Birds of a feather flock together. Is that really true? Let us find out. Looking around the neighborhood I noticed that a lot of people were dressed the same. Most distinctive in their attire is 
the turban, for the male that is, and they have beards. Now, growing a beard has become fashion of late but measured by the length of their facial hair the Sikh were far ahead of their time. Unlike the so called 'Metro-man' who is already happy when a dark glow on his jaws has barely become visible, the Sikh are totally committed and go all the way. No half measures are taken here. Good for them. Another thing that struck me was the salutary rest the Sikh radiate. Have I come across a
Sikh running bewilderingly down the street? Nope. Did I have to plug my ears with parsley against Sikh speaking loudly? Nope. Or was I brushed aside by Sikh trying to jump the queue waiting for the bus? Thrice no. I quite like this. How different from the Netherlands, where everyone seems to be in a hurry for whatever obscure reason. And queuing for the bus, I don't think so. The Dutch all want to get in first. Impossible I know because only one can be first, and even 'the first shall be last' as the saying goes. Therefor an utter waist of energy.
I have got an theory on this. I reckon the Sikh have invented the saying 'the first shall be last'
and live their lives accordingly. Just wait for the first one to become
last and only then make your move. It also explains why many Sikh are
sitting on benches, seemingly waiting for something. You got it, for the first mover. There you have it.
Not so strange after all.
A Sikh neighborhood is not such a bad thing after all. as more and more people are stressing up it would be worth considering a Sikh lifestyle. I for one wouldn't mind. It may even be contagious for all I care...
Should you wish to swim to the west, leaving Vancouver, and have a really good condition you would end up on the shores of Vancouver Island. So much for imagination when coming up with a name for this hump of land. I decided not to. Not only is the distance to the island long enough having to bring a packed lunch which is difficult to handle whilst swimming, but there are also creatures in the water that are hard to out-swim as a human. 
Orcas for instance. Although Michael Phelps would stand a good chance with his feet size 62. I may be a keen swimmer but, taking everything into consideration, opted for the ferry. As it turned out, I was not the only one that drew this conclusion.
Stepping of the ferry onto the soft sand of Vancouver Island's shoreline there is only one thing to do that seems appropriate. Build a sandcastle. Who hasn't got fond memories of childhood days when you ran onto the beach with a bucket and shovel to build the biggest sandcastle ever? I know, this aspiration often came to a grinding halt when you stumbled over the stuff you were carrying and ended up having your first mouthful of the beach. On the bright side, you were then able to grind your teeth properly. No, this time it would be different. Older and well ehhh older, precautions were taken and
that really paid of well. Proper mud and fresh water were brought to the scene and of we went. Incidentally we Dutch are rather good with mud and water, as Helena Bangert demonstrated by winning the first price in the singles contest. I would have opted for the only proper sandcastle but I wasn't a member of the jury, unfortunately.
To prevent any mishap from taking place, the Volunteer
family was hired to take care of security, with Zack Volunteer being the
big boss. And safe it was. The Volunteer
family turned out to have a lot of members.
Many different topics were portrayed in sand with the inevitable sculpture of humans most faithful companion, the dog. Now, I know for a fact that this so called faithfulness is strictly tied to being fed properly but some people are under the impression that it is all about friendship. Dream on I would say. Nevertheles, for some people building a simple sand sculpture to underline their relationship with their four legged friend doesn't go quite far enough. They seek different ways to bond with doggie. Where I would say 'try a steak', they try all different kinds of silly activities. Like 
throwing sticks, a ball, go for a walk or go skateboarding together. Well, together is not the right word I'm afraid. You skateboard and I watch is more like it.
Or to take it one step further and stay in a beachy mood, go skinny-boarding. I kid you not. Whilst scanning the beach, a curious spectacle caught my eye. At closer range it turned out to be an English bulldog, named Carmen 
as I found out later, riding a skinny board. It took nearly a year to get Carmen this far according to her trainer but now she had the moves of a professional. Trainer July threw the board across the puddle, Carmen chased it, jumped on it and rode the waves. Monsieur Bizet would have been 'en extase' would he still have been alive. And man, was she in good fig! The dog too.
A dog's life? Could well be, but I would trade mine in anytime...
