The morning after the night before…

I don’t think I’ve ever been so happy to be able to post an update as I am right now.  My city’s done me proud – I always knew you would, and kept the faith even as I watched the horrible images from Wednesday night.  I told anyone who would listen that that’s not how Vancouver is.  And you didn’t disappoint.

Update The First

The wonders of social media have meant that while most of Europe was sleeping, Vancouverites were working hard to bring the rioters to justice.  The Vancouver Police department, reacting to comments and requests from the public, began asking for any photos or videos people might have taken of the riots.  They also requested that if people recognised anyone in any of the photos or videos, that they share that information with police.

Due to the feelings of disgust felt by most of Vancouver, this has had tremendous success so far.  Vancouver bloggers, like the “unapologetically inappropriate” Kimli, have worked hard to name and shame some of the worst offenders, and have encouraged others to do so as well.

It’s not just a matter of “vigilante justice”, as one commenter suggested.  It is a city refusing to let a group of mindless hooligans ruin its good name.  It is the majority of Vancouverites standing up for what’s right, and saying “not in my name”.

And to be honest with you… if you’re foolish enough to brag about setting fire to cars, smashing shop windows and flogging your looted goods all over Facebook, you deserve to be caught and ratted out.

Update The Second

I really have to stop my routine of waking up and checking the news.  This is the second day I’ve had tears in my eyes approximately 10 minutes after my alarm goes off.  But today there was an important difference.  Today was happy.  Today I was moved by the touching efforts of a group of people who came together to clean Vancouver up after the riots.  They wore their Canucks gear… as a silent demonstration of what being a real Canucks fan is all about.

Vancouver photographer Andy Fang was on the scene to take photos of the volunteers.  He called the project “The REAL Face of Vancouver”.  It wasn’t for publicity, or to make a name for himself, but because

I was so taken aback by the amount of positive spirit in the city today, it inspired me to put together this little project. I grabbed every volunteer I could see and took their portrait. Since seeing international coverage of the 2011 Stanley Cup Final riots, my goal was to showcase the REAL citizens of Vancouver in all their amazing gracefulness.

I hope he doesn’t mind me using his photos. They’re all copyright 2011 by Andy Fang.  Thank you for documenting an amazing day.

I’ve done my best to show the world that the events of Wednesday night were not the work of deranged hockey fans, and that the REAL hockey fans (myself included) were deeply saddened by what happened.

I want you to keep Andy Fang’s images in your mind when you think about what happened in Vancouver.  When the international media focusses on rioters and violence, think of the hundreds of people who came to the city centre, armed with bin bags and rubber gloves.  They worked hard to try and clean up the mess left behind, not only in the city centre, but of our reputation as one of the best cities on earth.

It’s a shame very few people outside Vancouver will ever see these images.  Because these people are the real Vancouverites.

 

 

About Last Night – A blog post in two parts

(K’s note:  After what happened last night, I felt like I had to write something.  At 4am I’d gone to sleep a bit disappointed.  At 8am I woke to the news that my city – the one I love, miss and am proud to call home – was on fire and being torn apart by mindless violence.  I had no idea if my parents had made it home safely from the game.  I never want to feel that way again)

No one should have to see their city like this ((c) Getty Images)

Part The First

Canucks… I am disappoint.  Being the diehard Canucks fan I am, and B being the diehard Canucks fan-in-law that he is, we stayed up til 4am GMT to watch the most agonizing game I’ve seen all year.  I’ll get all “controversial” here, but Boston won it because they earned it.  Watching them… well, it pains me to say it, but they wanted it more.  We were lazy, we were sloppy and we lost fair and square.

To the organisers of the street viewings… I may not know much about the preparations, in that I am a lowly ex-pat living 5000 miles away, but your intentions seem a bit naive (at best).  I’ve done event management – it’s “hope for the best, prepare for the worst.”  And it seemed that you’d witnessed the successes of The Olympics and decided humanity was basically decent.  And they are.  Except… there’s always a few.  They’ll get found out due to their mind-boggling inability to stop bragging on Facebook – but more could have been done.

Danger is one of his middle names... the other one is "Busted by the VPD"

And to those people who thought it was cool or “hilarious” to trash your own city… grow up.  People like me are the true Canucks fans.  We’re the ones who remember the old jerseys… who had seasons tickets at The Colosseum when GM Place was just a concept drawn on a napkin.  I remember our last game 7 Stanley Cup final in 1994… watching with 2 of my close friends… running out onto the patio after a depressing 3-2 defeat and screaming “WE STILL LOVE YOU, CANUCKS!” as only 14-year-old girls can.

None of that rioting was done by real Vancouverites.  REAL Vancouverites have been downtown since 7am at the city cleanup organised by everyday people on Facebook, trying to put our city back together.  And if I was in town, I’d be down there with them.

