Lynn Canyon Park

Yesterday we went off to North Vancouver to spend the afternoon at Lynn Canyon Park.

We had been there once during the fall two years ago and it was very pretty, but Vancouver during summer is a whole different thing and we were curious to see the Lynn Creek in a sunny day.

We reserved a Car2go and it was parked in front of a Peruvian Cafe, so we decided to try some Inca Cola. With our tutti-frutti chewing gum flavoured soda in hands, we drove off to North Van.

We got in to the park at the wrong entrance (2011 was a long time ago!) but had a pleasant surprise! We didn't get to see the Indiana Jones kind of suspension bridge they have at the other park entrance, but we didn't had to share "our" area of the park with any other tourists either.

We walked down some narrower trails following the sound of water until we arrived at this crazy beautiful shallow and wide portion of the creek between a short waterfall and a small rapid.

The water was extremely cold and we couldn't have our feet underwater for more than a minute.

Unfortunately it was late in the afternoon and we wanted to go through the trails back while it was still light out, but we are definitively going back someday this summer early in the morning to perhaps risk a freezing swim.

Italian Day

Yesterday it was Italian Day at Commercial Drive in Vancouver. It was sure better than the time we went to Greek Day in Kitsilano, but it wasn't exactly the "OMG it's so authentic" that we overheard people saying on the streets.

We started off with a 2PM breakfast of Fanta Banana Slurpee for Pau and some Tonic Water for me to get us going.

As expected, there were several non-sense vendors that just enjoy the opportunity to sell a bit more, like promotional stands from bands, radio stations and Car2go. The restaurants of the street also set up an outside stand with foods that are no so very Italian, like butter chicken and sushi.

Out of all the activities expected for the day, like eating contests and Italian fashion shows, we only saw the very end of a cooking demonstration with "The Singing Chef". We got there at the right time!

Singing was actually the only thing we saw. A trio with dark tans and bright teeth at first, then the singing chef, then a very self confident guy in a pink silk shirt and a smaller karaoke style area.

After some good laughs, we started getting cranky from hunger and decided it was past time to have our first meal of the day. But everything was so full! The lines for the street vendors were huge and the prices weren't really that attractive and all the restaurants of the Drive were packed with long waiting times.

By 4PM we gave up on the theatrical Italian Day and went on to get great pizza on Gastown, at Nicli Antica, far from it all. It was really really good as always, but we were way to hungry to take pictures.
From there we walked back home, stopping for a Clover coffee on the way, Pau's new coffee preference that deserves a whole post about it.

Grillin'

We're on patio madness mode around here. It's definitely not summer yet, but it feels nice to be able to sit outside just because.
And then I saw this post on Buzzfeed (talk about procrastination!) about vegetarian grilling recipes... Combined with a portable barbecue sale on Canadian Tire and our new balcony, I guess I figured out what could be the next home upgrade. Pau is not THAT on board with my idea, but I would love to grill pizzas and sandwiches and vegetables and try to have an actual barbecue at least once with all the fake meat we can find here in Vancouver.
Off course the 10 dollar grill from Canadian Tire is not nearly as pretty as this Cast Iron Grill

Or as portable as this flat fold grill (I can only find the uglier black version for sale)

But I just wanna grill an asparagus and Gardein chicken lunch like this one!

and grill away like Bob Dylan!

Balcony

We have finally fixed our kind-of-a-balcony. Pau says it's a "back porch".
It's a bit of space we have outside of our back door, by the stairs that lead to the back alley. Each of us neighbours have a piece of land like this that sometimes get invaded by people coming up or down and ours has never been anything.
We had a nasty small couch that the previous tenant left behind resting there that got substituted by our own old couch after we got a new one for the living room. After we finally sold the couch we were left with an open storage space. There was my bike, Pau's bike and two abandoned bikes we found on the streets. We sold them one by one and in the end there was only my bike and garbage left over from our kitchen renovation. Once there were also some embarrassing bags filled with kitchen garbage that we forgot to take down and got attacked by racoons (up in the third floor!).

We have been dreaming about this for a while and with summer starting to show its face, we decided it was time to take action. We took the old countertop and other junk to the dump, tied the bike standing up, cleaned the infinite amount of black dust and spider webs that we've been gathering for all these years and off to IKEA.

We managed to fit everything (perhaps illegally) in the smart car from Car2go and drove home through a storm. When we got home the storm had already stopped so we did some easy IKEA carpentry work transforming our nasty old space into a great summer spot! It got so great that we're working from here right now, even if it's still a bit nippy out.

The next step is to get some string lights for the night time. We already bought a huge pack of tea candles on this trip to IKEA, but string lights look so nice and cozy and pretty...

I've been researching on which on to get. I really love the look of the globe lights at night, but Pau has a point, they don't look so good during the day.

We're leaning towards the japanese lanterns made with nylon instead of paper so they can stand the Vancouver drizzle and look good in the day and night time.

But I've seen so many other fun novelty or more expensive string lights online...

I like the mini street lanterns or the "cafe" lights with a metallic dish on top from here. And I like all of the caged string lights a lot as well.

Bamboo lights for a tiki look, or straight tiki lights.

From the fun novelties ones that I'm sure we won't get, there are thousands of great ones (including some penis lights)

But I would have the greatest fun with these grape ones, just to reenact this video over and over:

Summer

I've never been much of a motorcycle person, but inspired by the tiny dots of light that are finally hitting our window, I've been searching for all things summer.

We have considered buying an electric scooter to be able to go to beaches and parks and so Pau can get to work more easily.

I have absolutely no idea on anything vehicle related and all the facts and information about the bikes mean close to nothing to me but I have gathered some of the motorcycles that I would buy if money wasn't that much of an issue.

These are only some scooters that we could actually own. The vintage Vespas and Lambrettas are nothing but dream material.

The Motorino XPd is one of my favorites. Its heavy duty looks make it seem less toy-like than most of the other Electric Scooters I've seen (on internet pictures!). From what I understood it's also a bit more potent than most others and I think it might be necessary to register it, pay for insurance and have a regular driver's license, which is a bit of a problem for Pau.

This one took me a little bit to find again. Gio has one model that is called "Gio Italia", and from the looks of this one, I was sure it was it. But no, this one is called MG500w+, the Italia doesn't have a vintage two-color design. It also looks faster, so it might require license and registration just like the Motorino, which is a no no.

Since we're already on the "license and registration" scooters, I really love the Vespa meets Mobylette look of the Honda Spree from the 80's and I found some cheap used ones, but unfortunately I was completely out of focus when I searched for it, 'cause it's definitely not what we need, I guess. It's also not electric.

On that note, the Honda Gyro X from japan also looks like a really really nice and weird 3 wheeled scooter I'll never have.

But I'm more and more inclined into finding a cheap electric bike sort of like a moped. Cheap, simple, light and easy. I wish I could find a Mobylette.

Can't find anything I really like for really cheap somewhere close by, but I wouldn't complain not even a bit to get something like this electric Chinese TaoTao, which is ugly but seems like the best option until now.