Skating - Blogabond

Limo, with Aussie Flag number plates!!!!

While unrelated to the tittle of this blog entry, I think that this is probably the most interesting sight that we have seen this week. Sarah and I decided that it was time to indulge in some of the local recreational activities here in Vancouver. While we were hoping to pop up to the mountains for a spot of skiing, we thought that something perhaps a little more local was the order of the day. So we looked up our local ice rink, which happens to only be a 10 minute walk away! Brilliant! This car is actually a limo and was parked in one of the side streets on the way to the ice rink! We couldn't smell any BBQs going on, or hear anyone shouting about kangeroos, but none the less we were under the sneaking suspicion that there were some Aussies about. If we believed the rhetoric in this: http://blogs.theage.com.au/travel/archives/2007/03/new_yanks_and_j.html blog then we would have run as far as we could. But anyways, on to the ice rink!

Mighty ducks

If you've ever been to roller city in Eltham then you'll be pretty well versed in the ways of the skate. The general demeanour of skaters was very similar to that or the roller skate cousins of these ice skaters. In fact, I could have been at Eltham roller city if it wasn't freezing and there wasn't ice instead of concrete. We expected that we wouldn't exactly be fantastic at this new sport, but we were pretty sure in ourselves that we wouldn't receive compound fractures to our "tail bones". Okay, ice skating is HARD. Much harder than roller blading/skating. Our first tentative swooshes on the ice were hilarious for the locals I'm sure. But we continued and ended up going pretty good. We stopped short of triple spins and although I was keen to throw Sarah into the air, she was reluctant... I wasn't mad at the little kids that were better at skating than me. I'm just jealous.

Sadly it hasn't really been a terribly interesting week otherwise. Interestingly, perhaps on a social observation side is the labourforce here that would generally be made up of teenagers in Melbourne is made up of middle aged people here. At every Safeway supermarket I've been to here, the checkout chicks are generally between the age of 30 - 40. And that's interesting considering that I think it is likely that Safeway pay around minimum wage. Minimum wage here is $8.00 CAD per hour. So think yourself lucky at home when your're getting around 13 or 14 dollars as a minimum at home in Australia. Especially considering that the cost of living here is very similar to at home in Melbourne. Just a thought.

Otherwise, I hope everyone is well and having a good time! More pictures to come!

Cheers

Tom