Vancouver - March - Friday

OK, I'm going to try my best to recount the rest of my trip, but my memory is so awful that this might be a bit sketchy.

I know the first thing we did was go to a toy store at Justin's request. I had never seen anything quite like it. There were literally thousands and thousands of action figures, toys, play sets, everything to do with comics or films or fantasy... All carefully displayed in a maze of shelves and dioramas.



This is just one such display. We spent quite a bit of time in the store, as there was a lot to see in such a small-ish space... comic book characters I'd never even heard of, or that I was sure didn't actually exist, from weird variations of popular characters (like Zombie Spider-Man)... this place had it all.

Now, here's where my memory gets a little foggy. I'm pretty sure we went for ice cream next but I may be missing something. I also can't remember what kind of ice cream I had, but I'm sure it was good. One thing I do know is that we went straight from the ice cream place to a nearby mall, where we visited many shops, including Toys R Us to look at yet MORE toys. How old are we again?

Oh, one thing I forgot to mention... Josh and Rigor (Steve) had stayed with Al the night before, after a long trip from St. Louis and Clarksville respectively. So what do you think he did for them in the morning? Cook them a nice hearty breakfast? Let them have a nice lie-in (which apparently is a British phrase, as when I said it to Dan and Scott later in the week I had to explain what the heck I was talking about)? Of course not, silly, he had them come to the gym with him, first thing. WOW. OK. Remind me to never stay with Al.

So anywho, myself, Rigor, Justin and Alex #2 ended up on a sidewalk in Vancouver waiting on other people to get there. I wish I could remember more details. I do know that on Friday we ate an Mongolie Grill, a place I was familiar with from last year - and was very eager to reaquaint myself with. The concept of the place is simple - grab a metal bowl, go to a bar featuring many varieties of raw meats marinated in various sauces, add veggies and salad (if you want to, so that was a "no" for me), add kidney beans (yes please), noodles, add more sauce, and hand it all to the chef, who is waiting behind a metal bar. You are then given the chance to guess the exact price of your bowl of raw food, and if you get it right, you get money off. Nobody came close this time, but last year Billy was just 10c off. After it's weighed and you get a ticket to give to the waitress, the chef tosses your food onto a huge metal hot plate and cooks in right in front of you. It's fantastic, and I wish we had places like it in England.

While I was waiting for my food, Kyle appeared out of nowhere to say hello. Kyle is also known by his wrestling name Lenny D, and we would be wrestling on Sunday. He was exactly how I remembered from last year; outrageous, friendly and hilarious. Unlike last year, he was sporting a pair of cauliflour ears from his main hobby of mixed martial arts fighting. It's strange, I know he's probably one of the toughest guys I'll ever meet, but he's also one of the most entertaining and open, too.

Somewhere later on in the day, myself, Dan, his girlfriend Xu (pronounced shoo), Rigor, Kyle and Alex #2 went into town to go to a gig. The band was called the Red Sparrowes; Dan had pointed me in the direction of some of their tracks before I came over and I was looking forward to seeing a gig with these guys. In a weird cooincidence, the night before, Dan, Alex #2 and I had been talking about our concert experiences (specifically seeing Tool, something we all have in common). For the life of me I couldn't remember the name of the band who supported them in the Manchester Apollo in the summer of last year, but not to be deterred by my usual lack of recollecting skills, Dan was on the internet as quick as a flash looking up the gig in question. After looking at a few pages, Dan came across the answer. "Was the band called Russian Circles?" "YES! That's it, Russian Circles!" "Okay... well, you're going to see them again tomorrow, because they're supporting the Red Sparrowes." Talk about a weird coincidence.

As it happened, I didn't see Russian Circles a second time after all, as I had neglected to bring my passport out with me to the gig, and the doorman was rather unimpressed with my University pass with no DOB on it and my Stockport Council 16+ card from 5 years ago. Luckily, Dan called up Justin, and not long after, Al and Scott arrived to take me to Justin's house, where everyone else was, instead. I am a little disappointed that I didn't get to see a gig with Dan & co. but I decided not to dwell on it and instead concentrated on enjoying my night at Justin's place.

