O Canada!

So....

I am currently experiencing West to East jetlag for the first time. Unlike flying west where you get bonus sleep, here the sandman sprinkles plenty of sleep in your eyes but kicks you out of bed! Tomorrow morning I will have to wake up at 2am according to my body. Hmmmm

Anyway, Vancouver was amazing. Something of a bubble though since you could very very easily forget about the rest of the world.

My favourites.

1) A little restaurant called Urban Fare. (On Bute)

Check out the pics on my Facebook profile. It makes you want to eat healthily! Once I discovered it, my meals included an abundance of veg. It even made me want to attempt to overcome my `fear' of messy fruit. To my shame, the only fruit (other than smoothie form) I eat is bananas... don't ask me to give a logical explanation.

So Urban Fare made healthy living an easy option, and served up the most amazing `home-cooked' meals. It also had all you could possibly want from a grocery store, kind of like a Woolworths on crack with some character. In the background they played soft jazz, and the service was about as friendly as you can get.

2) O'Doulls Wine Bar and Restaurant (on Robson)

Served the most amazing buttermilk pancakes (read crumpets). Also had dinner there once which was fantastic with live jazz and friendly service.

3) Friendly Canadians.

Wow. After 2 months of Bermuda where you really feel like you are being done a favour by someone letting you be there customer, the Canadian service was absolutely amazing. A coincidence that the tip was not automatically included? In Bermuda, one restaurant I went to automatically includes an 18% tip, most 15%.

Every time I was served I was asked how my day was. There was always a smile. Canada seems like a happy place.

4) Ice Hockey

The next opportunity I get, I am going to strap some ice-skates on. That I will ever be playing ice-hockey is a stretch, but it looked like an amazing game, and really made me want to get out on the ice.

It was also quite funny. Fighting is allowed! You drop your gloves and stick and you can go at it till you both fall to the ice and the ref stops it. The two games I watched were exhibition games, so there was more fighting than usual. 3 fights in one of the games. Not sure there are any other sports where bare-knuckle fighting is condoned...

5) Amazing Beauty

Vancouver is often compared to Cape Town. They are quite different, but both are really pretty cities. Vancouver probably takes the cake if you exclude the magnificence of Table Mountain and Cape Town beaches... ok, Cape Town takes the cake. Well, ok... I don't know. Cape Town is the chocolate cake and Vancouver is the carrot cake. You are allowed to love both.

Walking around the sea wall was my favourite. More than 10km without crossing a road. You can roller blade, cycle, jog or walk.

Within firing distance are the Rockies, and incredible hikes and rides.

So now.... if it just wasn't so damn far from civilisation (read South Africa ;-))

War and Worldly

Turns out the POWs of the first Boer war were sent to Bermuda. I was out on a boat yesterday wandering in between the islands and we stopped at the Boer Cemetary. A few of them were hit by yellow fever while they were here.

Bizzare, a hundred years on and there were three South Africans climbing the hill to the cemetary in board shorts.

What a world we live in. Really glad I never had to fight in a war... or at least that I haven't had to yet. The idea of being conscipted to fight in a war that I don't necessarily even believe in the ideals of or support the government fills me with dread.

I can very much see myself fighting to defend the ones I love from imminent attack, but the very thought of it makes me feel sick to my stomach that it would have to come to that.

But it does put things in perspective. I was reading a book where a lighty was complaining to his grandmother about how unfair things had been. Not rich enough. Lost a girlfriend. Failed an exam. Lost a job. Didn't get a job he wanted. Something along those lines.

The grans response? `Oh that awful, when your grandfather was your age, he was fighting the Germans'.

It is easy to moan... and the world is a mess. But it is a better place than in `the good old days'.

Bermuda

After a brief lack of posts while I relocated from Jozi to Bermuda, I plan to be back with a bang.

A few first impressions of Bermuda or things that are a little different.

First, the rooves are all made out of quaried stone and collect water from the rain as there are no other sources of fresh water! So it is an island of white rooves.

It is actually very close to the States, less than a two hour flight from New York and Boston. So it is not really in the Bahamas or in the middle of nowhere as I expected. Even though the accent is American, and the currency is pegged to the US dollar, Bermuda is part of the UK. A population of just over 60,000 locals on an island of just over 24 miles squared. You are never more than a mile from the beach!

The water is that blue blue you associate with islands but I haven't had a chance to wander down to the beach yet.

It is very humid, so even the short walk to work this morning left me drenched... so tomorrow I plan on hiring a scooter to get me around.

A quirk... There is a guy named Johnny Barnes who stands at one of the turning circles from 4 am not matter what the weather... just to greet everyone and tell them he loves them! He is not a beggar (my first thought) as he stands at a point where no one could actually stop to give him money. He has been doing this for over 20 years and the bus stop by the circle is named after him. There is even a bronze statue of him about 15 metres down from the turning circle.

A few screws loose surely, but it does add a lot of character. So someone on the island loves me already... I know cause he told me so!