Vancouver Day 2

Today was a beautiful clear day and I walked back down to the front where I had been yesterday. The view was completely different with the huge snow covered mountains in the distance. I snapped of a couple of pics and then walked the opposite direction to yesterday and came across the Olympic flame statue/monument/thing built the same as the one that had popped out of the floor in the stadium (this one with the four legs) It was surrounded by building fencing as they were digging up around it to put in some fountains in (why don't they do this when they build them) but I still got some pics of it from the viewing platform on the roof of the now empty Olympic media centre. It's strange but this town seems to have a bit of an Olympic 'hangover', all around there are small bits of evidence that something big has happened here, and the people seem a little shell shocked from it all, but in a good way. I watched a could of the float planes taking off from the water in front of the wharf, the wind had got up a fair bit now and some of them seemed to just hang in the sky not really going any where once they got to a certain hight before veering off over Stanley Park. I walked on through the high rise buildings and before I knew it had walked up to Stanley Park. By now it was getting on a bit and I had agreed to meet up with Debbie Reid's son in the late afternoon so I headed back to the hotel.
Not long after getting back to the hotel around 4pm I got a text from Eric to say he was downstairs. I had not seen Eric for about 15 years and that wasn't for long when I had visited Debbie in Edmonton. ( I was due to meet Debbie the next day in Regina. I've known Debbie for many years from the Old CompuServe Scouting Forum – as like Ian Loxton I met in Adelaide) We hit the bar in the Hotel for couple of pints then walked down into the Gasworks Area of town where the chap at the Brewery the night before told me of a bar that had an English Beer Engine, on the way we stopped at a pub Eric knew and had a couple of very cheep and strong but good porters ($4/8%/pint) then onto the Alibi Rooms where they did indeed have 'hand pulled' although at $26 for 4 pints we didn't stay long. Eric knew of another good bar nearby and this was about the nearest I've been to an English Pub yet, that hasn't tried to be 'Ye Olde English Pub'. For some reason we got chatting to a bunch of Koreans who were celebrating a birthday and a trio of Aussies who were just out for a beer, next thing I know we're falling out of a club back up near my hotel at nearly 2am. I would love to tell you how the beers were, but for some reason it all went a bit foggy! How Eric managed to make his class the next day I will never know?!?