On the drive back, Scott handed me a piece of gum; I'm not usually a gum person, but I guess I was feeling adventurous, so I popped it in my mouth and began to chew. "URGH! It tastes like.... SOAP!" Al and Scott laughed as Scott passed me the gum packet; "Thrills: They Still Taste Like Soap!" What the hell kind of gum tastes like soap? Totally gross.

We got back to Justin's and they were already in full Rock Band swing, playing as a band they had named "Don't Be a Fag, Bro" in honour of a phrase said by Josh, doing an impression over the phone of Joe Gonad (who was yet to arrive in Vancouver) for Nick Price's answering machine. I'm not sure if I explained that very well, but it was a pretty funny in-joke when Jash retold it for us. Anywho, the band name led to several amusing moments as cutscenes between songs unvieled the "Don't Be a Fag, Bro" tour bus, the "Don't Be a Fag, Bro" best selling record sleeve and of course the "Don't Be a Fag, Bro" Hollywood Walk of Fame star. Several people turned up at Justin's house, including the incomparable Lucas Funk, aka Zeus McFly, who Billy had wrestled in an epic match last year. Zeus is a funny guy, but I'm not sure I can ever forgive him for the single worst attempt at singing ever when he single-handedly destroyed "Highway Star" by Deep Purple on Rock Band. I've heard cats sing better.

Eventually the guys who did manage to get into the gig came back. Dan had very kindly brought back some souvenirs from the gig for me even though I couldn't get in. The fun times continued at Justin's, including a conversation between myself and Rigor with me using a stereotypical southern accent and him using what I guess he thought was an English accent (but it was more Australian, I thought). This seemed to amuse Xu and Alex #2 a great deal.

Now, here comes another huge gap in memory. Somehow me, Dan, Alex #2 and Josh ended up back at Dan's house, where we met Drew Cordeiro and Mike Coutts (aka Kootz) from Rhode Island, Joe from Detroit (although he is actually from Tennessee and a friend of Rigor's) and Bill, aka Kingpin, my huge and hugely lovable friend from Seattle, who had picked the trio up from Seattle Airport and driven them all to Vancouver. My recollection of the night from this point is extremely vague so I'm going to leave it at that for now.

What I did in Vancouver (as best I remember) - Thursday

Thursday:
Dan had to work, so I was alone in his house until about quarter to 5. This was fine by me because it gave me chance to adjust to the timezone changes after my 24 hour journey the previous day. Dan had left me a key, so I decided to go and explore the area rather than keep myself cooped up all day. This wasn't as adventurous as it might sound, because of course I'd been there before and could vaguely remember the place.

I found the local shops and took the chance to grab my first Canadian meal... OK, so technically my Tim Horton's in Montreal was my first Canadian meal, but I mean in Vancouver. So anyway, it was at Quizno's... Yeah, they have those in England too, but not very many. I can think of just one in Manchester. I was served by a nice lady who immediately noticed my accent; turns out she's from Poland, so we had a friendly chat about Europe/Canada. I visited a few more shops and came back to Dan's house with some shower gel (which would see much use from all the other fly-ins to Dan's house later in the week), a bag of kettle chips (very nice), some toothpaste (how did I manage to pack my toothbrush but forget toothpaste?!) and a couple of combs (they came in a double pack, I didn't actually think I needed two). The combs ended up creating some memorable moments that week, funnily enough.

I spent the rest of the day playing Guitar Hero & Fire Pro Wrestling on Dan's Playstation, as well as writing my previous blog. When Dan came home, we played a few rounds of Guitar Hero, as he had aquired Justin's old guitar, so we could do face-offs and the like. The original plan for the evening had been to go to some carnival that was in town with a friend of Dan's girlfriend, but it seemed in doubt, as Xu herself (Dan's gf) was ill, so it would just be the three of us. In the end the outing was called off, but I didn't mind too much, as it meant we got to go to dinner with Justin and Scott.

