Day 15
Boredom as a Religion
Another boring day; another great day. It had all the potential for starting out lousy, though, as neither of us was able to sleep very well the night before. Even though it'd been raining most of the day before, for some reason, it was too warm in the room that night to sleep, and despite all my best efforts, I couldn't get the air conditioner to work. Well, it would move air, but I couldn't seem to find any setting that would cause the compressor to turn on.
Naturally, early in the morning of the 15th day, as we were both trying to pull the covers up over our faces to ward off the early morning chill, we were both awakened to the sound of the compressor wheezing to life. At least this finally made the room cool enough to sleep in, even if it was TOO cool.
You know, the Vancouver attitude towards working air conditioners could really piss me off if I gave it a chance. Maybe we should have been paying $5 extra per day for the room, or something.
Despite this, and despite the fact that I was just naturally restless from the non-ending in that Len Deighton book (I was up all night worrying about what would happen to the hero), we did manage to sleep in late, anyway.
Our original plan was to hit the Beijing for Dim Sum at noon. Our plans were based on the hours posted in the restaurant guide, which is just another way of saying that our plans were based on a complete fabrication. I should have realized this by now, but I probably didn't want to dwell on reality too much when there was a hope of Dim Sum at the other end of the dream. Naturally, when we got there, the place was closed, and promised not to be open until dinner time.
We went back to the room, and I read another Len Deighton book (or at least I started to). We decided to go see "Bird on a Wire" at a nearby theater, and stop for a sub somewhere along the way.
Like most downtown areas, downtown Vancouver spends most of Saturday being closed. Finding an open restaurant was difficult, and finding one that didn't have the Golden "Mc" out front proved nearly impossible, but we eventually found some Souvlaki at a greasy spoon joint next to the theater we were planning on going to. The theater was much more exciting than the restaurant.
It was our second or third experience with a Canadian movie theater, and like the first couple, it was one of the Cineplex Odeon chain. If you're ever in Canada, and ever want to see a movie, this is the chain of theaters to pick. I was really impressed. Even though this theater chain seemed to be about as big in Canada as General Cinema is in the US, it was about as unlike a General Cinema as you could get.
Unlike a General Cinema shoebox, this is a chain I could actually look forward to going to for reasons other than investigating new life forms among the Cinemuck on the floors. In fact, there wasn't any Cinemuck on the floors of these theaters (or at least any that we went to). The screens were big, and most of them had that new THX sound, which is just George Lucas pretending to invent decent theater sound, but it sounds pretty good anyway. On top of that, they had decent goodies at the refreshment stand, including real butter on the popcorn (so Robert tells me), plus a nice selection of McD level junque food, as well as a decently stocked dessert freezer. Inside the theater area were seats that weren't on the verge of collapse, and didn't even have those discs of prehistoric "catapult" brand bubble gum woven into the fabric.
This particular theater also had a cafe area next to the snack counter for eating your yummies in relative comfort before the movie starts. In most theaters, this sort of thing probably wouldn't be very exciting, but this one did have all those pastries and stuff, so it was a fun place to be even without the movie.
In this case, I got another Nanaimo bar, for which I was rapidly developing an addiction.
Back to the motel room after the movie, and more of that Len Deighton novel.
For dinner, we went to a nice greasy chipati Indian place just over the river from downtown. The service was slightly rude, although reasonable. As far as the cuisine went, it seemed to sit squarely between what Americans call Indian food and what the English think it is.
Quick drive back to the motel bar for a Whiskey Sour, then retired to the room to watch some TV.
On to Day 16: Vancouver, Almost Exhausted
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