I know this post is a bit late, but a couple weekends ago the BookCrossers went on a daytrip to Granville Island during the Olympics. Our pretense was to deposit books… but I forgot to bring them. Instead, here are some highlights and photos from the trip. If you’d like to see all the photos, visit my Flickr set. Also, Marina got some fantastic photos too… I hope she doesn’t mine if I post a few here!

Marina snapped this shot of us sitting on The Bench art installation. I’m crouching in a swoopy-crevice that was oddly comfortable.

We met at the Olympic Village skytrain station where the city has borrowed a streetcar from Brussels. We rode the lovely, efficient, sleek, sexy Bombardier tram to Granville Island. The Bombardier “Olympic Line” had been running since February 1st and in just 30 days had over 300,000 riders! I wish we could keep it… but we have to return them to Brussels as they are far too expensive for Vancouver to keep.

We arrive at Granville Island and began wandering around. Here is the pond beside the Kids Market.

Wandering around the Public Market… to our left and behind were lines and lines of people waiting to get into Atlantic House.

Marina got interviewed by Slovak TV on who was going to be in the Gold Medal Hockey game.

Oh yea and we left books to roam…

Red and white admiring the Burrard Street Bridge.

Me basking in the Spring (February!!) sun

Marina snapped a shot of me scratching the Swiss mountain goat’s ears… and Dale is grabbing it by the horns.

Then we wandered around Place de la Francophonie (The French Quarter).

All in all it was a lovely day!

Here’s a video I took of the tram leaving Granville Island. Please excuse the shaky camera, I was reaching up a wall and under a fence to film this.

It’s hard to describe and/or summarize the chaos going on here. Everyone is wearing Canada gear and I can’t tell who is a tourist unless they’re wearing a different country’s gear. Here are some photos and links I like. For all my photos, view my Vancouver Olympics 2010 collection on Flickr.

Countdown to the Olympics — 8 Days to go (taken February 4, 2010)

Lantern Trees at LunarFest on Granville Street

Vancouver Biennale art installation “Cabeza Vainilla, Cabeza ordoba, Cabeza Chiapas” by Mexican artist Javier Marin

The Olympic Cauldron! ….. wait a minute….. what’s that fence?

Let’s try that again (with some zoom)…. The Olympic Flame!

Inside the Four Host First Nations Aboriginal Pavilion. Photo taken (with permission) during screening of “We Are Here”.

Inside Canada’s Northern Pavilion highlighting the Yukon Territories, Northwest Territories, and Nunavut.

The W2 Real Vancouver Writers’ & Culture Series is happening every Wednesday in February at the W2 Culture + Media House. W2 is located across from the refurbished Woodwards Building in Downtown Vancouver. The four weekly events will showcase local Vancouver writers, publishers and creative literary artists, giving guests a chance to rub shoulders with local talent.

“These evenings are designed to show the city and the world real and diverse Vancouver culture and real creative individuals in the literary and publishing communities at a time when the eyes of the world are on our city.

Each night will showcase local writers doing short readings their work and/or interacting with a moderator, taking questions from the audience and will include book sales, signings, a multi-media component, music, cash bar, raffles and give-aways.

Every night will consist of writers that will give the in-house audience a glimpse of the variety of cultures, ethnicities, forms and skills of writers living and working in Vancouver.

It will showcase the writers, their books, their publishers and other support structures within the local community and the larger culture and publishing communities.“

Organized jointly by Books on the Radio and Geist Magazine, the talent line-ups each week are phenominal. Make sure to follow @W2Woodwards on Twitter for all the latest updates.

http://realvancouverwriters.com/

On Saturday night I headed over to Janel’s place to learn how to spin yarn. As soon as I entered, I heard the whirl of treadles on spinning wheels. Janel first explained how to tease the fibre (teehee) and then showed me how to drop spindle. It helped to have her spinning the spindle while I pinched the fibre… but eventually I was able to try on my own.

