030520041707 Vancouver, Canada

It's been another seemingly busy week when in actual fact there's been a lot (and I mean a lot) of sitting around doing nothing.

Last Sunday was, of course, ANZAC Day. One of the guys that used to stay at the hostel organised a service as neither the Australian or New Zealand consulates had done anything about it. They couldn't even sponsor it as they'd used that budget on some private corporate lunch. But the NZ Consul and the acting Australian Consul attended and there was an army band, some army guys that obviously weren't used to doing drills, a Padre who did the prayers etc and quite a few members of the public. We managed to get about 30 or 40 people from the hostel to come, including a couple of Brits who came along for the fun of it. I'm proud to say that the New Zealand speaker (Dave Jones) was definitely the best, although sadly the girl they got to read the karakia really could have had much better pronunciation.

After the service was over (it wasn't a dawn service, cause try and get a bunch of backpackers on a bus while it's still dark on a Sunday and you'll fail)

we went over to the mess hall in the army barracks and had Anzac biscuits and rum in our coffee. The bar was open and we stayed there til the late afternoon, because of a combination of cheap drinks, sunshine, good company and pizza delivery. The army guys got trashed, it was hilarious.

The week passed by reasonably uneventfully, except for getting tickets to the Vans Slam City Jam (North American Skateboard Competition). We managed to get $10 off a 3 day pass (it ran Friday through Sunday) by buying Mountain Dew at the 7-Eleven (eww, it's still unopened in my room), and then because I was working Friday, I managed to sell the ticket for that day to a guy for another $10. So including taxes etc it only came to $35. Sweet! The gates opened at 11am and everything finished by 7pm each night. There was a huge marketplace (try and milk as much cash as you can out of skater kids and their parents), live music stage (didn't see any of it cause of watching skaters), open skate park (for those who wanted to skate there) and professional street course and vert ramp. After trying to get as much free stuff as we could, Michelle and I spent most of the time watching the various skate competitions. I've come to the conclusion that, in general, female skaters aren't worth watching. On the other hand, some of the guys were awesome, and although Tony Hawk didn't make an appearance, there were heaps of big name skaters and lots of big tricks. Although I did get tired of hearing the commentator's favourite phrase - "This kid is no joke". Apparently a lot of pro skaters are no joke? Also, although he skates like a hot guy, Colt Cannon is really not that hot, and he skates to Britney Spears. Apparently a lot of girls want to have his babies? Would you seriously want to hook up with someone whose name was Colt Cannon??

Although Michelle's fear of decapitation by flying deck prevented her from getting a free one and my reluctance to beat up a kid to get him to give me the wheels I had my hands on, we managed to get a bunch o' free junk anyway. I had to yell at a kid to get him to give me back the t-shirt he stole off me, but that was pretty easy, since he was half my size. So we got t-shirts, magazines, CDs (including a 5 track Steriogram EP which is awesome cause I didn't have anything of theirs), posters, deodorant ... you name it and we probably scored it.

So I've decided I'm going to learn to skate, and then maybe get some big name sponsors and turn pro. Cause there were only 3 decent female skaters out there and apparently you can still suck and win money at international comps. All you have to do is show up, ollie a couple of times, attempt some tricks, suck at them, and then wait til the judging. Nice one.