Vancouver Arts

Vancouver Art Gallery is on my 'Canada-to-do-list'. I woke up and I saw today is perfect day for art gallery visit. It rains heavily since early morning. Looks like it will never stop. The weather fits as well with my plan to meet painting teacher and agree on painting class. 

The trip starts in cafe Artigiano (http://www.caffeartigiano.com/) with delicious coffee - latte and lemon/coconut crumble bar. I will get back to Vancouver's coffee culture in one of my coming posts as it is worth more than just few lines. 

After breakfast is time for arts. Current exhibition at Vancouver Art Gallery - Grand Hotel (http://projects.vanartgallery.bc.ca/publications/Hotel/exhibition-page/) - introduces the concept of hotel in its four aspects - travel, design, social and culture. 

All aspects are presented on most interesting and famous hotels in USA, Canada, UK, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, Singapore, Japan, Finland, France and Switzerland. 
Most interesting information for me were history of hotels on Road 66 (http://www.historic66.com/) and the story of Las Vegas and it's first hotel and casino Flamingo (http://www.flamingolasvegas.com/) - the beginning of the Las Vegas Strip.

Former communist countries were represented by Russian hotel Rossiya (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rossiya_Hotel). Located just next to Kremlin, Rossiya was in its time the biggest hotel in the World. Known for its terrible service and very small rooms the hotel was closed down and the demolition started in 2006 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HqxMxsdpTiE). The very attractive location is now under construction. I was surprised I found among few pictures and historical documents related to hotel Rossiya three Czech stickers from early sixties - adds for hotel Družba in Prague and in Rakovnik. 

I have spend the second half of the day on Granville Island - location of the Vancouver's famous arts school - Emily Carr University of Art + Design (http://www.ecuad.ca/). 

Granville Island (http://granvilleisland.com/) is the place where artists and musicians have their studios, galleries and shops. It is easy to spend a day here and I am sure you will want to come back again. Cafes, shops, markets full of arts, fresh food and interesting goods create very pleasant and inspiring atmosphere.

My painting class comes on July 20th!

Lunchtime with Surprice

Thursday, June 20th - last spring day. Tomorrow starts the Summer. Today I made my first trip to Vancouver down town. We had very nice lunch at Cafetica (http://dinehere.ca/vancouver/cafe-tica). Small busy soup&sandwich place. Today's special is very tasty scallop and potato cream soup and tuna sandwich. 

But food is not topic of my post today. The main story of today is related to parking. Finding parking place seems to be a problem in Vancouver city center. We were driving around the bistro for couple of minutes. Finally we found legal parking place big enough and not too far away. The situation after lunch is the same. I just need to remove the word 'legal' from my prior statement. After the lunch is our car not where we left it. Stolen?!? No. Towed! The opinion of one of the Buster Service drivers was - this car is parked illegally.

Buster service towed our car to City of Vancouver parking place. The name of the towing company reminds me of the film 'Ghost Busters'. The job is the same - hunting 'innocent' victims. White trucks are driving through the city and searching for cars parked illegally. Vancouver is very sensitive about the way you park your car. In my opinion - most of the towed cars would be considered as 'parked well' in most of the countries I know, even in Germany.

Good news is, it is not difficult to find where your car is. It is parked just 'five minutes by taxi' away. The taxi driver, who brought us there, is very nice guy. He said, he drives a lot of people to the Citi of Vancouver parking lot. Especially after tree o'clock. Suddenly we do not feel so lonely anymore. 

The towing business runs well everywhere around the world. Two other cars were brought in while we were paying the towing fee (90 $CAD, cheaper than in Prague?!?). The fine for bad parking (50-150 $CAD) has to be cleared with City of Vancouver office. We are done and leaving the parking lot in another five minutes.

Be careful where you park your car! ... and stay tuned-in!

Travel Day

Wednesday, June 19th - travel day - from hot Prague (27 degres Celsius in the morning) to Vancouver (16 degrees Celsius in the early afternoon). Packed and ready to go. 

