And some sun with that rain, please?

Wow, what a week!  I have never worked so hard in my life!  A typical workweek consists of getting to work every day at 7:30am, working non-stop (maybe briefly stopping for a bite of homemade lunch) until the construction site ceases operations at 7:30pm.  On Saturday, we didn't report to work until 10am, so I was able to celebrate a fellow housemate's birthday the night before with sushi and burgers.  Now that is a good combination!  Food aside, this week I put in about 70 hours working on projects both directly and indirectly influencing construction of Coke's Pavilion.  What a workweek!

The craziest surprise of Vancouver has definitely been both the lack of snow and the plethora of rain.  I assumed that, being in Canada, Vancouver was constantly covered in a deep blanket of snow.  The clothes I carried in my $15 stow-away suitcase on my flight up here were predominately warm-weather gear, with a bathing suit added last minute in the event of a wintry hot tub anywhere near me during my March repose in Whistler.  Over the past week, five days have seen non-stop rain, and the other two have been on-and-off!  It's crazy!  But, the good thing is that Vancouver's city council is encouraging residents to leave their Christmas lights up through the Games, so at least it should look like a winter wonderland minus the presence of snow.

With one day a week presently available to me for both recovery and sightseeing, the "territory conquering" mentality I evoked with Buddy (my sister), throughout Europe simply isn't perceivable.  Instead, I let my "sleep bank" recoup until I wake up naturally, and then I get off to sightseeing later in the afternoon.  Last week, my Quebecois friend, Camille, and I went to North Vancouver to check out the Lonsdale Quay Market via the TransLink SeaBus.  This week, we went to Chinatown and bought some amazing groceries from a Chinese supermarket!  Cooking has been a new art for me, but thanks to some lessons before I left Mobile from both my sister and mom, I have been eating the fruits (though rarely actually of may labor for most meals over the past 12 days.  In parting, I'll share a picture I took of a Coke display I saw this evening at one of the grocery stores on Cambie as I was buying groceries...yup, those Coke people are geniuses!

P.S. - Happy Martin Luther King, Jr. Day!  And see that big metal structure at the top of the first picture in this post?  Yup, I definitely helped assemble that in the pouring rain...it was AWESOME fun!