I set today aside to be massively productive and that’s what I did. Shockingly I realized I spend about two hours every morning reading/answering emails and reading the news. Such a time sink.

Worked all day, worked out. Had lunch at The Basil Box which is the classic example of a concept I’ve discovered while traveling that I need to rip off and establish in Denver. It’s basically a Chipotle of Thai food. Fast and good.

Worked some more, then Krav Maga in the evening, then sleep. Pretty plain day.

Early start today because it was the World Cup finals, USA v. Netherlands. Vancouver did not seem interested in this in the least and finding a place to even potentially watch it was a real pain. I only succeeded because the lass who cut my hair the day prior mentioned a possibility, which I walked over to and asked about and they mentioned the place I ultimately landed as a possibility.

The good folks at Library Square Public House not only opened for the game but then opened extra early when they saw me loitering outside in the rain so I wouldn’t be stuck out there. All this despite the fact they couldn’t even serve alcohol. Vancouver liquor laws are bonkers. USA went on to win and there was even a beautiful shot from my future girlfriend Rose LaVelle so the day started off strong.

Didn’t have anything on the agenda after that so headed home for a while. For dinner I was thinking pizza. As I’m saving another destination for Clarke’s eventual arrival I walked over to The Parlour which had the highest rated pizza on FourSquare. It’s a nice space and the service was excellent, which I’ve actually found to be the case most places I’ve gone so far. Everyone is so friendly! But I didn’t think the pizza was overwhelmingly good. Interesting ingredient options and really good, unique dipping sauce but other than that pretty standard.

I was aiming to have high productivity the following day so after that I headed home and went to bed early.

I had scheduled a short kayaking outing for this morning. When I booked it the weather was looking to be great but the morning ended up being overcast and drizzly. I rode one of the Mobi bikes out to Kitsilano Beach which was our departure point. I was surprised at how much was going on over there even with the poor weather. There were two full volleyball tournaments taking place and some intrepid souls were even swimming despite the weather.

On the way I stopped at Siegel’s Bagels for breakfast. It was fine but didn’t live up to their online reviews. On top of which I think only about 1/3 of what I ordered actually made it to me correctly. But oh well, on to kayaking.

This was one of the more low-key kayak tours I’ve ever done. Just a couple hour paddle around False Creek and the harbor. Despite that it was the only kayak tour I’ve ever done where we actually lost people. Two couples had to turn back and one lady even managed to flip her kayak and go in on the placid waters. That being said, there was a group of us who actually knew what we were about and had a great time. Our guide, Vanessa was fabulous. I particularly enjoyed her lack of empathy for the people who couldn’t cut it… but that’s just me.

Rode another Mobi bike back to my place and resolved to get a haircut in . the afternoon. I booked an appointment at Barber & Co Financial District. Despite billing themselves as a high end barber shop I found it rather plain. My haircut was perfectly acceptable, though. So, I guess that’s all that matters.

I’ve had a headache since I’d turned up in Vancouver and I think it’s because I’ve had so much tension in my neck and shoulders. I resolved to get a massage to try and cope with this and went to Smile Thai Wellness which was the only place I could find outside of a five star hotel that didn’t seem like it would be raided by the police at any moment. I was pleasantly surprised with this place and the lass really seemed to know what she was doing. To the point that despite my insistence on the problem being my neck and shoulders she instead immediately pointed out one spot in the middle of my back and showed me that was actually the problem. Despite being extremely painful, I’d say it was worth it.

Needless to say I was pretty wiped out after that so I went home and went to sleep.

Having made the poor decision to stay up and binge watch all of the third season of Stranger Things the prior night this day got off to a slow start.

I struggled through work in the morning but then dozed off again for a while. After I got going again I spent some time finally updating this wee blog (uh oh I can sense an infinite loop error) and then got around to working out. I went over to Hubbub Sandwiches for lunch. According to the sign inside the restaurant arose out of two guys who were trying to open a sports bar but they had one sandwich that people loved so much they abandoned that idea and just went with the sandwich shop instead. My understanding was that it was the pulled pork sandwich so I tried that. Really big, really good, a good amount of spice but with a clean finish. Not like traditional pulled pork but really good.

