Bits and Pieces. And Han Solo.

We’ve been around Vancouver a bit. And, while nothing we experienced would necessarily call for a dedicated blog post, we still thought it might be nice to share the bulk of it. Someone might get a laugh out of it, who knows. 🙂 

Albert

Albert’s been gleefully trying to bring us into a mental institution out new stuff. For example, he suddenly doesn’t like his oatmeal, or his shredded steak and vegetables. He also doesn’t want to sleep in our bed anymore, because there’s too little space. Whenever he crashes into one of us, he wakes up and makes a terrible ruckus. Which is a bit annoying.

He also doesn’t want to sleep in the scarf, now, because there’s too much to see out in the world. So we go out with him in the mornings (Dogs! Dogs! Flowers! People! Dogs! Dogs!), then let him sleep in the bed, then go out again in the afternoon (Traffic lights! Raccoon! Geese! Squirrels! More dogs!). With that timetable, we don’t get anything else done.

Albert also doesn’t like getting his teeth brushed with simply a clean cloth, anymore. So we bought him a proper tooth brush and proper tooth paste, and now he brushes away. Yeah. They grow up so fast.

IKEA

No family excursion can be complete without a meal in the IKEA restaurant. Well, yes, it can, but certainly not when you’re already in IKEA and they have two restaurants. Wait, what? So, we went to IKEA to buy a high chair for Albert and some other stuff. You all know IKEA. You go up the stairs, and there’s the restaurant, right there, next to the entrance to the Furniture Exhibition area. So we started our tour, knowing full well that it would take us at least an hour to get through. Because IKEA sells a lot of furniture. Five minutes later, after seeing three dining tables and four beds, suddenly, we find ourselves walking up to another restaurant. Now, I could spin a funny tale of how we thought something along the lines of “Wow, american IKEAs are so freakishly big, they have to put several restaurants in, just in case people get lost.” Truth is, IKEA is a bit like Amazon. You walk through, thinking, “Okay, so these are the three hand-picked best-sellers from half the categories they have back home. Where’s the rest, then?” Once I get to meet real Canadians next week, I’ll have to ask them where they buy all their stuff. I’m a bit afraid that their answer might be “Shopping? Yeah, we do that. You know. In actual shops. Where you can walk in and talk to people.” Who in the world would want to do that??

Anyway, the important thing we learned at the IKEA restaurant is this: Albert doesn’t like his oatmeal or his shredded steak and veggies, because he has enough teeth now and wants to finally get to bite his food. So now he eats rice and noodles and diced vegetables and is perfectly happy again. Yay!

Magic, As Explained by Han Solo

The other day, there was this magical golden glow when we went out on our afternoon walk. The whole day, there had been a beautiful mist, covering all of the city in a veil of silence and mystery. Or some such.

To put it in Han Solo’s words (or might they be my own? you will never know!), there was a miserable fog all day long. Getting back to our apartment in the evening, we realized that it was actually a low cloud that we’d been sitting in. Made for a nice view, after all.

Stanley Park

We were in Stanley Park a few times since we came here. But never in the “parky” parts of it. It’s a big chunk of untouched forest, with a reasonably dense web of trails running through it. It’s nice. There’s even a beaver lake hidden in there. (Hidden beaver lake. Or… Hidden hidden beaver lake. No beavers in sight, anywhere.)

So today, we stayed on its fringes, where there are actual parks (quite big!), with playgrounds (haven’t seen ’em), bear cages (no bears), world famous Totem poles (made by artists, not native people, as far as I understand) and a view of Vancouver’s skyline (obscured by the masts of sail yachts, which in turn are obscured by a dense forest of selfie sticks). I think, now that we’ve seen all that, we’ll keep to the trails again.

Also: Bikes!

Taking the bus to work takes roughly 35 minutes. That’s not factoring in how buses here seem to be completely oblivious of a thing called ‘schedule’, and tend to be very late. If they show up at all. Walking takes roughly 50 minutes. Bike ride? I’ll let you know tomorrow, because I just bought a bike. It’s neither as old nor as cheap as I would’ve liked, but you all know my legs. Craigslist and ebay were both really stingy with appropriately sized models. We’re going to order a bike trailer, too, and to look at some bikes for Agnieszka during the week. Maybe we can go on a Thanksgiving-road-trip next weekend. Hooray!

Meeting an Old Friend, Almost

The other day, in Stanley Park, Han suddenly jumps out of his comfy pouch and shouts “Be right back with you!” Of course, I followed him. It turns out, he thought he’d seen his old worst pal Jabba vanish around a corner, and went after him to say hi and exchange some niceties. Yeah, what can I say. It wasn’t Jabba. But the size and color were almost right.

Indian Summer

The Indian Summer is quite limited in the city, but you can see it in some places and it’s quite nice. Especially because, you can see how it’s directly connected to where the sun hits the trees. Here, I have a terribly over-exposed image of a grown-over house. See the shadow of the tree on the right? The leaves on the house are actually still green under there, while the rest is bright red. Science, bitch!

PS

There is now a photo of the painted silos in the post about Granville Island. In case you desperately wanted to see those.