The Great Outdoors

Greetings from Canada!

How are you? How's your day going so far? Sorry I've just gone all Canadian on you. People are so polite here that it's slightly disconcerting. I read a good description of the difference between Brits and Canadians on a website the other day with some typical examples of conversations:

1st Canadian: How you doing?
2nd Canadian: I’m great buddy. How are you?
1st Canadian: Great
And then they walk away

1st Brit: Hows it going?
2nd Brit: Pretty crap and you?
1st Brit: Bored out of my skull
2nd Brit: Its all bollocks
And then they shrug and walk away

Brit: How was the concert?
Canadian: It was nice, there were lots of people there
Brit: It was crap then? (cos otherwise they would have said it was AWEsome)

I've been here a few weeks now, and have got round to doing some of the more fun things the city has to offer, and definitely some of the more unique things. The most interesting of these is snowboarding. I'd never done it before, not even been skiing, and I was interested in just what was so great about strapping yourself to a plank of wood and chucking yourself off a mountain. It turned out to be the singular most painful thing I've ever done in my life. To begin with, you fall over. A lot. Your bum hurts. Your legs hurt all over the place. Your neck and chest hurts from pulling yourself back up from being flat on your back. And your wrists and arms hurt from falling over on them. Your back hurts just cos it doesn't want to miss out on the fun. However, once you start getting good at it it's pretty cool. Plus it's snowboarding, so it's ultra cool. I couldn't have been any cooler if I'd had a load of snow down my pants. Oh that's right. I did. That hurt too! The unique thing about Grouse Mountain though is that it overlooks Vancouver, and is only a 30 minute journey from downtown to the slopes. As you go down the slope, you can see the whole of the city laid out before you, and it's pretty spectacular. By the end of the first day I felt like I'd been hit by a truck. By the end of my 2nd time I was starting to get the hang of it.

Winter sports are such a big thing over here that you end up desperately trying to get into a culture that you might not have known anything about a few weeks ago, and then being willing to spend stupid amounts of money on it. For example, I just paid £120 for a ski jacket (that at least I can wear around town), and £40 quid on an expensive pair of gloves (that I won't). Some of my friends have splashed out on snowboards and boots which cost a fortune. People have been spending £30 a time watching the Vancouver Canucks play when they'd never seen an ice hockey game until a couple of weeks ago and have no idea what's going on most of the time. Going snowboarding itself costs around £50 a day. All of us are on rubbish wages and tight budgets, so we're all probably as stupid as each other!


Another cool thing I went to the other day was the Vancouver Aquarium. As you'd expect in somewhere like Canada, they've got some pretty cool stuff. But the star attraction was something I've never even heard of before - Beluga Whales. They're really weird. For a start they're white. Also, they're about the size of a big dolphin, and they're shaped like a big blob of fat with a smiley face! Adults love them, kids adore them, and I have to admit I was pretty impressed by them too. While I was watching the dolphin show it actually started to tip it down with snow, which is what I was half-expecting in Canada but what everyone tells me is a freak occurance.



I finally managed to get myself a job, even though I'm just temping at the moment. I'm working for a big communications company called Rogers, which is a bit like a Canadian Vodafone. Unfortunately (for me), I'm working in the mailroom which is not exactly the glamourous life I'd planned. However, I've seen 'The Secret of My Success' with Michael J Fox, and he starts in the mailroom and by the end of the film he's running the company. You might think this is pretty unlikely, but weirdly enough Michael J Fox grew up in Burnaby, the area where I'm working, so I'm convinced it's fate. Didn't know he was Canadian did ya? Probably also didn't know that Jim Carrey, Pamela Anderson, Nelly Furtado, Neil Young, Neve Campbell, John Candy, Kiefer Sutherland, Keanu Reeves and William Shatner were also Canadian? Oh you did? Then I'm sorry to trouble you.

Still looking for a decent apartment. It ain't easy. Hope you're all well and for those of you in the motherland hope you're enjoying the calm breezes of England in March and weren't relying too much on having roofs and fences. Let me know what you've been up to if you get a minute.

Take care,

Jamie