Stop press: the beard is no more. I don't think it really suited me all that well; my facial hair is neither dark nor thick, and even after four weeks it looked a bit adolescent, a bit like the fluff Kevin Phillips used to sport circa 1997. So I am now clean shaven, courtesy of a rather painful half-hour session with a couple of disposable Bics.
Still taking things at a very relaxed pace here. The sun was shining for my first couple of days but since then it's become a bit more cloudy & windy. (Just like home). I've been out on a couple of pub crawls but otherwise I've been taking it easy. The pub crawls were good fun, out til midnight on Monday and about 3am last night. Vancouver is pretty expensive...I was somewhat dismayed to be charged $7.50 for a Stella in an Irish pub called Doolins, and you're expected to tip the b*st*rds a dollar on top. In the interests of fiscal restraint, I have had to abandon my long-standing commitment to premium lager, and am now reduced to knocking back Harp or Labatts or whatever else I can get.
These pub crawls are always a good mix of nationalities, and that provides plenty of fertile ground for some very frank conversations once everyone's had a drink. People seem to hold the Brits in fairly good regard; it's usually just the Yanks who get a bad press, and nowhere more so than at the hands of the Canadians, all of whom are at pains to distinguish themselves from their illustrious southern neighbours (though not always successfully; I for one can't tell the f*ckers apart, apart from the fact that Canadians insist on ending every sentence with 'eh..?')
The hostel is full of Germans, both staff and visitors, so Euro 2008 is attracting keen interest. The Canadians make heartwarmingly genuine attempts at appearing to be both enthusiastic and knowledgable about 'soccer'; on more than one occasion I've returned to the TV room from a toilet/coffee break to be greeted with 'Hey man,it's one-nothing at the mid-point, eh...?' or something similar. (I have told them they have to say 'nil' instead of 'nothing', although on reflection this is perhaps unfair, as 'one-nowt' is always acceptable in Sunderland and 'nowt' is after all short for 'nothing'.) Another linguistic trifle: I knew the Canadian dollar was referred to as the 'loonie', but I didn't know that they have a two-dollar coin which is more or less officially known as the 'two-nie'. Neat.
There's a English lady here whose job is to set calculus problems for exam papers and textbooks. (Note to any Geordies who might be reading: Calculus is not a Roman emperor, it's a maths thing.) She does all the work on her laptop and just emails it as required on a regular basis. Right now she's in Vancouver, but she's heading to Kenya shortly, where she'll continue to earn her living in the same way. I'm not 100% sure how the income tax thing works, if indeed it does at all, so anonymity has been preserved here; but what a nice way to earn a living! (Eh...?) That's the kind of job I need to get myself on my return, not that returning is prominent in my thoughts just yet.
Barbecue on the beach tonight.