Part The Second

Dear Rest of the World:

About last night.  I know you don’t know much about Canada apart from what you’ve learned through South Park, which has equipped you well  to sing “Blame Canada” at every opportunity, as well as asking me and my fellow ex-pats to say “about” every other minute.  And that we’re not American.

But what you saw on the news this morning – and I saw it too on RTE’s news site – that wasn’t us.  Please… don’t go thinking that’s what we’re like, or that hockey fans are no better than football hooligans.  Those people rioting?  They weren’t hockey fans.  I can see how it looked that way… of course I can.  But they’re drunken eejits who go to things like this to deliberately start trouble.  You know those shows they have on TV… the “Drunken people on holiday in Spain” or whatever they’re called?  You know how you watch those shows and think “That’s not the way it is… we’re not like that!”  That’s what Vancouver, Vancouverites, and even us ex-pats are feeling right now.  And can I share one little secret?  There would have been riots even if we’d won.

Now, I know that many of you out there in the Rest Of The World don’t really “get” winter sports, so you wouldn’t have seen the Winter Olympics in Vancouver.  I myself had to stay up til obscene hours of the morning to catch a glimpse of events like the biathlon (guns and skis!) and the snowboardcross.  So you would have missed the epic moment when Team Canada won the Gold Medal in Men’s Hockey (note:  the “ice” is implied).  Back then, Vancouverites laughed, we cheered, we erupted in spontaneous flashmobs on Vancouver’s equivalent of Grafton Street.

We’re good people.  I promise.

Suddenly… kittens!

*blows dust off blog*

Hello again!  Well, as you can imagine, when planning two weddings, life can get a bit crazy.  So… I kind of disappeared for two months.  Sorry about that.  Have no fear, I have great blog posts lined up for the future, once we get our professional photos back from the photographer.

In the meantime… kittens!  Yes readers… B and I are proud adoptive parents to Judy and Floyd – Supercats.

It all started with a post on A Chick Named Hermia (here), where she said herself and The Boy were looking to find a new home for their kittens, who had sadly outgrown their apartment.  As B and I had talked about adopting a rescue cat after the weddings, I decided to write and offer our little house as a potential new home.

And so… after some absolutely heart-wrenching posts which were both the nicest thing anyone’s ever said about us and the most horrible I’ve ever felt about doing something in my life… on September 25 we became parents!

Readers, meet Judy and Floyd:

She's tiny, but deadly

"Helping" me with my thank you notes

If they aren’t just the pinnacle of cuteness and an “I Can Has Cheezburger” caption contest in the making, I don’t know what is.

It took them a while to get used to us, as any feline in a scary new home will tell you.  There was much hiding under things.  And VERY much “OMGWTFBBQ??!!” (on their part) for the first few days.

But after much cajoling, they’ve settled in nicely.  We officially have a Daddy’s girl and a Mammy’s boy.  They love their cuddles in the evening, love staring out the window at passers-by, and love getting in to places they probably shouldn’t be (read: under the floorboards under the bathtub).

There’s nothing better than watching rubbish TV with a roaring fire, and two cats asleep and purring next to you.

Sleepy cat

Anyone who says otherwise is a liar.

PS – being the sad couple that we are, B created a Twitter account for the kittens.  You can follow them here.

Say hello to my little friends

Ever since last Wednesday and the Very Bad Thing that has happened, I’ve been a bit down in the dumps.  Life, it would seem, is frequently unfair.  Life likes to torment and mock me at every available opportunity.  Life… is not a very nice person sometimes.

But I digress.

So there I am, wallowing in my own self-pity on Wednesday night, when B comes into the bedroom with a look on his face that can best be described as a combination of “I’m about to spring MORE bad news on you and I’m SO sorry” and “I am both horrified and disgusted at the same time”.

He then proceeds to explain that for the past two nights and early mornings (we’re night owls!) our kitchen has been taken over by slugs.

SLUGS!!!

I’m in ur kitchen, sliming up ur everything…

The most slimy, unhygienic, creepy crawlie little pests known to mankind!!  Have you ever seen the movie Slither?  THAT’S WHAT OUR FREAKIN’ KITCHEN LOOKED LIKE!!

Shudder.  I’d love to be able to share a photo of the 10-15ish slugs that were scaling our back door that night, but I was too busy trying to stifle my gag reflex to think of fetching my camera.

Needless to say we both sprang into action, becoming a two-man Slug Extermination Squad.  I am a whizz with salt… I really am.  And the next day, after some extensive research involving typing the phrase “Get these slugs out of my house NOW” into Google, B came up with a defense plan so complex that he should immediately be headhunted by homeland security departments worldwide.

And since then?  Not a sign of a slug… probably because they can’t get within 50 feet of the house, due to a complex array of slug pellets, salt and duct tape.

