Hockey, Birthdays and More Rain!

Hi everyone (and yes it is still raining!).

Thanks to all of you that sent me birthday texts and emails – I have enjoyed having a birthday that spans two days and am thinking about doing it every year, although I am not so sure about this turning 29 business… when the heck did that happen?!?! Mum – can you check my birth certificate cos I am sure there is a mistake!

Anyway… enough on that subject! Since I last wrote I have been a busy little traveler. I am feeling much happier now and settling in to Vancouver. I have a big list of things I want to see and do before I head home, and I am finally remembering what I am doing over here! I must admit that getting a pay-cheque and two days of partial sunshine helped quite a lot with the mood too!

Last Thursday night I met up with James and his fantastic group of friends to watch the Vancouver Canucks play game 5 of the play-offs. They did not manage to win (and James is now banned from toilet breaks during games), but I had a really nice time chatting to everyone and sharing some stories about temping and living in hostels!

On Friday I celebrated my first payday in five weeks and to mark the occasion I headed off to the grocery store to stock up on stuff I have been putting off buying for a few weeks. Not very exciting I admit, but it did feel quite satisfying to have a cupboard full of food and the thought that I could perhaps avoid eating Kraft Dinner for a week! I also checked out another very cheap and tasty Japanese restaurant for my dinner, which was fabulous.

On Saturday morning James and I headed off for a walk in the sunshine to the Science Centre. The Science Centre is in a funny little domed building that looks like a giant golf ball and we had a lot of fun hanging out there for a couple of hours. I managed to beat James in a wheelchair race, although he won the relaxing competition… possibly that was before he realised I had tricked him in to coming to the chocolate exhibition though?! We went to a talk on the history of dark chocolate and ate a very un-tasty cocoa pod, which reminded me of an unfortunate young man Megan, Gillian and I came across a few years back who ate hops on the Speights Brewery tour down in Dunedin! The good news is that in this case we got to wash down the nasty cocoa pod with chocolate so all in all it was probably worth it!

Anyways – after a couple of hours playing at the Science Centre we hit the Canucks store and found some appropriate attire to head out that evening to watch the Canucks again. Sadly, yet again, they lost and forced the play-offs to a seventh game so the shirts do not appear to be lucky ones!!

On Sunday I decided to do a bit of window shopping in preparation for getting some tax back in the next couple of weeks. I had a nice time poking about all the shops and finally headed down to Gastown to get myself a little birthday present – an Inukshuk charm to go on my traveling necklace. I had heard a rumour of a roast dinner at Tracey and Gareths (two of James friends that he has been nice enough to share with me!) so headed around the road to join the gang for a great meal followed by strawberries –bring on the summer fruit I say!!!

Yesterday I took my red handbag to work – its first outing since I bought it back in Washington. I decided that birthday week was the time to break it out and so far it is doing a great job of containing all my stuff! After work my handbag and I headed down to watch the final game of the playoffs, which Vancouver finally took out (after giving us all a fright!) and now the next round of play-offs start on Wednesday… I think I might be getting a little in to the hockey, although I am still not convinced about the need to play ‘best of seven’ all the time!

Last night I met up with James, Tracy, Gareth, Scott, and surprise guest Patrick who turned up from Prince Edward Island a couple of weeks early! We had a fantastic thai meal and I slept very soundly! I can't quite believe that I am at work today - I have never had to work the day after my birthday before (it is a public holiday in New Zealand for those of you in other parts of the world) and I am not sure I like it!

Well that’s all from me folks – hope you are all well and I will write more soon!
C