All things considered

Ok, first off, what Nick said about Canadians coming up for air is a little bit (a lot bit) true. America, while a beautiful country with the friendliest of people and most fattening of foods, in large doses, can be overwhelming for a Canadian. There's something about identical endless stretches of fast food chains and discount department stores in every single small town that just creeps me out a little bit. Why can't we just stick a Tim Hortons next to a zellers and be done with it? And how can so many people talk so much about sports and yet neglect to mention the only one that's worth its weight in ice? I mean sure it's cool to analyze every step (and misstep) that lead to University of Washington upsetting USC (you know you've been in America for a long time when you can make a single college football reference) but what about legions of non-Sid, Al, or Evs who toil on third and fourth lines across the country in complete anonymity? Poor Jordin Tootoo has to bum around Nashville all his life, only ever getting recognized once when some explorer full of recent McGill grads runs in to him at a random bar. It just ain't fair. To be honest, the bay area is actually a hot spot for hockey. They love their sharks here. They're all over the radio and I've even seen at least three people repping Marleau and Co. on their T-shirts.

My favourite thing about America so far is NPR(national public radio). I can't get enough of it. I had a bit of passing flirt with the station this summer when a friend recommended that I listen to "this American life" on the interweb. But after listening to hours of top notch news programming, and cultural analysis, the flirt has become a full on romance or at least a fall fling. It's refreshing for a Canadian, who has been brought up on a fairly heavy dose of inferiority complex-fueled condascension towards americans and their value system(this bringing up was not by my parents but by Canadian Culture in general), to hear a constant barage of such level-headed rational political and social analysis. And everyone's voice is so damn soothing. SUch a pleasure to listen to.

So ya, the trip. We got to Vancouver a week ago and spent three days there. Special thanks to Katherine who showed us around the city one day. Taking us to the sea wall, stanley park, Grandville Island market, and her home neighbourhood of Shaugnessy. Vancouver is such a pristine and beautiful place. It's kind of hard to fathom that it's a city and not some protected national monument made to be an idealized replica of a city. We stayed with our good buddy Matt Charleton who has a 26th floor downtown apartment with a spectacular view. Matt threw a housewarming party which was most definately NOT a sausage-fest (please excuse the vulgar imagery of this term, I swear it's common parlance among the youth of today.) Matt also took us up the grouse gind. A 2km hike straight up stairs. Nick and I were all like yo 2km that's nothing. We been hiking like 17km a day, yowhatever, we got endurance. An hour and twenty minutes and several rest stops later, we reached the top of grouse out of breath. I could barely muster enough energy to take a pic of the incredible view of the Couv. That same night we hunkered back over to North Van for dinner with the Winstanley family. Thanks to Dianne for a delicious pacific salmon meal.

The only part of vancouver that was a little unimpressive was the nightlife. I mean it was cool and ritzy and chichi (or chachi according to monsieur Charle-ton). But like what up with BC liquor prices yall? 7 bucks for domestic taps and 27 for a 12 at the beer store. And not a dive in sight? Maybe we were just in the wrong neighbourhood.

Oh ya I had my first brush with celebrity in Vancouver. I was walking down the street when this way-to-well-dressed to be a crack-head, but crack-head looking nonetheless, with his hood up and his scraggly beard and bushy eyebrows and messed up hair, is staring me down as he walks past me (probably daring me to recognize him). I didn't recognize the guy, but one of the dudes we were with, turned around two minutes later and exclaimed hat we had just seen Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart. I don't rightly know who exactly these people are so I can't verify that this story is 100% true but the dude was 99% and I later picked out the crack-head from a lineup on the cover of some ragmag. Pattinson is not a good looking gentleman. Let me reitirate, he looks like a bum.



We left the Couv, Sunday morning, heading down the coast . We camped in Oregon and then met the pacific coast Highway the next morning. Hwhat a view! Magnificent! and it only gets better as you head south. We camped near a beach in the redwoods, and then headed out to the central attraction of the redwoods, the avenue of the giants, a 37 mile stretch of the biggest trees in the forest (some say the world!) The best way to describe the redwoods is that it looks exactly like the forest moon of endor. Mostly because the redwoods were the location for the forest scenes from return of the Jedi. Nick wanted to re-enact the movie but I refused to put on the ewok costume that Nick keeps in his glove compartment for just such an occasion (don't ask). Seriously, though, these trees are ridiculus. Some of the biggest are about 350 feet and you can't even come close to seeing the top. The trunks are like 15 feet thick. And there are bunch that have fallen (having produced zero noise as there was noone there to hear them hardiharhar). You can see the underside of there roots. Like looking into another world. We drove down through northern california (surprisingly less commercialized than the oregon coast) taking the windy hilly coastal highway. The views and the ocean air, and the azure shallows. Yikes! most beautiful scenery I've ever seen? Quite possibly.

-end transmission-