Apparently having a slug infestation is a pretty common occurrence at this time of year, in houses of a certain age, according to some websites B found.  As if that makes it okay.  I’d only JUST made my peace with having spiders in the house.

Shudder.

Autumn… with a vengeance!

Wow… it’s getting dark so early, and I just know that once the clocks go back this Sunday (next Sunday for those of you in Canada) it’s only going to get worse.  I don’t actually mind the added darkness… I love snuggling up under a blanket on the couch and watching tv or reading a book.  At the moment I’m re-reading The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown.  Yes, re-reading.  Yes, I know it only JUST came out… I’m a fast reader.

Methinks a trip to the local library might be in order.

Anyway, where was I?  Oh yes.  As much as I love the autumn, what I’m anything but loving at the moment is the gale force winds and torrential rain we’ve had since Monday.  Honestly.  Number of umbrellas broken to date this week?  2.  And I’ve only used them for the last 3 days! 

Luckily I’ve become quite good at dodging rainshowers.  This usually involves watching the clouds to see which way they’re moving, figuring out how long it takes me to get from point A to point B (around 10 minutes) and making a break for it at the first hint of sustainable dryness.

Didn’t quite time it right today though, and got soggy.  Luckily The New Job comes complete with my own personal space heater, which for the last few days I have used as a clothes dryer.  I suppose I could take a second bus and avoid my half hour walk-commute every morning, but where’s the fun in that?  Besides, I’m going to have a wedding dress to fit into!

Right, I’m off to search for Ark blueprints and to source two of every animal.

You know… just in case.

Domestic Goddess explores the neighbourhood

So lately, bored with sitting around the house waiting for potential employers to call me back about job interviews (soon… very soon…) I’ve decided to hit the streets of my neighbourhood which have, up until this point, remained unexplored. This also coincides with my New Year’s Resolution of getting out and walking more, and B and I have officially started our nightly after dinner walks – one hour, anywhere, stopping only for the crosswalks.

The other night we decided to go and explore Inchicore – it’s only a 15 minute walk west of our apartment, but oddly enough we’d only ever gone east in to the city centre rather than venturing out in to the scary suburbs. We found the Buddhist Centre (almost literally our next door neighbours), a few abandoned churches, a Tesco Express, a few pharmacies and a butcher. Score!

Armed with my new and impressive knowledge of my neighbourhood, I set out this morning to do some more exploring. First up – obtain a membership to the local library. Done and done. It’s fairly tiny, and has nothing on VPL (a million levels of literary goodness), but it’s cute and has a decent selection, including interesting new cookbooks, which are always worth a try!

I carried on to Inchicore to hit up the Tesco Express. Now, after watching several documentaries on the horrors of cheap food (and Tesco products in particular – possible topic of a future post!), I was hesitant to shop there… but I wanted to make muffins and was out of chocolate chips. So, evidentally, were Tesco. Sigh. Oh well, raisins are healthier anyway… right?

Then I strolled back along the mostly leafy Inchicore road and back to the apartment, pausing outside the Buddhist Centre to check their weekly schedule. Couldn’t hurt to brush up on my path to enlightenment… right?

Came home and made my muffins. Nom nom nom. Now the house is warm and smells like oatmeal and cinnamon. Still no calls from potential employers, but at least I have muffins to eat while I sit and wait for the phone to ring!

How we spent our Christmas holiday…

The jetlag has relented (slightly)! This is mostly thanks to B dragging my tired (and often unwilling) self out of bed every morning before he goes to work. I never knew such a concentrated form of hatred existed as that of a tired girlfriend being woken up in the morning, even by a loving boyfriend. Thankfully it passes as the day wears on!

So… here goes. How K and B spent their Christmas vacation.

First of all, someone needs to remind me that no matter how cheap the flights may be, nothing on this earth is worth getting up at 3.30am for. Our first flight (to Frankfurt) was at 6.30am, meaning our taxi to the airport came at 4.30am. Not a good way to begin a transatlantic long-haul flight.

Nonetheless we arrived safely in Vancouver, although disturbingly we couldn’t actually see Vancouver until 30 seconds before the wheels hit the tarmac. That’s what they mean by poor visibility. Gotcha. The parents were waiting in Arrivals to take us home safely, and to be honest I don’t remember much of the rest of the night, except trying desperately to stay awake (with the assistance of much-appreciated coffee!)

Our first day was beautiful – thankfully the rain had let up and the sun was shining, so I began my mission to show B as much of my life as humanly possible in 2.5 weeks. We hit up Stanley Park en route to the currency exchange, and then spent the afternoon wandering around the free highlights of North Vancouver (Cleveland Dam still terrifies me… the Fish Hatchery… not so much fun with no fish…)

And then the snow began. Or as a friend has dubbed it, Snowpocalypse.

