august 1st:
caitlan and i got up early and went to the farmers' market in east vancouver. that was when i started feeling really sick with my cold, so i wasn't in the mood to buy and carry around fruits and vegetables. on the skytrain afterwards, this funny group of, like, spanish soccer players or something got on the train and before, during, and after their ride, they continued singing this cute little high-energy song all together (with drums and tambourines and i think maybe even maracas or something). it was kind of indescribable. caitlan used some good words to describe the mash up of genres, but i can't remember them now. it kind of sounded like this. all you really need to know is it was cute and made us smile.

we took the seabus to north vancouver, and found a great little place to make our own fruit salad at lonsdale quay. strawberries! raspberries! pomegranate! watermelon! grapes! oranges! blueberries! pineapple! after that we took a bus to lynn canyon to go swimming. the water was a little too cold for us to swim in though, so we mostly just waded around for a bit. caitlan went to sit down on some rocks and a mid-30s man standing near me started talking to me. the rocks were too slippery for me to get away quickly without risking falling into the cold water, so i was obliged to converse with him. it was standard, unmemorable small talk, but what WAS memorable was this: as we were talking, i ducked my hands under the water and squirted some water through them (a "water clam," or "water lamb," as you may refer to it) just in front of me. i did it subconsciously, mostly because i like how it feels and i do it whenever i am in water. the guy was apparently amazed, and asked how i did it. i tried to explain it, and he was sort of able to do it. i guess he felt inspired, though, because he proceeded to encourage me to try to make a loon sound by blowing on my folded hands. i tried numerous times but couldn't do it, which i suppose gave him the authority to take my wrists in his hands and blow on my thumbs, thus making the sought-after loon sound. eek. i washed my hands in the river and tried again myself, but when i still couldn't do it, he took my wrists again and blew. what!? also, during this whole conversation he was playfully splashing me. don't splash me! you are a stranger and it is cold! then he said, "i have to swim over there" and started swimming away, splashing me a lot with his legs in the process. i'm not sure if it was flirting or he is just a poor swimmer, but i took the opportunity to carefully traverse the slippery rocks away. success. since the water was so cold, caitlan and i decided to scramble around the mountain a bit barefeet and in our bathing suits. that is one of my all-time most favourite things to do, so i'm glad we got to do it, even just for a little while. we walked back up the canyon and bussed back to lonsdale quay. we had some more fruit salad and some cookies, and then went to a theatre and watched "ice age III: dawn of the dinosaurs" in 3D. we hadn't meant to watch it in 3D, but at that time that was all that was showing. it definitely wasn't as good as the other ice age movies, but it was still cute.

after the movie, we to a park just west of lonsdale quay so we could rest. i was feeling pretty garbagey because of my cold by this time. later we went back to the market and ate some delicious indian food, and i had a tea to help me feel better. it didn't help. we went back to the park to wait for caitlan's boyfriend cam, and as i laid out my hammock on the ground, some photographer man snapped a shot and then asked us if he could take a few more for a tourism magazine he was contracted to do photos for. we said okay. i felt a little foolish doing the same thing over and over, but i will be glad to have the pictures of the two of us when he e-mails them to us. cam showed up soon after, and he and caitlan played guitar and violin, respectively. man oh man. the music they were making was so beautiful i felt like crying. seriously. i hope that if i end up moving to vancouver for school, i can have many more moments like that, listening to caitlan and some other interesting people make music in a park on a hot day as the sun is going down. i usually don't like that shit. but caitlan is not usual.

just as we were feeling ready to catch the seabus (which was operating on a half hour schedule rather than a 15 minute one, due to mechanical problems), the photographer man came back and asked us if we'd be willing to wait around for another 15 minutes for this one photo he had been waiting all night to take. caitlan declined, saying that if we missed this seabus, we'd have to wait another half hour, and we were too tired to do that. he said that this shot was the most important one of the contract, and was to be put on the front page of the tourism magazine he was working for, and said that he'd drive us back to burnaby if we'd stay. since it's a 1-1.5 hour transit ride back to caitlan's, we couldn't decline. it actually wasn't too bad. the only time i like having my picture taken is when someone tells me exactly what to do. that way, if i look bad, it's their fault and not mine. he told us exactly where and how to stand, and which way to look and all that. phew. i like being told what to do. he showed us what it looked like afterwards and i liked the picture. i will be glad to have a copy of that one too, but apparently we will have to wait for it until after the magazine has been published. he drove us home and we were not murdered or followed or anything like that, so it was a good deal despite our teachings to never go for rides with strangers.