Fireworks day!
We woke up today on the 21st floor of one of the many tall stacks of condos that shoot up like bristles of a hairbrush along the False Creek in Vancouver. I enjoy heights. This was a fantastic view that only lacked an Adirondack chair and the four feet of balcony to put it. *Alas*, thanks Rick.
That day we took small rainbow emblazoned ferries across the bay to Granville Island. There we spent the day ogling the dense carefully stacked piles and racks of produce, meats, and wares. It is a large marketplace where all forms of food and spice was represented by no less than 22 vendors (I think it must be a law). The throngs of tourists and natives were both annoying and entertaining. People watching was a great pastime while eating by pastry covered ceramic tureen filled with clam chowder.
I could enjoy the idea of living in an high rise condo by the bay and shopping for a fine home cooked meal from the market just a quaint ferry ride away.
That evening we ate at the Macaroni Grill in Vancouver. Why a Macaroni Grill while visiting a place with diverse collection of cusines available? Atmosphere! The Macaroni Grill is located in an old Adam’s Family style mansion built in 1898 called the ‘Gabriola Mansion’. We ate dinner at a table in a bay window of the library (yep, Mrs. White, in the Library, with the rope) and I must say that pasta in an ancient mansion tastes quite a bit better than in a modern faux-historic big box restaurants with black girders and air ducts lining the ceiling.
From dinner we were off to see the fireworks. It seems that British Columbia was celebrating their 150th year. Part of their celebration was to hold a fireworks competition between Canada, the USA, and China. The competition was close. As a matter of fact it was a three way tie. But despite this indecisive outcome, the show made for a great display of pyrotechnics, so off we went.
And so did 400,000 other people. Canadians and tourists alike streamed down to the beach like ants on a cookie. The beaches and parks in the area filled up to capacity and then overflowed. We arrived an hour and a half early, and still were relegated to a small patch of grass with a limited view of the ocean. It sufficed, and as the event came closer, the remaining nearby patches of empty turf filled in with stragglers until there was just a sea of people.
The fireworks were outstanding. There were four sets of fireworks with each country displaying their best, followed by a group effort that rivaled the individuals. Somehow, amidst the distant explosions, three bottles of wine emptied themselves transitioning the show from tingling excitement to passively preeminence. The three countries outdid themselves with this competition. Kudos to them all.
After the last grand finale, the mass of people collectively stood, stretched, and ebbed from the beach and flowed into the towered city. Sixty million pounds of people all hiked en masse from the north beach. I could feel the entire Vancouver peninsula sliding northward counteracting the souther migration. Heads all around bobbed like molecules subjection to Brownian law. The edges of the mob sloughed off to cars, to buildings, and temporarily behind trees and bushes eventually disbursing readily across Vancouver like an ideal gas.
We too thinned from the crowd escaping the throng to our nest high on the twenty-first floor. -whew-