Thursday 8 January 2003

So I have celebrated my one month anniversary of Life in Vancouver. One month already gone, I can hear you say…noise levels in London must be suitable down with out me there.

So what have I been up to? LOADS OF COOL STUFF!

Right, so I briefed you on my lovely, slightly zany and very bright housemates? Adam (aka the Canadian guy), Pete, (crazy Zimbabwean), and Sandy (aeronautical engineer by trade & Jess - skipped 3 years of highschool she was so bright). House dynamics are great at the moment. Houses are great. I forgot how cool it is to live in a house with loads of communal space. We have two kick ass 3 – seater-sofas great for days when we load up the DVD player and watch away. My record number of films in one day is 5…. The kitchen is great, so many pots & pans and baking tins, I just can’t keep my hands off them. Yes, Sarah is trying to rival Nigella Lawson as domestic goddess (just don’t have a loaded family as back up…). So cookies, muffins, banana cake, even a playboy bunny shaped cake have all been concocted and devoured. But my favourite room in the house is the BAR! Yes, so whilst it might not be London and I’m not spending several nites a week consuming booze on licensed premises, we do it downstairs instead…Friday 16th Jan, it’s the first party of the year at Personas…(that’s the name of the bar, I can’t remember why though….), it’s painted dark red and blue, kitsch mirrors, mirror ball and coloured lights, 2 nice amps for music…tis fab. Now the party has been and gone, and correct, it was a good night…and this morning as seven of us stumbled the 4 blocks to the café we felt it.

So what else have I been up to:

Snowboarding: right, I’m slowly but surely getting my head around these damn turns. Had a proper lesson the other day, and I haven’t been chucked in the basket case just yet. And I scored the bestest bruise I’ve had in the last 3 years (since I finished playing football)….

Indoor Rock Climbing: Yes, active Sarah is back. Man, I forgot how much you hurt after climbing. But it was good fun none the less. And one day soon I hope to venture back up the wall…

Concerts: Only one at this stage, The Toasters and Los Furios. It was in this cool lil’ venue WISE Hall (Wales, Irish, Scots and English) club. Like a working mens club. Way cool, think dim lighting, lil candles on all the tables…and a whole bunch of people dancing about with the band up on stage.

Theatre: yes, I went and saw one of the shows that Marussia (household friend) is stage manager for. It was excellent. It was called Dissolve, and is about the use of Rohypnol & GBH, for the uninitiated, the infamous date rape drugs. It was a one person show, and whilst it has a certain this is the moral/what are we going to do about it tone, the 8 or so different characters she portrays are executed superbly! The other showed called Pornstar was fantastic! A straight laced librarian receives an invitation to an amateur porn star awards night, turns out she’s been nominated for an award. But how? It goes through a bunch of characters, and links up absolutely perfectly in the end.

Snowmen: just after Christmas Vancouver got very, very cold. And we got some snow. Then just after NYE, it got ultra chilly and dumped bucket loads down. So late one night when the snow was at its peak we built a great upside down snowman, we misjudged the size of our snowballs, putting the smallest one first. SO we built him upside down, and gave him the cutest lil legs, to compliment his lovely olive, carrot and caper face!

Cold: I have broken a few personal best records for being the coldest I have ever been! Early in the new year I went up to Grouse Mountain (for what turned out to be a day of very unsuccessful boarding) and it was –10 out…..brrrrrrrrrrrrr! First time up Cypress it wasn’t much better, cold wise, though it was dumping down with perfect powdery snow…aghghhg (think Homer Simpson drooling at this point….) lot’s of wind, and I was soo glad to have my goggles with me!

Gym: I’m not very motivated to go, but I try and drag myself down there 3 times a week. My gym is called Spartacus!

Classes: Yup, thought I better keep my mind a bit active whilst I’m here so I’m doing Portuguese classes, they start tonight…why Portuguese you ask? To help me get by in Brasil in June….

Job: Blah, seriously, my last job jaded me soo much I’m having trouble trying to motivate myself to get another…but the money has been squandered and should I want to keep doing fun stuff, alas, it is a necessary evil…

So that is about as riveting as my life gets…

How are you folks getting by?