So we took the long drive to Justin's house (the distances these people live from each other is quite weird, I think we drove for about 45 minutes which is the time it takes, I was told later in the week by Drew, to drive from one side of Rhode Island to another). When we got there, I was really happy to see Scott and Chuey again, and almost straight away it felt like I'd never left last year. We headed right out to a BBQ restaurant called Memphis Blues (which apparently is not thought kindly of by anyone called Steve) but had to wait about 15 minutes before we could get a table. When a waitress came outside to find a different party which had been waiting and couldn't find them, we were given their table.
"I think one of them was a veggie, so they might not be coming back," explained the waitress. Scott replied, with a mock tone of concern, "...you mean, in a wheelchair?"

Scott & humour 1, good taste and decency 0.

Before long the four of us were sharing a huge platter of various meat and southern style fixin's, and discussing the weekend ahead. I had been slated to wrestle Scott, but it turned out that Scott had broken his thumb in a match the weekend before at the hands of Mitch/Mitch Deppen/Mercury. After explaining why the original plan of Lenny D (Kyle) vs. his real life brother Chris Mason (Kevin) wasn't going to happen after all, the VCW boys booked me vs. Kyle. Not a bad booking considering he has about 2 matches a year, and I would be getting one of them.

We went back to Justin's house and I was introduced to the world's most bizarre hall/staircase, which was not carpeted but had a stone floor. Not just a flat even stone floor, but, like, little black pebbles. It was not a very comfortable walking experience but I was glad to be at least wearing socks... I wonder how many pairs of socks Justin and his family get through, though.

I watched the last episode of the half-season of LOST with Justin and Scott while Dan practiced playing guitar, him not being big into LOST. During the breaks, we watched parts of a video on YouTube featuring various opening scenes from CSI Miami, where the main character says something ridiculously cheesy while removing his shades, followed by the scream from "Won't Get Fooled Again" by The Who. E.g. "You know what they say, Frank... (puts on shades) ...Speed kills." "YYEEEAAAOW!"


As soon as LOST was over, Dan had set up a game of Dream Phone, which he was very insistant that we should play. It seems the Dream Phone advert is a retro classic (), so yes, we played Dream Phone...! Dan meticulously laid out how the game worked and the rules, only for us to get 10 minutes into a game when he accidentally pressed the wrong button on the phone, resetting the game. GAH!

Eventually Dan came out victorious and we moved on to the much more manly game of Rock Band; if you've never heard of Rock Band, well, it's a simple concept... You take Guitar Hero and add a bass guitar, drums and a singer. It sounds OTT but trust me, it's a lot of fun when you have 4 people playing together.

This is where someone else who was there is going to have to fill in the blanks a bit. I'm sure we somehow ended up back at Dan's house, where Al, Rigor, Josh and Alex 2 (AMP from Iowa) were waiting for us, having just driven from Seattle. Josh and Rigor (or Steve, who doesn't like Memphis Blues) went back with Al and myself, Alex and Dan played more Guitar Hero. The highlight of this session was the discovery of how to completely ruin "When You Were Young" by The Killers by holding down the whammy bar all the way through the song.

i was going to write about my whole week but I went into a lot more detail than anticipated, so I'll cut it short here and maybe do a day per post.


UNTIL NEXT TIME...!

Alex's journey to Vancouver

As often happens to me, I woke up several minutes before my really early alarm was set to go off; I must have an accurate body clock or something (or a slightly early one). I think I'll stick to using my phone's alarm clock anyway. I decided to wait until my alarm went off before I got out of bed (the alarm was set for 5:45 am), and was just settling in to an ill-advised lie-in when I was jolted up by flashing lights. Startled, my first thought was that Lee, my housemate, had forgotten about the fact that the fire alarm is connected to the landing light and that flicking that light on and off causes the alarm to go off, so I braced myself for the wail of the fire alarm... When it was not forthcoming, I realised that it was in fact my bedroom light he was flicking on and off.

Lee is experienced with early morning wake-ups and had agreed the night before to help me out in getting up and ready in time. He let me take the first shower, and when I got downstairs my breakfast (or the parts making up my breakfast) were all laid out for me, having put them there ready the night before. At about 6:30 Lee dropped me off at Hazel Grove station en route to his work, and I sat on the train for 20 minutes reading a newspaper before it set off on the short first leg of my trip: Stockport station.

