There were 1,000 zombies lurching through the streets of Vancouver today on the second annual "Zombie Walk". I have no idea why Vancouver has an annual zombie walk but they seemed to be having fun. It must be the slowest parade in the world what with all the lurching and foot dragging.
Apart from the zombies there are also thousands of pensioners here off the cruise ships, who also look a bit like the living dead. These massive liners arrive everyday right in the city centre at the cruise terminal and disgorge thousands of people who have got about 24 hours to see the entire city. There are about 1,000,000 passengers here each year and it is a massive earner for the City (each ship pays CAD$50,000 to dock for those 24 hours). I don't know what the taxi drivers would do here if the boats ever stop coming as they were queuing for about four city block this morning waiting to pick people up. And some of those Americans are a pretty heavy load I can assure you. I didn't see many big people in SF and Seattle, obviously because they are all on Alaskan cruises.
I've noticed that not everything is bilingual here, only the official stuff like the post office and government buildings. A lot of the food has both languages on it, it's very odd to see HP sauce in French (Sauce à HP if you're wondering). I think it's a bit like Wales, if you can get away with ignoring the other language you do. I've seen a few Québecois around but either my French has got really bad or they have a completely different pronunciation to the 'French' French. However some things are very un-English. Like the toilets for example. I've been to a couple now where you can pee and still see all the people walking by. Very european.
I was beginning to think that all Ramada hotels are in really rough areas. For example the one in Seattle was round the corner from a homeless shelter, food bank and half a dozen all night liquor stores. This one is up the road from a homeless shelter, next door to a hostel for elderly disabled people and across from a really rough looking bar. But I've realised that it's not so much that the hotels are in bad places, more that in North America the nice touristy areas are just steps away from murderville. It's like that in San Francisco: Gucci and Neiman Marcus are just about 2 blocks from the Tenderloin and here Gastown, which is a very touristy historic area, is about 500 metres from some really REALLY bad parts of town, in fact the poorest and most socially disadvantaged area in the entire of Canada. I really don't know why this is unless it's just that the cities themselves are so much more compact than those in Australia.
And one last thing. The Canadians really love maple syrup. So far I've seen maple syrup as syrup, maple syrup lollies, maple syrup honey, maple syrup soap, maple syrup candles, maple syrup ice cream, maple syrup chocolate, maple syrup coffee...and maple syrup beer.
I think that's one step too far.
I was thinking about the URL of your blog and it seems to be totally unintuitive since you are everywhere but Kal and you will be moving to Perth.
ReplyDeleteYes, it is weird that all Ramada hotels are in dodgy areas, the one in Toronto is also near Murderville. Gastown, at least in the winter, had nothing to offer and those streets near it, which we managed to get lost in, are intimidatingly dangerous. They also are full of the living dead.
They seem only to pay lipservice to French in Canada. What is really bizarre is that there is only one province where French is spoken. It would be like the UK have all of the signs in Welsh.