After that I basically just killed some time until it was time for Krav Maga in the evening. Been a long time since I’ve done that but it was quite fun and the instructor is a really interesting guy who used to teach Krav to the French Foreign Legion etc.

Anyway, obviously quite tired after that and I had a kayaking excursion the following morning so afterwards I just headed home to bed.

Since today is American Independence Day and I had a light work day I signed up for a food tour of Granville Island. I’ve strolled through the market the last time I was here with Emilybeth but we just kind of wandered so I didn’t really know what I was about.

Food tours like this have become one of my go-to first activities when landing in a new city because, well who doesn’t love food? But it’s also a good way to meet other people passing through the city.

I woke up and got in a workout before snagging a Mobi bike and riding out to the island. We strolled through the market and covered a fair amount of ground.

Turns out most of the merchants in this market are totally local and their sole location is within the market. It’s also a market that locals still come to in order to do their weekly shopping. There was a passel of people from Seattle on my tour and they said they liked it much better than Seattle’s market because it wasn’t totally overrun by tourists like in Seattle. Our guide also said that in something like ten years of doing this she’d only seen three vendors ever leave the market and that there’s a wait list of like 300 trying to get in.

My thoughts on these places are all on FourSquare but we hit Granville Island Tea Company, Kaylin & Hobbs Pickles, Longliner Seafood, Benton Brothers Fine Cheese, ChocolaTas, and Edible Canada at the Market.

Really enjoyed the whole thing and it was really interesting to hear how many hoops the food and alcohol industry has to go through in Canada. Apparently, you can’t even get European cheese up here. More serious Vancouverites apparently drive down to The States to get groceries and alcohol because you can get more and it’s so much cheaper.

Even though it was a holiday I had to head home and do some work afterword. And, of course, had to call my wee mom and wish her a Happy Birthday.

Despite doing the food tour, or maybe because of it, I was unusually hungry so I went out again for dinner. I walked down to Rodney’s Oyster House which was excellent. Even at 4p on a Thursday this place was a party. I had to really push in at the bar but ended up hitting it off with everyone sitting around me. …shots may have ensued. But I still got home at an early hour.

…then I binged all of the new season of Stranger Things obviously, leaving me much too exhausted for the next day.

Another day of World Cup today. This time I avoided the mishaps. I woke up, got through my work and workout and then walked over to The Blarney Stone.

Missed the excitement but learned why my driver yesterday was questioning my destination when some random homeless guy started a tussle at the front of the place this go around. This was around noon mind you. Sadly Sweden was defeated by the Netherlands (WTF, mate?) so I left dispirited.

Due to some more problems owing to Canada’s obsession with regulation my evening plans fell apart so I randomly saw the new Spider Man on the spur of the moment. Freakin’ hilarious, highly recommend. The theater I was in had these seats that move according to what’s happening on screen. It seemed cool at first but actually experiencing it I just found it to be annoying as all hell. If faced with the choice in the future, pass on these.

Then it was home and to sleep.

Historically it hasn’t been my jam but the dominance of the USWNT has gotten me very invested in the current World Cup. I didn’t think it possible but the Canadians seem to be even less interested in soccer than Americans. After much Facebook searching I found a pub way to the south that was going to be showing the game.

After working and working out in the morning I grabbed one of the bike share bikes that litter the city and headed that way. Vancouver may be tough to get around given the absence of transportation options that most cities have but these bikes are so cheap and ubiquitous that they make up for a lot of it. Oddly I never see anyone using them…

I rode all the way out to the suburbs to this pub only to arrive to find that it had literally burned down or something! Luckily I got there early. But now I was too far out to make it anywhere else and as I was in the suburbs there were no cabs. I once again frantically searched to see if they had any sort of Uber equivalent. Luckily I found Kater which had just launched. But they only had one driver and he had to come all the way from the city to get me.

I rolled the dice and told him to take me to the first Irish Pub I was able to look up. His response “Are you sure you want to go to that part of town?” Looking back on my history I had an internal laugh at this. Got him to take me out there and arrived at The Blarney Stone only four minutes into the game.