What better to do on a Friday evening then helping the neighbor to empty his crate of Coronas? Well, what about supporting a good cause? I do agree that 'helping though neighbor' can also be considered to be a good cause but I mean something different entirely. Whilst doing my neighborly duty my ears picked up the amplified voice of a commentator of some sort. Too far away to make any sense of it or this was due to the language spoken. As my neighbor went of to
dreamland, I headed off in the direction of the Voice and found myself a couple of blocks later amidst the audience of a life cricket match. I worked out by the absence of heavily
armed hooligans and the presence of entire families that is was safe to
stay a bit longer. Now, like the rest of you, bar my brother in law, I do not know all the rules of this game. But what I do know strikes me as rather a waste of time. Playing test matches as if it were the first time the game is
played and have matches that take up to 5 days to end in a draw. How useless is that. Not that the players on the pitch did mind. They seemed non the wiser as they shook hands after the match. India played Pakistan, or vice versa, and came out on top
Did this cause any riots? After all both countries have been rivals for ages and even clash now and then in Kashmir. Which incidentally has nothing to do with the quality of the sweaters. Nope, even after India in complete harmony with
ABBA took all, there was a lot of camaraderie amongst the players. And that was a good thing as the match was played to raise funds to fight cancer, not each other. After some inspiring words by the Voice, which went completely over my head as I have not mastered Hindi yet, we were all free to go. I would say an evening well spent.
I walked home pondering about some facts that stuck in my head as proof of Dutch successes in this otherwise irrelevant sport. In the Netherlands that is. 
How about june 2009 when the Dutch cricketers beat England at the Worldcup Twenty20. Shocking. Was this a coincidence then? I fear it was not. Exactly the same thing happened in March 2014 at the Worldcup Twenty20 too. Something my brother in law would rather not be reminded of. Nevertheless, watching a baseball game is more my cup of tea. It boils down to the same basics but is much more difficult as the bat is much smaller. And it is less wicked. Hit and run that is what I make of it...
'An apple a day keeps the doctor away', is an old saying that is recited even today. But is that really so? I am not so sure. Not every apple is meant to take a bite from nowadays. Very different from earlier times. Adam did not think twice before taking a bite from the apple Eve offered him. William Tell did not have any trouble splitting the apple on his son's head with a bolt from his crossbow.
And Sir Isaac Newton came up
with his 
'First law of motion' when an apple fell on his head. Fortunately for him he was not sitting under a coconut tree.
How different would all this have been by modern standards. Adam would probably have declared Eve mad for asking him to risk his pearly whites. Being an excellent marksman would not have helped William Tell's son to balance a Macintosh on his head properly. On the upside, the target would have been much bigger. And Sir Isaac Newton would not have been pleased when one of Steve Job's inventions would have landed on his head. A severe concussion would have been the result. Not his 'First law of motion'.
Still, people seem to like the Apples from Cupertino despite all the mishap they could have caused. Even more then the fruits of the labor of Samsung. I kid you not. This is true as I found out on one of my explorations into Richmond Centre.
I came across the stores
of Samsung and Apple, two old rivals. Should one have had the possession
of it, William Tell's crossbow could have been fired without
hitting anyone. Bar the sales staff, but what is their use without
customers to attend to anyway.
What a difference from the atmosphere in the Apple store. Although Apple aficionados obviously do
not like to be in the forefront and drove in the back of the store, there were
quite a few of them too. Hopefully Apple's research department does not inhibit the same behavior though. However, unlike the echoing sounds
of my own footsteps haunting me in the Samsung store, the space
here was filled with gleeful sounds coming from the mouths of exited 'applets' as I would like to baptize the flock of shoppers. For the record, the blue Smurf-like creatures are members of the sales staff and should therefore be
left out of the equation. Nevertheless I dare say that people still like
fruit today. Not all kinds of fruit though...
Being in between cars has the advantage of getting a taste of the public transportation system in Vancouver. That is, unless you decide to become a recluse. Which I did not. I bought myself a booklet of 10 Faresaver
tickets and embarked on my journey. Iwas a bit puzzled to notice that the whole here is less than the sum of it's parts. The 'Gestalt' principle obviously has not made it to Canada yet. But being Dutch, I am not complaining. Cheaper is better. Nowadays public transport comes in various shapes and sizes which forces me to limit myself to introduce just two modalities. Bus and Skytrain. Public transport is not up everyone's alley as we know. Translink, the company operating public
transport in Vancouver has therefore come up with a cunning plan to cure potential passenger's cold feet. Bicycle racks are fitted to the front of buses to give faint hearted passengers a fall back, their own bicycle, in case the bus breaks down. Strapping your bicycle to the front of the bus is of course up to yourself so no one else is to blame in case the bicycle falls of the bus during the trip. Self-reliance has to start somewhere you know.