Pictures, or it didn’t happen:

Meg and Sara (aka wenchlette) with a horde of wheels

Janel spinnin’ away and styling her new hair cut

Yarnpiggy (aka Hilary) our sexy hand-model (who would kill me if I even took a proper photo)

Mah yarnz!

After I tried drop spindling, Meg (who has a podcast now…) let me try her wheel. I think I liked that better because you could make it go with your feet and let your hands concentrate on the fibre. I didn’t play long enough to quite get the hang of it (or make anything) but I certainly enjoyed myself. Thanks for being such a fantastic host and teacher Janel!

Fine print: enjoying myself does not mean I will become a spinner. I think I have enough hobbies already, I just like trying new things.

Yes, I’m talking about the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games, which begin with Opening Ceremonies on Friday, February 12th. I have to admit, the city has been preparing for the Games for nearly 6 years, and even in the beginning I wasn’t particularly excited. The idea of (logistically) trying to host “the world” is overwhelming. The cynic in me thinks that the money could have been better spent elsewhere. Vancouver has been voted the West Coast’s “most liveable city” yet some things (like our transit system) isn’t nearly up to snuff.

I am amazed at how much as been spent on advertising within our own city. It’s certainly something you don’t see during the Olympics on TV: the entire saturation of the city in Olympic promotions. Every single advertising space, billboard, transit shelter, etc. is taken up by VANOC or an official sponsor promoting the Games. Although a lot of things have also been installed to aid tourists. For example, we finally have Information boards posted in major areas. This was something that I was really impressed with in England, I could get into a station and just follow the signs to different sights around the city. [Note: for the cynics still out there, there is The Olympic Resistance]

Cynicism aside, there are a few things I’m looking forward to. I will sit at home, watching the Olympics on TV and be able to point and go “I know where that is!” There is also the Cultural Olympiad. Despite the buckets of money that the BC Government has cut to Arts budgets, part of the Olympic bid for Vancouver was our “unique cultural events”. The Cultural Olympiad and many other events occuring around the city (both paid and free) include music, art, dance, ceremonies, installations, etc. That is the kind of thing I’m looking forward to.

There is far too much going on to have a complete handle, but here are a few links if you’re interested (and for me to keep things straight):

• Cultural Olympiad (official) – full of free and paid multidiciplinary events
• Miss604 – Vancouver’s “it-girl” blogger. Check in daily, she even has an Olympic Blog feed.
• Olympic Torch Relay (ongoing)
• BC Living – sign up for daily emails during the Games about coping with things to do in the city.
• Vancouver Pavillion & Cultural Houses – visit Miss604’s post about all the locations.
• Official Celebration Sites – including LiveCity Vancouver, Whistler Live!, Richmond O Zone, and more.
• Made In Vancouver – I heart VanArt celebrates local art and creativity.
• CanaMADE – a market celebrating art and craft from Canada.
• CityCaucus lists tons of free events occuring in the city (some repeats)
• Vectorial Elevation – a light display from dusk till dawn over English Bay

I know I haven’t posted much on the blog lately, but I’ve been quite the traveller with limited internet access. I’ve seen lots of England, which was my original intention: Stratford-Upon-Avon, Bristol, Bath, Salisbury, Stonehenge, Leeds, and tomorrow the destination is York. Here are a few photos as I don’t have time to relate all my travels yet.

That will have to satisfy for now. My flight home is on Wednesday and I’m planning to spend as much time as possible with my boyfriend until then. Cheerio!

Here are some photos Craig and I took of the dogs when it began to snow last week. I really enjoy taking them out and the snow makes it even more fun. Happy Dogs on Thursday!

8 inches of snow on the Racecourse

On the path at Peel Park near the University of Salford

Making a snow angel while the dogs lick my face and jump over me.

Snow snuggles with Oscar

Oscar sporting new Snow Boots

I hope everyone had a fantastic holiday season celebrating (Christmas, Hannukah, Kwanza, Festivus, Solstace, etc.) and are excited to bring in the new year.

