{"id":12,"date":"2010-10-10T20:44:55","date_gmt":"2010-10-11T04:44:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/vancouver2010.skirnir.com\/?p=12"},"modified":"2010-11-11T11:19:57","modified_gmt":"2010-11-11T19:19:57","slug":"week-1-in-vancouver","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/vancouver2010.skirnir.com\/?p=12","title":{"rendered":"Week 1 in Vancouver"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2 style=\"color: #ffffff; background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% #7d1f7f;\"><\/h2>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"margin: 5px;\" src=\"http:\/\/l-userpic.livejournal.com\/103925979\/845303\" alt=\"\" width=\"100\" height=\"100\" align=\"right\" \/> Sunday evening, and the end of our first week in Vancouver. It&#8217;s been a  week largely characterised by work and jetlag, really. Tuesday we flew  out here &#8211; all went smoothly. Immigration cleared Veronica  to do voluntary work while here, so she&#8217;s already done her first day  working with the ospreys, eagles, and owls. Oh, and the mice.<\/p>\n<p>My  working week involves starting work at 7am, catching up with what my  team in Edinburgh have been doing, then heading to the office here for  9am. Then lots of meetings, discussions, etc.<\/p>\n<p>This week, by the  time I got home, I was running out of energy. It&#8217;s not that I&#8217;ve been  tired, more that my brain stops working. Things like converting dollars  to pounds, or taking 5% off 377 become impossible, I just cant do them.  It&#8217;s been getting better each day, but my body is still a bit out of  sync.<\/p>\n<p>We joined the local YMCA gym on the same day we arrived (it  was on the way to the supermarket). It&#8217;s honestly the nicest gym I&#8217;ve  seen anywhere &#8211; loads of up to date equipment, good classes, etc. And  gym toys I&#8217;ve never seen before. The membership is less than the  Edinburgh Leisure gym at home too.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s been nice weather all  week &#8211; but yesterday it rained hard. Torrential rain &#8211; so plans were  aborted, and we just wandered around <a href=\"http:\/\/www.granvilleisland.com\/\">Granville Island<\/a>, poking in shops and markets.<\/p>\n<p>Today, we&#8217;d booked a tour with <a href=\"http:\/\/www.deepcovekayak.com\/\">Deep Cove Kayaking<\/a>.  It was a &#8220;suitable for total&#8221; beginners kayaking trip to see the local  area &#8211; no experience required, but we figured we&#8217;d be able to see the  area, get a feel for it etc. Of course, the downside is that the people  you go out with will be total beginners. We did get to explore a bit,  but one guy with us was really struggling, and capsized. After a break,  he still wasnt doing so well, so our instructor decided we should head  back. It felt very odd to be the experienced ones in the group &#8211; I ended  up helping the instructor tow our capsizee back, Veronica acted as shepherd for the rest.<\/p>\n<p>It is beautiful, though &#8211; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.risingsunkayaks.com\/images\/day-trips\/deepcove_0109.jpg\">amazing scenery<\/a>, and super-calm, flat water. The only real hazard is the wake from power boats.<\/p>\n<p>The most ironic thing about the day? We travelled 5000 miles to go kayaking, and our instructor is a Scotsman.<\/p>\n<p>I  chatted with him about the requirements for us to take boats out with  just the two of us &#8211; and he was quite happy for us to do that, so we&#8217;ll  be heading back for an explore with just the two of us at the next  opportunity.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s Thanksgiving here today, but there wasn&#8217;t a lot  of sign of people making a big deal of it. But it does mean its a  public holiday tomorrow. I don&#8217;t get the day off though &#8211; I&#8217;ll be  working on my other projects, but it does mean I can sleep in a little  later, and work from the apartment.<\/p>\n<p>So, here&#8217;s to the start of  week 2 in Vancouver. A week with less jetlag, a couple of visits to the  Vancouver Film Festival, and a whale watching trip!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sunday evening, and the end of our first week in Vancouver. It&#8217;s been a week largely characterised by work and jetlag, really. Tuesday we flew out here &#8211; all went smoothly. Immigration cleared Veronica to do voluntary work while here, &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/vancouver2010.skirnir.com\/?p=12\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/vancouver2010.skirnir.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/vancouver2010.skirnir.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/vancouver2010.skirnir.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/vancouver2010.skirnir.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/vancouver2010.skirnir.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/vancouver2010.skirnir.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17,"href":"http:\/\/vancouver2010.skirnir.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12\/revisions\/17"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/vancouver2010.skirnir.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/vancouver2010.skirnir.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/vancouver2010.skirnir.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}