T020320041735 Vancouver, Canada

I really can’t remember much of what happened during the week, except that I got somewhere between 3 and 6 hours of sleep every night before going to work in the mornings.

About the same happened on the weekend too. According to the Cleo horoscope, the 27th was going to be a good day for quite a few of us, it was Chris’s first day of holidays, and it was my Dad’s birthday (we all drank to his 60th). We tried a new pub (part of a brewery in Yaletown, very cool), one of the girls got licked (on her lower back, ewww) by a Rod Stewart look-alike (double ewww) and Dave from Christchurch nearly got himself beaten up by him for defending her (and the rest of our) honour. We were going to go to Roxy Burger for some food, but I got dragged bodily across the street to Jack’s Lounge by Dave. I met a couple of new people (Clarissa and Dustin, who are both very cool) and Linda who co-owns the bar (one of my new favourite places). I ended up drinking with them til we got kicked out when they closed at 4am. Deciding it was a good idea to walk Clarissa home (Dustin was already in a taxi after walking into a tree), Dave and I ended up in her lounge talking til about 6.30 in the morning.

I slept on the couch there til about 10.30 when I was woken up and told I was going home. When I got back to the hostel, I managed to get out of going to Lyn Valley Canyon to see the suspension bridge (which I had completely forgotten about agreeing to), cause Amy managed to convince everyone that going to the Elbow Room was a better idea (it was gross and cloudy outside and I really felt like breakfast). There ended up being 11 of us there and it was good fun as always. I bummed around the rest of the day, had a wee nap and then went over to Jack's where I was of course only going to stay for a couple. So I ordered a single rye and ginger ale (my drink of the moment – since I’m trying to give up Coke) but ended up drinking that, a double, 3 Cyclone (some lethal mix of tequila and rum or whisky, I'm not sure which) Margaritas and a large glass of Jack’s special punch which tastes like grape Koolade and has a secret recipe. It was so weird when I went in cause Jack (the owner, obviously) called me by name before we’d even been introduced. Clarissa and Dave had told him to look out for me if they weren’t there. It was nice though. I managed to stay out til 3am again and somehow also avoided the bill, which must have been up in the hundreds by then (cheers Dave).

I got up around 12 when Dave knocked on my door. I agreed to go out for coffee with him and Clarissa (last day rights). So we met up, hassled him a bit more, dumped him in a taxi and ended up at the Elbow Room again, where I met the manager Soheil properly (so now I have a bar and a café where they know my name). Anyway, so Clarissa bought me breakfast, as well as the coffee, offered to house and feed me, and she's a really cool chick, so I did pretty well out of the weekend! Anyway, we wandered around town after we had our cheeks pinched multiple times and Soheil told me that Raybon Kan comes to the Elbow Room a couple of times a year (whenever he’s in Vancouver). We wandered down into Gastown and saw huge blood spatters on the sidewalk on the way (freaky). I went home to do laundry not long after that and remembered that some of the girls were making a roast dinner that night, so it felt like Christmas all over again - except that I didn't need to do the cooking! Also, because it was the 29th of February, I asked Chad to marry me & he said yes, even though he said he wanted to marry Michelle. Who knew that I’d be engaged to some random Canadian called Chad? I went to the Royal as promised and danced my arse off after playing a couple of games of rage-filled pool (there was some yelling and bitching involved, of course). We even made up a new dance, based on "Good news girls, fanny!".

Last night I was only going to play a couple of games of pool with Michelle and then go down to the Roxy for the one free drink and to watch people make arses of themselves at Vancouver Idol. There was one guy who did “I Believe in a Thing Called Love” by The Darkness and it was amazing. But then he did bring his own disc. Karaoke nerd. We ended up going to the Dufferin and Amy and Chris sang some karaoke.

So don’t even ask how I ended up singing the love theme from Dirty Dancing in a gay karaoke bar with a microphone-swinging French Canadian oil rigger who can’t sing OR speak English properly. I’m still not sure how it happened, and I wasn’t even drinking…!