YVR

I had a fleeting visit to Vancouver earlier in the week. Vancouver is a really beautiful city and the little I saw of Canada has left me with a really good impression. Vancouver reminded me of Sydney - without the Australians. At the same time it reminded me somewhat of Christchurch with lots of similar street names and localities. (This is obviously due to the British influence on both cities.)

While I was there I took in the Granville Island markets. These markets were a hive of activity: lots of meat and produce and food! There was even a little tea stall, so I sat and drank some tea. I had Masala Chai, which is the best stuff I have ever tasted. And it wasn't the crap that comes out of a bottle, it was all hand mixed and it was superb. I also tried some Hawai'ian Rooibos tea with coconut and pineapple in it. So the tea was awesome but I drank so much of it that I needed to pee all afternoon!

The Canadians are really friendly. They are very laid-back and I could definitely see myself living there.Even though I was there only for a short visit, I had a great time and I would love to got back and explore some more.

The Piano

No, this isn't about the movie, but something really quite amusing that happened this weekend. My house-mate (flatmate) Maria bought a piano. Well, in truth she got it for free! And she had wanted a piano, and this was a bargain staring her in the eye, so she grabbed it. And to top it off, the guy selling it said he would deliver it -- also for free. Now, it has been snowing off and on for at least the past week here in Sitka. So, in preparation for the delivery of the piano, Maria's brother-in-law came around on his four-wheeler and ploughed the driveway. In the middle of the morning, along comes the van loaded with about five brute men and a piano. Now, I was inside cooking eggs for everyone's breakfast ('over-easy' - my first time cooking eggs 'over easy', I was just going to scramble the lot of them) so I missed some of the spectacle. But I did get to view the unfolding scene from our third storey window between batches of eggs. You can probably work out how the story goes: snow... living on the third floor... hmmmm. But anyway...

So, the guys in the van decided to drive up the steep driveway in reverse! I don't know if I can even comment on their logic, so I will repeat what Maria's sister Rhonda said: "They're idiots. But at least they're free idiots!"

And alas, they got bogged in the snow! So everyone piles out of the van and stands around and holds a Geneva conference... all this time there is a lot of talking and not much action. I don't quite know how the conversation went, but from what I gather one of the guys finally blew his fuse and said, "We are doing this for free... it would be different if we were getting paid... you're lucky we are even delivering it... whinge whinge whinge." Brian said that at that point we should have told him to take his piano and shove it - or at least dump it in the ocean!

What eventuated next was that the guys drove themselves forward out of the bog and they unloaded the piano right there in the middle of the driveway!

Ah well... I looked down from aloft in our third floor flat at the piano, seemingly stranded in the middle of the driveway. It reminded me somewhat of the iconic scene from the film. We wrapped the piano up in a tarp, and for the moment, we've left it there...

And the snow continues!!

Let it snow...

Well, seemingly from out of nowhere it has started snowing. Like crazy! There have been some huge dumps in the past two days, and I woke up this morning to find the whole place blanketed in deep snow. I couldn't tell you how much exactly, but there is bloody heaps! The whole town is nearly knee-deep in snow. It is very beautiful and even with this snow it isn't too cold.
I think that this is how most people down under imagine Alaska to be: white with snow everywhere! If you look again at the pictures of the Jamestown Bay sunsets and imagine that the scenery is a grayish white, you'll come pretty close to how it looks today! Even with all this snow, though, life continues on as normal for everyone. I was kind of surprised: in New Zealand the whole place would shut down if there was this much snow! But here everyone just gets stuck in and gets on with it. I suppose it reflects how laid back the kiwis are: any excuse to get a day off work.