Both KLM flights (Prague-Amsterdam / Amsterdam-Vancouver) were smooth. Short break in Amsterdam was just enough long to have small snack and glass of Champagne (special thanks goes to my frequent flyer card OK Plus - http://www.csa.cz/en/portal/frequent-flyers/ok-plus.htm)

Visually takes the flight from Amsterdam only 35 minutes - departure 13.20 arrival 13.55 - in reality is it nine hours and thirty minutes. I slept most of the time and before landing watched the movie 'The Hangover' (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1119646/).

At the end of the flight to Vancouver KLM give us small present - Dutch house filled with alcohol. I did not taste it until now. I was surprised the houses are copies of real existing buildings. I chose House Nr.69 - Amsterdam, Keizersgracht 319 Built in 1639. More about Dutch houses here - (http://www.klm-huisjes.nl/history/)

Vancouver International Airport is modern, nicely decorated with arts produced by native Americans. 

Welcome to Vancouver and enjoy!

Translation? ... I have to do one more today

What I have most fun while writing my posts is reading the Czech version translated by "Powered by Google Translate". 

I am always very impatient what comes out after I click on magic 'select language'. Believe me, I am never disappointed. I did not know how much fun is to be an interpreter. The text is translated by somebody - let's call HIM 'Robot Capek'. Him is very important, I will explain later. I am still not sure whether I like or hate Robot Capek.

First I have to say - I am really sorry for English native speakers. Unless they speak Czech, they are missing one of the funniest parts of my post. After clicking 'select language' I always wonder what was really on my mind. 

Second, and now I come to why is Robot Capek HIM, I tried hard, but I am in Czech version of each post always male. My mother wondered who am I talking about (it is me mom, but I look just a little manly). Now I understand better the 'feminist hysteria'. When we talk about English native women most of the time as a male, they may feel offended. I am suddenly happier about the fact we can differentiate female and male in Czech language just by family name and even by the verb form. 

Back to Robot Capek, I decided to like him. He is doing his best to help my Czech, German and other non-English friends to understand. I am not sure whether they understand better, but at least they have fun. Herewith I want to ask you for your comment on your native language version. 

Introspection comment - yes! I know my English is not perfect, but still ... it is not as funny as the Czech version of any English text.

PS ... for non-Czech - Karel Capek, Czech writer, author of the word ROBOT. More here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R.U.R.

I am curious, Robot Capek, how you handle this post?!? Let's have fun!

Where am I going?

This was the most frequent question I received after I published my first post. Test post worked well and I hope you will stay with me. 

Now back to your question. I will spend most of the time in Vancouver.

Second place I am planning to visit, and spend some time at is Whistler - last Olympic Games location. 

I do not want to disclose too much about my plans, as they are not very precise. Let's see what life brings and what other places wait for me in Canada. 

Departure day comes tomorrow! Stay tuned in!

First Record

This is the very first text I am publishing on my new blog site. As I promised my friends and family I will stay in touch in the course of my trip to Canada. This blog is ment to all who will not be physically with me on my trip. People who do not know me are also welcome to read it!

It is pity for most of us, but i decided to write all posts in English, as very few of my closest are native English speakers. I believe is fair - means difficult for everybody. Including me, I have to write it. Being lazy I thought better write just once (English) than four times (Czech, English, German and Russian). I implemented the function 'translated by google' - see top of the page. I have tried few translations and I have to say - at least my Czech speaking friends will have lots of fun even with very serious texts. I would appreciate German and Russian native speakers to comment their 'google translated' versions. 

Short technical Czech instruction - cely text muzete jednoduse prelozit vybranim jazyka v rolovacim menu pod obrazkem 'Summer in Canada'.

I promise, I will work with pictures a lot to help you understand what was/is on my mind.

Next post comes already from Canada, unless I experience something very special until then. I will appreciate your comments and greetings at any time (do not forget I will be GMT-8 ... or something like that)

Stay connected!