Those who know me know that Irish Pub’s are one of my great passions in life. This is the Pub I’ve been missing in Denver. If you’re ever trying to find me on the streets of Van this is probably where I’ll be.

After watching the US defeat England I had to head home to make some work calls. Productivity was flagging after that and I still had things to do so I headed down to Trees Organic Coffee. This is a decent little coffee shop which has the distinction of being one of the few downtown that’s open late. They also apparently have been voted as having the best Cheesecake in Vancouver, though I’ve not tried it (yet). They also roast the beans right in the front room there which is both neat and distracting.

Worked there for a while and then home and to sleep.

I learned the day prior that today was Canada Day which is, apparently, some sort of sad attempt to compete with the real Independence Day taking place immediately to the South shortly. But, many of the festivities for this were happening right around my place so I decided to check it out.

I had to work through the morning and, after two months of slacking off, really needed to workout as well. It was a gorgeous day but it was hot and humid to be walking through giant crowds. Near as I could tell Canada Day is a holiday mostly celebrated by tourists visiting from Asia…

However, I did managed to pickup a new rain jacket which is going to go down as one of my best recent purchases.

I went to the other celebration down at Canada Place and had a wildly over priced… Toronto style smoked meat sandwich. Turns out this is just roast beef. I was still feeling oddly run down and all the walking around in the hit wasn’t helping so I headed back after this and passed out.

Vancouver is crazy over-regulated so my AirBNB hostess had to come back around this morning so we could sign several reams of paper governing short-term leases or something.

I’d gotten a little behind on work in the run-up to my departure so I had to work for the rest of the morning before I could embark on my traditional aimless wandering all over the city to get my bearings and see what’s what.

From my place I walked down to Canada Place which is the major port for the cruise ships that stop by. Having never done a cruise I found it rather interesting to watch the clip with which these things came and went. There were four docked when I went down and when I was passing back later in the day some had already changed out and others were leaving.

From there I walked down through Gastown and had lunch at this cafe Birds & The Beets. Everyone raves about this place but I didn’t really get what the hype was about. It was a pretty standard cafe. It seems their claim to fame was really just taking every ingredient that hipsters are all about these days and tossing them all into a variety of dishes. It was fine but… not sure I’ll be heading back there.

From there I looped through the Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Classical Chinese Garden. This is supposed to be some sort of significant Asian Garden but once again I was underwhelmed. (Uh oh, I hope I’m not becoming too jaded from all my travels).

From there I rolled through Yaletown and back up to my place. I worked at home for the rest of the day and then went to sleep early. I’ve been unusually tired and had a headache for much of my early days on this trip. I think all the looking down at the laptop is giving me a tension headaches. I may need to create a “Tierney-Style” standing desk for myself.

Jeez, I can’t believe that I’d previously managed to do this every single day for a year. Barely a week on the road so far and I’m already playing catch up. And last time I had all these lead up posts too.

Having done this so much now I’ve stopped feeling much need to worry or prepare in advance of these trips. My first stop on this go around is Vancouver as well which is basically America so that makes it easy as well.

Normally I start out in Europe so my flight is at least a bit of a journey. The flight to Vancouver is easier than the flight to New York. I headed to the airport on Saturday afternoon and posted up at one of my two DIA standbys, The Chop House. Not as good as Elway’s but all the international flights leave out of Concourse A so…

I had a video conference to attend which I did at the bar using this new app Krisp which I can’t say enough good things about. This app strips out all the background noise on your end of a call. It’s like noise canceling headphones for your mic. I was sitting in a crowded airport bar and joined this video conference and the first thing someone says to me is “Wow, Ben your audio sounds amazing.”

Wrapped that up and took the easy flight up to Vancouver. I always forget there’s no ride hailing apps in Vancouver and I just missed the train out of the airport which put me in a foul mood. I had to resort to taking a taxi which was just fine I suppose. I later learned that Vancouver JUST got a ride hailing app called Kater which I’ve since used. It works fine but it literally just rolled out in the past month so they don’t have great coverage yet.

Got to my AirBNB and got settled in. It’s certainly one of the nicer ones that I’ve stayed during my travels. It was late by that point so I just passed out.