Suupp?
Been a busy few days for us in Vancouver, still no work at the moment which sucks but there a TON of painting jobs that are available so we're crossing our fingers. This would be sweet for us because we would work mon-fri 8-4ish and have the weekends to get crunk and enjoy Canada! Shaweet. Also applied to become a sponsored poker player, I doubt this will happen.
Soooo what've we been up to? We've done a lot of basic stuff: library cards (free internet pew pew), safeways club cards (cheap food peeewww peeeeew), banks accounts, cell phones and registering for SIN numbers (NI equivalent). Productive.
You may or may not have heard we were involved in a bank robbery. I wish I could say we were involved in an AWESOME bank robbery where five guys came in in balaclavas with shotguns and demanding money, took hostages and there was a shoot out. The truth, however, is a little pathetic to be fair. We were sat with our Canadian bank manager (brenda - very VERY chatty!)and she went to copy some documents for our accounts, when she came back she says "Good news and bad news - good news is your accounts are done, up and running. Bad news is, we had a note hadover robbery whilst you were here, did you see anything?" We're like...whuts one of those then? Apparantly its quite common and its where some desperate junkie comes in and hands over a note that simply says they are being robbed and to hand over any money. How gay. It's so stupid though, they don't have any plastic glass or anything to protect their tellers (clerks) so if it was a real robbery they're in trouble! Oh well.
Just wish we had money to put in our accounts!
Now one thing that is VERY predominant in vancouver is Asian culture. The city is populated with a 53% asian community! That's over freaking half! So everywhere you go it's SUSHI SUSHI SUSHI!!!!!! I HATE sushi. Apparantly there are 4 sushi bars to every normal bar in vancouver. Crazy huh? But when Ross and his Girlfriend Maggie invited us for sushi, considering how anti-social job hunting is, we jumped at the chance. We went to a place called the eatery, which is a pretty posh sushi restaurant in Kitsilano (which is where were staying). When we walked in they had a GIANT aquaman figurine hanging from the ceiling, I was going nuts, it was sooooo cool. Mossy didn't know who aquaman was. Top lol. I didn't wanna eat sushi so I had some beef alternative with rice which was BEAUTIFUL. Mossy had chicken teriyaki, which also very nice. Ross and Maggie let us try their sushi rolls, I did not like (did I mention that I hate this stuff?) but mossy was quite impressed. Probably because he's a gay.
After our sushi experience, we headed to a bar where we had our first taste of hockey since we arrived. Vancouver has a team called the Canucks, and they were playing a team called the Colorado Avalanches. Being in Canada watching a local hockey team is an amazing experience. Everyone is loving every minute and it's so fast paced that it's not to get absorbed. I hadn't really seen much hockey (except for a Manchester Storm game I caught at Manchester GMEX when they were sponsored by Adidas and Steve scored us tickets) but I am hooked! Canucks lost the game on penalties which sucked but we're (I'm a fan now you see? I use the inclusive "we") still in line for a playoff position and we're having the best season we've had for a long time.
GO CANUCKS!
So that was fun.
Next day we had our orientation with SWAP, our Canadian "minders". It was good, not very exciting and not much to tell. They told us about a Scavenger hunt event they were having and we thought it could be fun and a good chance to meet new people...we weren't exactly optomistic when we saw the sign up sheet...our names plus one other. What a lol this was going to be.
So the hunt was yesterday, it started at 3pm and we didn't actually remember until 2:30 that we were supposed to be there. Oops! A quick dash to the bus and a brisk stroll through town got us there for 3:10 and there was a decent turn out: 27 people. Pow. They split us into random teams of 4 which was GREAT because it meant me and mossy got seperated (for the first time since we arrived!) and we headed off into town with our maps, cameras and hunting lists.
I was with a german girl called sophie, and ozzie bird called Ellyce and an english lad Alex. We were called team Megatron. Mossy is going to write about his team and his day when I've done my bit here. We take it in turns because we're friends.
So, team megatron legged it from the swap office and headed to downtown vancouver. Such a great day, I'm not gonna go too much into detail, and I don't know what mossy is gonna add to it, but we just had a lot of fun taking random pictures with strangers and getting to know each other.
The hunt ended at a nice irish bar, the blarney stone, where SWAP had sorted us out with a free beer each and then they were going to announce the winners who would get food prizes. Team megatron, optimistic as ever, thought we were going to come around the bottom since we didn't even manage to finish the list so we were shocked when it was announced that we'd come second!!!!!!!!!!!!! OH YEAHHH!!! We won free appetizers each, but we couldn't use them on that day. lol. Although somehow mossy managed to cash mine so we got free chicken and chips (and yes, that is an appetizer!).
We organised to go out with some of the guys and girls we'd met from SWAP that night, so we went home got changed and headed to town to get our dancing shoes on. We met at a bar called Tonic, we paid $14 bucks to get in and it was VERY quiet when we arrived. Disaster! But it filled up nicely and ended up being a really great night. We got pretty drunk, danced a little and came home at like 1am (in vancouver, kicking out is 2am so that's pretty late considering the jet lag still).
So yeah. All in all its been a very good few days. We're still feeling the heat of getting a job and it is depressing but we're enjoying ourselves and that's the main thing I guess.
This is pretty long so I'm gonna sign off now. Don't think mossy wants to add his little bit because we've been typing, writing and that all day. We'll see what happens when I click save.
Anyways, stay cool guys and good night!
Dan and Moss.