My train from Stockport to London Euston was the fastest of the day (just under 2 hours) because it doesn't stop anywhere else. As a result all the reserve seats had already sold out by the time I tried to book one two days earlier, so I had to take my chances. After walking all the way down the non-1st class carriages I found a seat, but felt somewhat guilty about making the man next to me stand up so I could sit next to him (he had a walking stick and took a bit of time to get himself moving). I don't think he really minded though... And he could have just moved over to the window seat. What really annoys me about these Virgin trains is how half the train is 1st class; fewer people can get into each carriage and usually half the seats aren't being used anyway, meaning there are always people (usually students and the like) having to stand up in the vestibules, which smell like crap (literally). They shouldn't have spent so much on the fancy space-age design of the interior and put something aside for proper on-board sewage management.

When I walked into the main area in Euston, I was struck by the sheer number of people there. Euston isn't a small station by any means, but you could hardly move for people. It has always baffled me how there is absolutely a finite number of people on this planet, yet in a place like this it doesn't seem that way. Nobody could ever meet or know all the people in that station, let alone the world, so I think my mind just likes to round up those kind of numbers to "as near to infinite as makes no difference".

I got the tube to Green Park without much incident (except for the woman who was in a hurry to get on the tube before the beeping doors shut and ran full pelt into me, burying me into the crowded train... which was fun, actually) and within a few minutes was on my way to Heathrow Airport. I spent some of this trip people-watching, but most of it laughing at the underground station "Cockfosters". With the journey to the airport over without incident, I stepped into terminal 3 hoping the whole trip would be as smooth.

I took advantage of the fancy self-service check-in machines, thinking I was really clever by scanning my passport and entering a code from my printed out itinery sheet to get my boarding passes. I was even able to check seat availability on each of my flights... The first one was completely full so I was stuck with my aisle seat (I didn't mind having an aisle seat particularly, mind), while the second flight had maybe 5 free seats to choose from; I stuck with the window seat I'd been given though, for variety's sake. I then advised a nice Canadian (I'm guessing) lady (guessing about the nationality, not the gender) about how to use the machine, which she was very appreciative of, even lending me a pen with which to fill in my bag tag. As I waited and waited for the huge family in front of me to have their bags checked in, I started to wonder if this really was the fastest way of doing thinfs after all, but I think it was an isolated incident. After they had checked a couple of their bags in it emerged that they hadn't used the machine yet, so I had to wait there while they did so (the Canadian woman told me I was far too polite for just waiting my turn, I told her I was just British).

When I got through security I killed time by revisiting all the spots we had seen in that area last year... The huge display of booze which nearly caused Billy to blow his whole Canada budget before even getting there; the Beef Eater statue Steve had posed for a picture with; the Dixons where Billy had made a quick logo with Photoshop on a laptop, causing Jon much embarrassment; the café where we had eaten pizza and pasta before our flight... The only thing missing was the red super car Billy was so astounded by... I guess someone must have won it between now and last year. I even went on the same internet machine thing, although I didn't have a 7-0 Xpert Eleven victory over Steve to rub in his face this time.

I eventually got on the plane, and had almost settled into my seat when a hostie asked if I wouldn't mind moving across the aisle so that a family of 3 could sit together. This turned out to be a good thing, as I ended up sat next to a nice woman for the flight. No, I'm not being pervy, let me explain. For the first short part of the flight we sat politely ignoring each other as strangers do, but eventually we exchanged pleasantries about how we both regretted not eating anything in the airport, both being hungry by this point. When a hostie next passed by, the woman asked a question about meals in perfect French; this got us talking, and it turned out she was from Paris, working as a French teacher in London. Thinking back, it should have been obvious, because she looked exactly like you would expect a young Parisian woman to look. I won't go into much detail though otherwise I might start gushing about how pretty she was. Anyway, she was very friendly and we spoke for a good chunk of the flight. Oh, and her name was Lea, said the same way as Princess Leia from Star Wars.

When she decided it would be a good idea for her to try to get some sleep, I began reading my book: Chris Jericho's new book, actually, and as usual with these types of things, I was hooked right away. I read it non-stop for the rest of the flight (except during turbulance when I was just gripping it very hard). Oh, and we did get a meal: Chckienbreast a la Marinara according to the lid. The chicken itself wasn't great but was at least edible, and I do like a marinara sauce, so it was OK. It came with what looked like oversized yellow rice and had the texture of pasta...? Answers on a postcard.

