Wow times flying, I can't believe it's been over a week already since our last blog... Time for another weekly roundup then :)

Wednesday 20.03.13:
The first day of spring started out gloomy & overcast but actually brightened up quite nicely by lunchtime. One thing we have noticed here is that the weather can change a lot over the course of one day. You might wake up to an overcast day, then by lunchtime it's gorgeous & sunny (sometimes even warm), but then by late afternoon it's turned cold and cloudy again. So we decided to make the most out of the sunshine and finally head down to check out Stanley Park - for those who don't know, it's a 404.9 hectare (1,001 acre) urban park bordering downtown (thanks Wikipedia). I didn't realise till I just googled it now but it's actually bigger than New York's Central Park so there's a lot of exploring to be done there! It was about a 30min walk to even get there from home but we hadn't been out that way yet so we decided to do walk anyway to check out the neighbourhood. We headed down through Davie Village & West End before arriving down at Stanley Park. It really is beautiful - Benny was in his element with all the photo ops & gorgeous scenery. We had a look at English Bay, Second Beach and Lost Lagoon Lake (heaps of wildlife) before heading over to the Stanley Park Pavillion for some lunch - all this walking is hungry work you know! So we arrived there starving only to find it was closed due to filming - we had a little snoop but couldn't see what they were filming... Soo we kept walking through the park to Lumbermans Arch Cafe and had cheeseburgers (real burgers - yum) for lunch. By now it had turned cold again & the sky was threatening rain - since we were about 40mins from home without an umbrella we decided to head back home through Coal Harbour & Downtown. Plus Ben had decided today was the day to wear his new shoes and after trekking around roughly 10km they were giving him grief & he was well & truly ready to go home. We got a bit of drizzle on the way home & by the time we arrived it was nearly 4pm and cold, miserable & rainy again. Just part of the adventure hey!

Thursday 21.03.13:
Happy birthday Big Les :)
Benny had finally bought some new runners so we started the morning with a walk/jog around False Creek past the casino, scienceworld & olympic village. It was a really crisp, sunny, nice morning to be out & about. Once we got home we got stuck into some online campervan research, scouring classifieds to find something suitable for us. We sent off a few emails and decided to take a break for lunch. There's a great BBQ pub place right across from us - the Back Forty - they have their own meat smoker in the parking lot & smoke all their own meats so it smells awesome when you walk past. We'd been dying to try them out so we headed over there for lunch & wow we were not disappointed. We both had different types of smoky pulled pork burgers & they were so good! Yum! After lunch we waddled home lol and had a quiet afternoon looking for vans on the net & reading etc. Also Ben's licence arrived in the mail today - yay! :)

Friday 22.03.13:
We'd found a couple of surf/snow/ski shops close together in the Kitsilano area (across False Creek) that we wanted to check out so when Friday dawned sunny & clear we decided it was a great day to go for it. We caught the ferry over to Granville Island and walked up to Kitsilano. We checked out about 5 or 6 shops and not once did the staff even greet us while we were in any of them. I was blown away by the lack of customer service there.... The staff seemed more interested in talking amongst themselves & if you did approach one of them it felt as though you were a hassle. In one of the stores the staff were watching YouTube videos downstairs at the counter while we roamed around upstairs... It's funny to look back on now but at the time it was just annoying as we were seriously on the hunt for snow gear, but when no-one would help us I just got annoyed & didn't want to buy anything out of principle ha. So we left the shops empty handed and went for a walk around Kitsilano - it's quite a nice area. We had lunch at Subway - yes it tastes exactly the same as Oz - and then came home to do some washing. We had chicken sausages, mash & vegies for dinner - the sausages are pretty different here. It's almost like there's no fat in them, which is probably better for you, but the taste & texture is very different to what we're used to at home.

Saturday 23.03.13:
Our first point of call today was to go & open a bank account - the banks are open Sat & Sun here. We went into our bank of choice CIBC & couldn't get an appointment right away so made one for later in the day. After yesterday's shopping experience we were still on the hunt for snow gear so we headed to the mall downtown - Pacific Centre. Ben got pants & jacket and I only got a jacket. Because its the end of winter the snow gear was all on sale so we got some good deals, but the downside was that there wasn't much of a range left (hence why I wasn't able to find any pants). We got some hot dogs for lunch & then headed back to the bank for our appointment & opened our bank account. It was a super simple process & we were done and out of there in about 15mins.

Sunday 24.03.13:
We started our Sunday with a nice relaxed brunch at the Back Forty. I had the eggs benedict with smoky bacon & Ben had the back forty brisket sandwich - both were so delicious, I ate waaay too much. It was a beautiful day out so we wandered around Yaletown (our neighbourhood) afterwards to work off our meals. We ended up crossing the Cambie Bridge into the 'main' area of Vancouver for a look around. We had a stickybeak in Canadian Tyre which is not a tyre shop but more of a cross between Kmart, Bunnings & a sports store. Next door to that was Best Buy which is an electrical store like Harvey Norman. Instead of crossing back over the bridge we walked back around False Creek, stopping for a wander around Olympic Village (where all the athletes stayed during the 2010 Winter Olympics). If only we weren't eating so much I'm sure we would've lost 10kg with all of the walking we're doing haha.

Monday 25.03.13:
Another perfect sunny day today, the weather seems to have turned for the better this week. We caught the Skytrain out to Metrotown again to do a bit of shopping. We picked up a small 'point & shoot' water/shock/snow proof camera and printed out our hockey tickets for tomorrow night. Then we walked a few blocks to where we'd arranged to have a look at an RV that was for sale. The guy selling it was super nice, answered all our questions & let us take as long as we wanted to look at it. In the end we thought it was a bit old & in pretty poor condition for what we wanted it for. I could've seen us camping for a weekend in it, but we weren't really comfortable with the idea of driving it 1000's of kms around canada. I'm not too sure the old girl would've made it... By now we're itching to get out on the road & can't wait to get a van or RV - hoping something comes up soon!!!!

Tuesday 26.03.13:
Happy birthday Grandma!! Hope Addo made you a cheesecake for a change hahaha! :)
Today we had a quiet day at home searching the net for RV's & campervans. I think we're both starting to freak out that we might not actually find anything before we're due to check out of here on Sunday! Might be time to work out a backup plan... The highlight of the day was our first hockey game that night - Vancouver Canucks vs Columbus Blue Jackets. It was such an awesome atmosphere, I just love seeing live games, it's so fun to see the crowd get right into it! It was a pretty intense game, heaps of shots on goal (attempted goals) but the score was still 0-0 at the end of the 3rd period so we went into overtime. Still no score in overtime so we went into sudden death shootout where Canucks scored on their last shot to secure the win (I was totally having childhood flashbacks to Mighty Ducks hehe). Awesome! Great game! The best part was the 100m walk home instead of joining the traffic jam exiting the arena.

Lingo:
Skim (when ordering coffee): non-fat
Burger (from fast food venue eg: KFC): sandwich
Capsicum: green pepper (at Subway)
Gherkin: pickles
Cutlery: silverware
Glowstick: lightstick
$1 coin: loonie
$2coin: toonie

Benny has decided to add pics of all of the different beers that he's been trying to the blog - all in the name of research of course! :)

Lots of love to you all at home.
Till next time,
Loz xxxx