shopping expedition a smidgen late as the kitchenware shops were closed. However as I was walking down the road I noticed 49th Parallel was still open so decided to stop in to sample their coffee. As I walked in I spied some rather cool coffee cups for sale and decided that they would work wonderfully for my morning coffee and would make a fine addition to my coffee cup collection when I get back to NZ. So I bought a couple of cups and a small latte. Unfortunately the latte was not all that good, in fact it was pretty bad. I think I may still go back again some time though to give them a second chance, maybe I just got the bad barista or something and they are normally much better. I know they have good beans and a fine looking espresso machine, a mistral which is a reskinned La Marzocco, so the potential is there for a great coffee if the barista does their part right.
It has been great catching up with people here again. I enjoyed the couple of weeks I spent staying with Roz and Reuben when I arrived. It is a big help having somewhere to stay on arriving in a new country, especially when you don't know how long it will take to find a job. They have just bought an apartment in the Westend, a nice spot, very handy to squash courts and tennis courts and not too far from the badminton place either. Reuben has started playing badminton on Thursdays and I plan on joining him there. Writing that has actually just reminded me that it is Thursday and I have just missed badminton again, bother. It has been a long time since I have played badminton properly so when I went and joined him a few weeks back I found I was somewhat rusty. Hopefully it won't take too long to get back in to the swing of things. I have enjoyed getting involved again in the bible study I was attending last year, they are a great bunch of people, as are lots of the nice folk at University Chapel. This last Sunday I was pleased to be back playing bass at church again with a great bunch of musicians too which is always nice.
I had intended on going up to Grouse Mountain a few times this week for some evening snowboarding. Unfortunately I came down with a miserable cold on Monday so have been trying not to do too much to aggravate it. It is not so nice snowboarding when your nose is constantly dripping. The snow report has been pretty good this week too, with several nights where a good 12 cm of new snow has accumulated. The cold seems to be getting better now so maybe I will find time over the weekend to head up. I decided to get myself a Y2Play pass this year, it gives me access to Grouse for the rest of this season and all of next season for a very reasonable price.
I am really missing having a camera at the moment. Early Spring is a beautiful time of year in Vancouver with all the flowers starting to bloom. I have been very self controlled so far and not gone out and bought a replacement camera. As I was researching them a month ago I found that a new model in the Canon Rebel series is due to be released in April. I am not planning on upgrading to that model, but hopefully it will help drop the price of the XTi a bit. So sorry you will just have to wait a bit longer to see photos of my latest culinary adventures, or other things I may take photos of.
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