Shifting ones gaze from ground level upwards would bring the Skytrain into sight. It provides a unique way to see Vancouver as it flies, so to speak, 
over the city. The system is fairly simple with just three line colors to choose from. Compare that to London's tube system. Even people who are colorblind can find their way around as long as one can distinguish a dark color from a light color. Also very welcome on a hot summer's day is air conditioning. Well, Skytrain has it when you choose the right carriage. Although I must admit that scarcely clad ladies make up for a lot of hardship, keeping a cool head is to be preferred as far as I am concerned. Something you will not find on the Skytrain is a 'don't speak to the driver' sign. Simply because there is none. A driver that is. No chance of conductors falling asleep and missing red signs, going on strike or complain about having to drive the same route every day. Even ordinary passengers can pretend to be the
conductor of the train by occupying the seat up front. Not exactly an experience like the roller coaster of Six Flags in Maryland, but Skytrain at least stays in it's tracks. There is much to be said for that too. Another good thing is it's connection to earth. Not only from an electrical perspective but also from an operators point of view. Where operators behind the remote control of a drone every now and then loose sight of their projectile, Skytrain however will stick firmly to terra firma...
Zealous civil servants are not only common in the Netherlands. On one of my trips I came across irrefutable proof that they also prosper in Canada.
How thick must one be not to guess that lighting a cigarette (and throwing the butt away) would result in an increase of the possibility of fires bursting out. Having said that, what can be learned from Canada is how to choose the location to enable smokers to stick to their habit. Rather than having to huddle at the entrance of the office building they work in, the Canadian smoker can overlook the Strait of Georgia whilst smoking.
There is a downside to this all however. In order to enjoy this view the Canadian smoker may have to travel a fair bit. Thus burning fuel as well as smoking cigarettes. Hence the saying 'where there is smoke there is fire'. Ahh, fire danger, now I got it...
Settling in a new town unavoidably involves finding a place to live. On my quest for a new abode I came across places of various distinction. It is very popular amongst Canadians to convert the basement of a house into one or more apartments. Occasionally the conversion has been carried out with good taste and the result then is a roomy and light apartment. This however is not always the case. A basement being a basement normally means that it is partly underground. Skylights then have to provide the necessary natural light but hardly succeed in doing so. Vampires must love these places. I for one don't. It makes me feel like being part of 'Dungeons and dragons'.
This is what I have found myself. That is, part of it. Having to dish out the cash myself I resorted to Dutch frugality. Nevertheless, I think I could have done far worse. The front of the apartment, which is at the back of the house (still there?), is baking in sunlight and according to my calculations will do so even in the winter sun.
So with no further ado I present my new 'home away from home'. Just for a brief moment I was tempted to provide the address as well. But Dutchies being Dutchies could well have resulted in 'friends' banging on my door looking for a place to stay. No doubt this would have negatively interfered with the work that must be done. So nope. Maybe another time...
Of course there are exceptions to the rule. Miss P. is, for one.
What a nice beginning that story had. But then it turned out to be rather nasty and mean. The big bad wolf entered the plot and caused quite a disturbance. Now, what can we learn from this story? Well for one, building a house out of straw is not a very good idea. And that also goes for using matchsticks as the main building material. This sounds pretty logical to me. 
Not to the Canadians however. As I have discovered, they insist in building their houses using a huge number of matches. And they are not small either these buildings.
a lot harder to chop rocks into the desired shape to build a dwelling. And a serious number of 'rockstars', as they have to do all the chopping obviously. Which would cause a problem with the dwindling quality of musicians nowadays I'm afraid. Or a flog of well trained woodpeckers. Hard to come by these days. Nope, it's a lot easier to chop trees down. What's more, every now and then Vancouver and the surrounding countryside are shaken by earthquakes. Not of the kind that would cause a ripple in a filled teacup. No, serious ones. A stone house would collapse under these circumstances and a large pile of rubble would be the result. No fun at all. Not so much with a wooden house. 
The pile of sticks that would be left would make for an excellent game of Mikado. Or provide a life-long supply of chopsticks to utilize at the local Chinese munchroom. And let me provide a bit of free advice here. I suggest the builders take future use of their sticks into consideration and pre-color them to make their application in a game of Mikado a bit easier. 
