Back To Vancouver

Caught the airport express bus out to the airport after breakfast, and joined the queues of people trying to get through security. They've stumbled on a nice little earner - you can pay to go to the head of the security line, and lots of people were. Of course, the more who pay to jump the queue, the slower the plebs lines goes, so it must have taken us three quarters of an hour to be screened, and it was only a domestic flight.

Arrived safely back in Vancouver aboard another small Embraer jet, and took the airport train into the city. I had to head off for a few blocks to retrieve the key to the unit from a cafe that operates a key safe. An interesting concept. My host had previously deposited the key against my name. I arrived and put in my name and password into the machine, and the guy in the cafe activated the key fob and gave me the key. Activating also sent our host an automatic message saying that we'd picked it up, so he knew we'd arrived.

We're staying on the 28th floor of a highrise overlooking the city. The view is magnificent. We have to use the key fob to get into the building, and again to get up the lift, and a door code to get in to the apartment, so we feel fairly secure. Not quite like Banff where everything was left unlocked! Our host is very welcoming. It's not every unit that has a beer keg on tap in the kitchen! "Just help yourself."

Headed out almost straightaway to the local sports bar, as Australia's first game of the World Cup was about to begin. Oh well - and the day had been going so well. Chile scored two goals in the first twelve minutes, so it had the makings of a disaster for a while, but we eventually scored and made a contest out of it for the rest of the game. Seems from the cheer that went up, that the bar was packed with Aussies.

Back at the apartment we tried to tune into game 5 of the Stanley Cup (ice hockey) finals, but of course its not carried on free to air, so we couldn't get it here. So, not to be outdone, we sat there and watched it on my iPad via Foxtel in Australia. It's easy to be blasé about the technology, but it really is a remarkable engineering feat. A game in Los Angeles is beamed by satellite to Sydney, then over fibre optic cable to our home in Melbourne. In Vancouver we log into our hosts wi-fi, which connects to his cable provider which allows us to connect over the internet to our home in Melbourne and watch it, while the locals are locked out.

At the end of regular time, the scores were tied and they were about to go to overtime. However, it was close to 8pm by that time, so we gave up and headed off to find some tea, ending up in a cafe that was also showing the game, where we watched the rest of the game till the Kings finally won at the end of double overtime.

Watched the sunset about 10pm from our apartment window.