Things went well here, besides the food coma Craig and I ended up in. On Christmas morning we’d already exchanged gifts (iTouch for me and new camera for him) so we went downstairs to greet Craig’s dad, girlfriend, and her family. We opened some presents with them, had a quick cup of tea, then headed over to the Care Home to visit Grandma Rose. Then we went to Craig’s aunt’s house for present-giving with Craig’s mom’s side of the family. One aunt has three small boys so present-giving is always quite the affair. After that, we headed back to Craig’s dad’s house for Christmas Lunch at about 4:00pm. By 7:00pm we were back at Aunty Lisa’s having Christmas Dinner. As I said, food coma… but lots of great company and everything went smoothly.

Now that all the Christmas rush is over, I’m preparing to do my travelling in the new year. I’m planning to travel from January 4th to 22nd while Craig is revising for his exam(s). I’ve got a long list of places to go, but on the top of the list is Stratford-Upon-Avon, Stonehenge, Bath, Bristol, Leeds, Liverpool, and York. I’ll come back to Manchester a couple times and I have to use London as a travel-base for some of the cities, but it should be all right. The trains are superb here (compared to at home) and as it is the off season, I don’t need to book hostels far in advance.

I’ve got a lot that I need to blog about, so keep your eyes peeled and locked on the blog. I didn’t bring my laptop here (as I’ll be travelling) so Craig is kindly sharing his with me.

I’ve arrived safely in Manchester, despite severe delays in London Heathrow and last week’s threat of a British Airways strike. Fortunately the strike was averted due to court order and my flight was still scheduled. I left Sunday night and we were late leaving from YVR (Vancouver, BC). I was worried I wasn’t going to make my connecting flight up to Manchester. I was running through the new Terminal 5 in Heathrow, which is owned and operated by British Airways.  There were about three security checkpoints and insane queues, I didn’t think I was going to make my second flight.

Fortunately (for me) it was delayed about an hour so I was able to make it to my gate on time. Then it began to snow and we sat on the plane for hours waiting for a de-icing rig for our plane. All the planes in Heathrow were in the same situation — there were only seven de-icing rigs for the entire airport. Incoming planes had no gates to unload at and were sitting on the sides of the runways. Outgoing planes were stuck until we could be de-iced, and any flights originally scheduled for after 7:00pm takeoff were completely cancelled. Finally, after three hours on the plane, my flight left around 8:45pm. We finally arrived safe and sound in Manchester where Craig had been waiting for me.

Yesterday was spent recouperating, I slept in pretty late and then we went into Manchester city centre to finish our Christmas shopping. The city was pretty busy and it hailed several times while we were there. We took a walk around some of the German Christmas Markets scattered around the city centre.

Last night we took Craig’s dad’s dogs for a walk, and they absolutely adore the snow. This is Harvey jumping up for a snowball as Craig tosses it. And yes, that is the scarf I knit for Craig.

Today we’ve already taken the dogs for a nice long walk around the Racecourse in Salford. Salford is a city within Manchester and where Craig and his family live. The Racecourse was formerly a racetrack for horses and now is a playing field for football (soccer), etc. The Racecourse used to be really huge and also includes a lot of forested areas with walking paths along the River Irwell.

Last week I told you all about the Knitter’s Festivus Miracle Swap. We had a lovely dinner, lots of fun exchanging gifts, and I had included photos of the FO I gifted to Kyrsten. I have been amiss about posting photos from the dinner as well as my gift from Shelby! Better late than never…..

Shelby knit me this incredibly long scarf (can wrap 3 times around my neck) out of Cascade 220 (I think). I was knitting a secret Christmas gift with Cascade 220 and I swear it is the same colourway! And that is some lovely Scottish Breakfast Tea, I’ve only tried English Breakfast so I have been enjoying this in the mornings.

Here’s a stitch close-up for the knitter’s out there.

And some lovely photos from the dinner:

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