Don’t get me wrong… I am a sucker for snow. I love looking out the window and seeing the world magically blanketed in crystally white powder. Love it. It makes me feel like a little kid. But man is it a pain to drive in. Thankfully the next few days were mostly spent indoors, but we also had trips to the Vancouver Aquarium (still not the same without the killer whales), shopping for last minute presents, visiting with assorted friends and family, a trip to Whistler that made us re-evaluate our definitions of cold (-42 windchill at the Roundhouse, anyone?)… oh, and a very frosty, but not as cold as Whistler, trip to the Capilano Suspension Bridge.

Little known fact (to me, at least): If you are a Vancouver resident, you only need to pay admission to the Suspension Bridge once, and they give you a free season’s pass. Brilliant, yes… except it’s non-transferrable and I’m now 5000 miles away. Ah well, they make an effort.

On the 23rd we hit the road in a mini-convoy (B and I in one car, parents in another, and little brother and friend in yet another car) and headed up to the Okanagan. I love that drive. Apart from a few slippery sections just out of Vancouver the roads were fine, and while we didn’t make record time (5 hours including stops… that was in the summer), we arrived unscathed at my Gran’s house in Oliver.

Over the next couple of days, poor B was introduced to, and inspected by, every remaining family member he hadn’t met yet. Thankfully they all love him. Seriously love him. We did some rambling around the town, went down to the orchard, and over to Osoyoos to check out the Spirit Ridge Vineyard Resort and Spa. Oh. My. God. Love it.

Then we headed back down to Vancouver, a trip made longer by a bad accident in the valley. After at least a 2 hour detour, we finally made it home. Our final few days were taken up with last minute people-seeing, frantic (as always) packing, and we flew via London back to Dublin, arriving at our apartment with 3 hours to kill until New Years.

Overall it was brilliant. I sometimes forget just how much I miss Vancouver, and the beauty of BC (they don’t call it “Beautiful British Columbia” for nothing, you know). What made me even happier was that B felt exactly the same way. I liked being able to play tour guide, and be a tourist in my own town. I don’t think people do that enough, and I am definitely guilty of taking my hometown for granted.

So now B and I have some interesting questions ahead of us… some of which we have already started tackling, and we haven’t even been home a week yet! But that may be a post for another day.

Wrapping up loose ends…

(the “before” edit)

Ahh another Tuesday in the universe.

Last weekend was a flurry of activity, starting with K&B’s bright idea to go looking for home furnishings (ugh… so domesticated). So we hopped on the Luas and went off in search of random apartment-y type things. After discovering that big box stores really only cater to people with cars we somehow managed to get everything back home on the Luas (ordeal and a half!) and in to the apartment. Phew.

Sunday I managed to get everything that was left in my old place over to the apartment, and did a bit of a blitz clean so that it’s ready for inspection by my old landlady (I need my deposit back!) So that is a small relief.

Then, in an attempt to be a gold star pupil for my photography class, I went in to town with B and spent 6 hours (!!) in the office editing photos in Photoshop. Ugh. Our project was to do 10 “before and after” edits, and I managed to get through 9 before my eyes started to fail me. Too much staring at a computer!

But it all paid off! Last night it turns out I was the only one who actually DID the project and the instructor loved what I’d managed to accomplish. (his hopes were quite low for me as after the second class – the one dedicated to Photoshop – I’d left nearly in tears of frustration at “not getting it” – oh how I have progressed!)

So that’s that, I suppose.

(the “after” edit)

Two-thirds moved and other exciting things…

Well I’ve done it. I am now about 2/3 moved in to the new apartment with B. The new place is wonderful, cozy and brand spanking new. We have a wonderful view out to Phoenix Park, close access to buses and the Luas (the tram) and the Museum of Modern Art just around the corner. I’ll post photos as soon as I figure out how to do that on here.

Now if I could just get rid of the major train lines that run by the back of the building.

Seriously. What a way to wake up. Has anyone seen The Blues Brothers? Okay, it’s not quite that bad, but there have been quite a few jokes made about that already.

In other news… The Boss is on holidays for 2 weeks (!!) so I’m now “in charge” – whatever that means (mostly being run off my feet, if yesterday is anything to go by!) So far it’s going well, which I will need if the “save my job” campaign is to have any success.

Photo class is actually going a lot better now that I managed to guilt the instructor into explaining things s-l-o-w-l-y. Turns out I wasn’t the only one that didn’t understand a thing the other week. Now I can Photoshop like a… well… still like a beginner, but a better beginner! I have to do a “before and after” project for next week (our final week), so if anyone has any suggestions for photos that should definitely be part of my portfolio, please let me know!

That’s it for now… I’m off to stare longingly out the window at the warm sunshine whilst being trapped in my office.