Vancouver Central Library

In a city that has very little history, in the European fountains, churches and pillars tradition, Vancouver Library feels a bit like home in a strange way. Concrete and glass is the staple architectural look around these parts and the modern, actually planned out, squares, grids and blocks system of town planning gets a bit boring after a while.

So the Central Library of VPL takes up an entire block and is full of every genre of book you could want to get your grubby hands on. It is an impressive multi-story building, with an indoor courtyard area on the way in. This is almost European in feel with 'outdoor' cafe seating and cobblestone type paving. It's basically sitting outside on Quay Street in Galway with a ceiling 6 floors above you. And a few more homeless lads shuffling about from time to time.

Hockey, eh?

 This is a real photo and a genuine concern!

I haven't posted here for a while. This is for a number of interesting reasons including but not limited to work demands, having the sniffles and my laptop getting a right b*****d of a virus. Vancouver (in particular the East side where I work) is a particularly bleak place in October and November, when the sun has been replaced by a persistent rain that refuses to make the transformation into snow.

With this in mind myself, herself and a friend from home decided to check out the national sport favourite sport of all Canadians, ice hockey! ***please note, many of the terms, concepts and basic ideas of the sport are mind bottling, so I will explain as best I can with lots of 'pretty much', 'more or less' and 'or something like that'. Also, I'm told Lacrosse is the national sport of Canada.

While the NHL is currently on LOCK OUT (translation: on strike,  more or less) the WHL is still in full swing. The Vancouver Giants are (not exactly but pretty much) a feeder team for the NHL and in particular the Vancouver Canucks. This means tickets are less than 1/3 of the $100 or so price, the stadium is smaller so you can see better, the gameplay isn't quite as fast so noobs can pick it up a bit more and the spectators aren't all drunken/angry/fired up Canadian men.

The Pacific Colliseum. Again, this is a real photo, we were actually here..

The entire experience was all we expected and more. More baffling, at least. Once inside the stadium doors, we were greeted not by denim-clad, mulleted men drinking tiny beers, but by members and parents of a local kids hockey team who were fundraising. Nearby a brass band played Christmas songs beside stalls where you could buy burgers, hot dogs et al, and tiny beers (for $7.50.) By the time we got to our seats (with huge portions of food and a tiny beer) the PA system was blaring rock songs, the announcer excitedly being excited and because of the new experience, we were quite pumped up and ready to roar on our beloved Vancouver Giants.

The other team (and the rest of the 8,997 people did show up

What happened over the next 2-3 hours was exciting, confusing, funny, head-wrecking, blood-pumping and other such diverse words. I'm going to bullet point some aspects of hockey that stuck out.

• The speed and grace of the skating, which is in stark contrast to the violent hits that often rattle the glass around the rink.
• It is very exciting when seen from up close and I could definitely get into watching it as a sport.
• Unfortunately the actual minutes per night of hockey compared to the minutes of 'entertainment', stoppages, 'half' time and commercial breaks (yes, commercial breaks when gameplay is stopped mid flow, seemingly every 3 minutes or so) are enough to drive a man to another tiny beer.
• The music is played by an in-stadium DJ at every stoppage. EVERY STOPPAGE. Often the song is still playing while the game re-commences. 
• On the plus side it does allow for some fun, eg playing "What is Love? Baby don't hurt me.." directly after a fight.
• Kids have no shame and will gladly dance like Beyonce during a song, then bay for blood during a fight.
• Watching players come on and off the bench at speed is almost as entertaining as the game itself at times. I'm guessing if there's too many players on the ice it means a penalty and that leads to some scrambling.
• All players it seems are allowed control the puck with their hands, or at least pluck the puck from the air and throw it quickly to the ice.

The game was divided into three periods, in between each was entertainment including human bowling, a jeep equipped with a t-shirt firing canon, dancers (not cheerleaders, this was a very important distinction it seems) and the best craic of the night, a mini exhibition game by the local kids team. This was the most I've laughed and/or cheered at any event for a long time. Imagine 12 drunken midgets who were blindfolded and given hurleys, on Dancing on Ice, skating to the theme of 'You've Been Framed' and you're halfway there.

