Here I am again, with another update. Accompanying this entry are pictures from my experience on the Skytrain and random pics from Stanley Park (again!), but this time I ain't alone. So Canada Day was weird to say the least. Kristine and I had already decided we'd like to go to the beach with her friends that day and avoid the rather large crowd/festivities going on at Canada Place which is like a huge convention centre (sort of like Palais de Congres), obviously alot of stuff outdoors. So here we are all set to go, and then right b4 we leave, her buddies text her and say they wanna go to Canada Place after all, so begrudgingly (is that even a word?) we make our way there, try to find them, get ANOTHER text saying they went to the beach after all (and here I am without my trunks and towel, wonderful! because I didn't think we were gonna end up there after all) so we go to Stanley Park, where the beach they're at is, but there's like 3 of them and we didn't know which one to go to and unfortunately ppl don't know how to answer phones so we couldn't get ahold of her buddies, so we went to the 1st beach we hit (aptly named 2nd Beach lol!) and then we were there for a good 30-45 min, where Kristine was lying there suntanning and I sat there twiddling my thumbs (altho I just couldn't help it so I rolled up my pant legs and just waded into the water with my feet) and then K's buddies FINALLY returns our call and says they are at the beach way down on the other end but they are leaving now.

So now what do we do?? We eat our lunches that we prepared and go on our way (cuz there's no way I'm staying at the beach just sitting on my ass under the sun, if i go i'd like to swim u know?!) so we try to take the easy way out and take the free trolley, which took us all around the park and turns out was unnecessary because the city entrance/exit was the stop after (but we went a full round so get it???) so got pics in trolley of me and K, and then K's B's text her telling us to join them in some luxury suite that they're dog-sitting for a friend in. So we go and end up at some really fancy living space/hotel/suite on the 26th floor of this ''tower". Lemme tell u, even being jerked around all day, the anger went right away when I saw the spectacular view from high above the city....good stuff! Oh and also there was the aforementioned dog, this deliciously cute Boston terrier named Daisy. She was so pooped, lying there looking so adorable! After hanging out for like an hour we left and quickly decided if we should stay downtown to watch fireworks at 10:30pm, meaning we'd have to wait for about 4 hrs (by this time it was already around 6 something) or just go home.........and home it was! But it was a pretty draining day so Canada Day wasn't really capped off with anything special..........well other than my first time on Vancouver's Skytrain, and lemme tell u, it was so cool riding on the rails above the city, and seeing all these places like Science World, Vancouver flea market (which I'm sooooo going to) and Cirque du Soleil!

Of course between all this, Kristine and I had our squabbles, we both have very opposing personalities so we tend to clash often. Sometimes its just really hard because things get confrontational where we each try to get one up on the other. Sometimes she gets things wrong and it happens (everyone does) and she cannot admit that she is, I correct her and apparently I'm the wrong one, I do the research and I'm still the wrong one! Dear dear dear. However wll I deal? Well I was told I should probably just shut up and let her have way, stand back even if I am right. Maybe it's a good idea. Anywho so in short, Skytrain, new experience, very cool. And I can explore more freely now that I have a transit pass for the month, can go anywhere I want to see!!!! Yahoo!

So that was for July 1, hadn't done anything that interesting since then up until last nite July 4, where I checked out the Centre and it's youth drop-in to see what happens on this side of the spectrum of the rainbow. I'm lucky, it just so happens they're having a kind of Queer Prom that I already mentioned. So it's happening 2nite from like 8pm-12am....which means it starts in a couple minutes and I should really get my butt over there!!! So after the Centre, I walked around a little bit since Kristine and a friend were at the George Michael concert (lucky them!) and checked out a book warehouse full of discounted books!! Saw Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince in hardcover for 11$!! I should've jumped on it rite there and then but I didn't have enough cash so I'm gonna have to hope its still there when I return another day. So we were supposed to go 4 drinks after Kristine finished her concert at a place called "Odyssey" and apparently it's "the hottest gay bar in the city". No joke!! that was their slogan! LOL. but I find out it's like freakin' $8 to get in!! R u kidding me thats like half a pitcher of beer rite there....or at least one expensive drink! So I waited and wait for an hour and a half (turns out the concert didn't let out until 11:30pm) and only met up with them at around 12:35am and decided to find an actual free bar/pub that didn't jip u to get into!

That's when we found ourselves at Oasis Pub, a quaint nice place with an outdoor terrace. but we stayed inside. Considering I didn't really eat much, I got pretty tipsy (not drunk!! TIPSY) and it was kinda awesome actually LOL!! We had a pitcher of beer and I got us some Cosmos to top it off so if I had anymore, I would've been totally gone!! Got some crazy pics tho from last nite, including Kristine in all her coolness with her George Michael t-shirt me wobbling all over the p and attempting to unsuccessfully walk a str8 line. Of course these pictures will be coming to a screen near u, next time, where I will also include deets bout Queer Prom!!! G2g go look beautiful now so....ciao bellas!!!!

Alan, Mistress of the (fill in the blank here)

(note pics r from July 1st and check out the poor horses in the horse drawn trolleys, which of course I wouldn't take!)

Hey my peeps! So it's about Day 13 here, I think, I dunno I've lost track. Here's the pi of Stanley Park in daytime that I promised on my previous post, some gorgoeous sights all within one area. There's the Lions' Gate Bridge, the infamous Rose Garden which is a popular venue for wedding photos apparently, and there's one pic that looks like it's a random shot of trees but it shows a miniscule part of the huge damage that was caused by a massive storm that it the park/Vancojuver in Dec. 06. When u imagine that ihat a large porton of the park was wiped out by the storm and how much of the trees are gone (it used to be as thick s a rain forest, u couldn't see out onto the water) it's very sad, but on the bright side, ppl get another POV of the waterfront. We also passed by some really rather large and ANCIENT trees, I 4get what they were tho, I think one was a red oak which was like 800 yrs old (one of the oldest in North America I think, or at least Canada), another one was like a 100 yr old hollow tree which unfortunately also got pretty beat up by the storm and is now fenced off for preservation when it used to be free for all to take pics under.

` Anyway other random shots u can figure out urselves, i still have yet to hit the aquarium but I hope i can get to it soon! So coming up on my next entry I will show u highlights/photos from Canada Day, which turned out to be really strange and unpatriotic, which features another trolley around Stanley Park, this time with Kristine! and my experiece on the Skytrain (Vancouver's answer to Montreal's Metro system.....except not really underground) so that's coming up next!!! Oh and sorry abut weird format of pics, I really need to learn how to blog properly, i'm still a beginner at this so plz spare me the painful glares of doom!!! And on a sidenote I'm hitting on Queer Prom put on by local community LGBT subgroup of "The Centre" (community centre for anyone idenitifying as LGBT or allies) and I will have highlights from here as well!!!

Alan, Your Mistress of (fill in the blank here)