When I got off the plane in snowy Montreal and walked around the corner in the terminal, I said out loud "Ooooh dear." It was going to take all of my British queuing ability to withstand a customs line like this. But when I went down the escalator I noticed a sign (written first in French) saying "Connections to Canada", and asked a nearby member of staff if this was the way to go, which of course it was. So I followed the path marked out by barriers... AROUND the huge queue of people waiting to get to the Customs desk! I once agian had to speak out loud; "This is great!" A sentiment which several of my co-connecting to Canada travelers agreed with as we strode past the monsterous queue. I had to supress a laugh though, when a little boy in front of me ducked under a barrier and took off towards the huge crowd of people; without missing a beat or even really looking in his direction, the boy's father reached over and plucked him up by the back of his shirt, and plonked him back on track. Another man next to me couldn't contain his own laughter at it though. Written down it doesn't sound funny... Oh well.

I was pretty cheery at this point, but as I approached the desk I kept remembering the nightmare of going through Customs and being sent to Immigration last time. So then, here is a transcript of my dramatic return encounter with Canadian customs:

Him: Where are you going today?
Me: Vancouver.
Him: Where did you come from?
Me: London.
Him: Why are you traveling into Canada?
Me: Holiday.
Him: How long for?
Me: A week.
Him: Who are you staying with?
Me: A friend.
Him: What do you do back in England?
Me: Student.
Him: *stamp stamp stamp* Have a nice stay in Canada, sir.

THAT WAS IT! No "have you met this friend before?" No "you're not a criminal, are you?" No immigration, no follow up questions, no nothing! Things could have been so different last time! Oh well, at least this time it was stress free.

I had 2 and a half hours to kill in Montreal, so I went to find some food. I walked past a place called Moe's, but it looked busy (what did I care? I had 2 and a half freaking hours to kill) so I opted for Tim Horton's. After a really rather nice ham and "swiss" sandwich (ham sandwiches are greatly improved with mayo and I am glad that I've discovered my liking for it) and a REALLY good donut and hot chocolate, I sat down at my gate and dived back into my Jericho book. Up until this point I had been doing pretty well, but now it was about half 10 at night UK time and I could feel my eyes getting heavy. My plan had been to stay awake the whole trip on the basis that I was landing in Vancouver at 10:40 pm local time and it would be time to sleep by then anyway, so I could quickly adjust to the time difference. But when I got onto my last flight, I started having doubts. Mentally I felt fine, but if I got too comfortable and let my eyes close for a second, I could feel myself drifting off. I took 2 steps to solve this issue;

1. Order Coca Cola from a hostie, and
2. Listen to loud music.

The coke instantly perked me back up, and I got stuck into my second ever listening session to the new In Flames album "A Sense Of Purpose". I'm still not sure about it, but I'm pretty bad at putting into words what I do and don't like with my music so I'll leave it at that. The little tune for their 8 minute experiment "The Chosen Pessemist" has been stuck in my head ever since though. I also had another listen to R.E.M's latest, "Accelerate", which I've already decided I really like. The coke suger/caffiene boost soon wore off and I was back to square one again, but I soon got another shot of caffiene in me and spend the rest of the trip watching episodes of Red Dwarf and the X Files (filmed in Vancouver!) on my Zen.

I was relieved to finally arrive in Vancouver, and just in the nick of time: I'd finally drifted off on our descent but was awoken as we touched the ground. I wandered into the baggage claim area and was soon spotted a familiar face walking in my direction: Lea! No, not really, it was Dan, my Canadian friend and host, an even more welcoming sight at the end of my 24 hour journey. He drove me back to his house and we talked about the week ahead, amongst other things. By the time we got back to his house, we were both ready to hit the hay (luckily, though, he has actual beds and not hay). With "The Chosen Pessemist" still running through my head, I settled in to finally sleep, with the home local time being 6:30 am.

Epilogue: I woke up today at 6:30 local time. Stupid body clock.