I was given orders just today that I ‘need to update my blog so certain people can keep track of my shenanigans.’ So here it is, the latest instalment of Happy Seizure, an account of the hijinks and  insight into the mind of yours truly.

Since leaving Whistler, the plan of attack was to hit up Nanaimo, since I’d never been there and all the research I did told me it was a pretty bangin’ little town. They had one thing right: little. As for bangin’, well if you’re into industrial towns then yeh, but otherwise it was pretty bland. It never helps to be in a small town when it’s either rainy or a weekend, and as my luck had it, both. It would be a cool little base to drive to other parts of the island or if you wanted to bungy/zipline/etc, though I didn’t have a car and I’d prefer to do some of those activites in much more scenic places.

As such, I only took one photo in Nanaimo. It’s of the bay where the seaplanes were moored.

Actually, I also took a photo of the Ravioli I made. This is how riveting Nanaimo can be.

From there it was down to the totally kick ass city down south, Victoria. Loved the place when I made a short day trip there a few years back so was keen to check it out proper. It feels pretty English to me down there, the style of buildings and I guess even the cool weather to a degree. There wasn’t heaps to do so I managed to fill out a couple days by just soaking it up and relaxing mainly. Went for a few long walks around the place, good times were had.

Fisherman's Wharf is like a little floating village. I want to live on a houseboat like these.

Victoria Harbour

Getting back from Victoria to Vancouver was a bit of a mission. My Greyhound pass is still valid so the plan was to catch the ferry from Victoria to Vancouver, and when I checked the website I kept getting errors. After ringing up Greyhound I found out buses left 5:45am, 7:45am, 9:45am, 11:45am and so on. Keen as mustard (I’m thinking American Mustard… It’s easily the best mustard out there.), I headed to the station for the 9:45… Only to be told the 9:45 is operated by a partner line and my pass wouldn’t work on it. The options were to spend $45 or to wait 2 hours for the Greyhound. The catch was the Greyhound had to go back up to Nanaimo, drop us off at the ferry terminal, then another bus picks us up on the other side. A bit more of a hassle, but hey, it was costing me nothing more than the ferry ride ($14) so I was down with that.

Dropped my stuff at the hostel then went to inspect a house I’m keen to rent for the next 3 weeks before heading south to Florida and Texas. Pretty nice little area down near UBC.

So today is a gorgeous day. No other words to describe it. I’m told Vancouver gets 200 days of rain a year, and I’m hoping the other 165 days are all incredible to make up for it. Went for a bike ride around Stanley Park, highly, highly recommended. Also spotted some wildlife like a seal and some raccoons.

more erections

So cast your mind back to June when I was in Copenhagen and I saw the replica of the little mermaid. Remember how awesome that thing was? Well Vancouver decided they’d try and one-up Denmark by positioning a little woman in their harbour. I love Vancouver, but this has to be one of it’s dumber ideas.

The little woman

The bridge from Stanley Park to North Vancouver. Cool.

There were plenty of other cool things I saw, one that had me truly amazed was the balancing free-standing rocks. Now I’ve heard of this ‘art’ before and thought it sounded pretty awesome, much more looked even more awesome from photos I’ve seen… Now these aren’t as complicated as some I’ve seen pictured, but this was still pretty cool. I even went up to one to try and see just how close it was teetering towards toppling. And then I buggered it up. And then spent about 5 minutes trying as hard as I could to get it back in place because I felt bad for screwing it up. I finally got there, right before almost giving up, but it gave me an appreciation for the people who can do this sort of thing. It’s pretty gnarly. Or at least my simple mind thinks so.

Freestanding rock.

That’s not even a very good example of ones I saw. Oh well.

Raccoon

Outside Vancouver Aquarium. I didn't go in, but I'm planning to save that for another day.

Statues of monks, looking like they're fielding a game of French Cricket.

While I was out riding I got a call from my new pal Andy. Well, I guess he’s gonna be my pal, because he’s the guy whose place I inspected last night and he was calling to tell me I’ve got it:

Not really the house I'll be staying in.

I’m really happy to not have to live out of a hostel for the 3 weeks before I head to Florida with Mel. The house is about 20-25 mins from the city, and close to UBC (my roomies are UBC students). So yeh, awesome news on that front.

And so that’s where we are up to. I hope you are happy, nameless person ordering me to update my blog.

Yours sarcastically,
Max Power.