We were lucky enough to see both Sudden Death and a Shootout as the game was a Tie. In the end the Giants triumphed in a low scoring shootout and the 9,000 or so crowd cheered a little bit and went home. In terms of atmosphere it's no SoccerBall. But having said that, I think we'll be back.

Vancouver Aquarium

Vancouver Aquarium is right in the middle of Stanley Park, a few minutes from our apartment. It is pretty sweet, especially if you can go on a sunny day. I also got another gig review thrown together, here.

Wild Whales Vancouver

Another excursion ticked off the list! We got up early yesterday and made the trip to Granville Island where we donned our weather-proof boating gear and got aboard the Wild Whales Vancouver 23-person boat and headed south down the coast to spot us some whales. We got an amazing view of the Downtown and Kitsilano on our way out and were soon on the open sea.

Our on-board hippy guide, Crystal tried to keep us entertained with some facts, but a) we could barely hear over the roar of the engine and b) we were too busy taking in all the views. We had chosen the middle seats, which were the least noisy and bumpy, but we did get seawater to the face from time to time. The journey took about 3 hours to get to where they thought the whales were. Some of it is repetitive open sea, but towards the end are an amazing cluster of islands.

On the way there and back we saw wildlife including:

• bald eagles
• harbour seals
• mountain goats/deer

There are a number of spectacular houses on the islands, with outdoor decking, conservatories and lots of glass fronts for sea views. Our journey took us into American waters, off the Seattle coast, so I guess technically I've been to 'merica now.

When we finally got to the area it wasn't long until we spotted our first whale in the distance. There was a mad scramble on the boat as everyone vied for the best position, though we needn't have bothered as the boat drifted around so everyone got a good view in the end. We were lucky in that we saw a large pod of up to or more than ten Orca. Unfortunately they were hugging the coastline and the law abiding Canadians that were in charge wouldn't get closer than allowed, whereas the American boats were practically driving through the group. 'MERICA. The group we saw were resident Orcas. These had to surface for air quite often, which meant we saw them quite often. They weren't very showy however (the feckers) so often we just saw a fin in the distance, and the odd time one would pop his head out or smash the water with his tail.

After an hour (that felt like 10 minutes) it was time to head back, even though we only saw them from a distance I really wanted to see more and have to count myself lucky to have seen whales in the wild, because not everyone can.

I was hoping to see whales a bit closer up and was feeling the price we paid was a little on the steep side so it was an amazing piece of luck that we happened across a transient group of Orcas on the way back. We got much closer and got to see some more behaviours (tail-slaps, etc, basically them getting out of the water). It is also very rare that anyone gets to see both the resident and transient pods in the same day (apparently).

Though the price did seem a bit dear, once I think about it I really couldn't afford NOT to go on this trip. The scenery was unbelievable, the tour guide was great and I have seen whales in the wild now. Sweeet.

Busy Buys, a Birthday and Belugas*

*killer whales actually, I think.

While you can get a lot of stuff free here, sometimes we have to pay cash money. I've bought a mediocre pair of rollerblades off a street stall. They're barely faster than running and it feels like running through quicksand. But that is behind me as I've bought a really good bike today off a guy on craigslist who is moving. I've been looking for a while online but a lot are overpriced, look crap or are clearly stolen. I was a bit wary of this deal as well but I met him, he said he's moving away and he seems legit. Plus his name is Mola, that's not a suspicious name is it?

In any case I bought the bike and he threw in a lock and two helmets. Why two helmets? Well, either he's really dedicated to the moving away/clearing out story and he hired an actress to play his girlfriend, or he is just looking to make some money off everything he can't bring with him. I felt slightly screwed by the rollerblades (even if I did haggle down to ten dollars) so I'm feeling pretty good about this as I've already cycled home and tackled the seawall loop around Stanley Park with no problems. Quite the opposite, actually, it runs pretty perfectly and I'd forgotten how amazing the scenery around the seawall is (I don't do the whole loop on my run, it would take two hours or something that way).

My birthday has been and passed. I hadn't even gotten used to being 25 and now I'm 26 it seems. We went to Capilano Suspension Bridge and Park, another stunning area that is mind-numbingly big. At night we went to a fancy shmancy Italian restaraunt that was really nice and just the right side of pretentious.

Tomorrow we're getting up early to go whale watching! We don't have many days off together so we try to cram as much as possible in when our rosters match up!