Local Tourist: Summer In The City

"Just listen to the music of the traffic in the city
linger on the sidewalk where the neon signs are pretty
how can you lose?"

-Petula Clark, Downtown

Thus far, my travel correspondence has focused largely on what a rugged, burly outdoorsman I have become, what with hiking, fishing, boarding, kayaking, and other equally hyper-masculine activities. For example, the gang and I recently conquered the Chief in Squamish...

We only got halfway, but you can imagine that
Cyrus is standing atop the mountain here, looking out in triumph

And by "conquered," I mean we hiked for about 45 minutes, until Baxter said he ~~had menstrual cramps~~ needed to return home for a dinner engagement, and we turned around.

However, this summer has been about much more than taming Vancouver's wild wilderness-- it has also been about exploring the urban jungle.

Like, literally a jungle- there are people with fucking snakes walking the streets.

So, let me take a brief pause from slapping you across the face with my brawny manliness to relay some urban anecdotes...

One of the more bougie excursions of the summer was to the Salt Tasting Room, a sort of yuppy/hipster quasi-historic-chic restaurant that, despite its salty name (and the fact that its lone entrance is off of a shady Dickensian alley named "Blood Alley" [seriously]), rather classily serves wine and cheese & meat platters.

"It's right this way..."

Bare-walled cellars. They're ironic, or something.

Despite the cellar looking like an old medieval torture chamber (which I suppose is meant to ironically contrast the regular, fancy-ish décor of the upstairs portion of the restaurant), the food was actually quite good, though rather expensive when you consider we were essentially eating hors d'oeuvres:

It's basically what your grandmother would serve at a party.

Oh, and there was also a lot of wine.

And while we're on the topic of classy Bacchanalian reverie, here's an anecdotally-inspired haiku:

Class, Class, Class:

Came to the party

drank iced white wine in plastic

martini glasses.

"Class, class, class!"

-Jeremy Grey, Wedding Crashers

How Gatsby-eque. Not only, then, do I apparently bring white wine to parties now (what's my age again?), but also drink it from green plastic martini glasses. Between that, cheese platter dinners, and using accent aigus in words like "décor," I'm pretty much klassy as shit.

As a side note on accent aigus, it is a well-known fact that the double-whammy "résumé" is pretty much the classiest word there is, and you should definitely write it that way if you want to impress prospective employers. Absolutely.

There's no way they can't hire you now.

I mean, that's how they spell it in the Encyclopædia.

In an apparent attempt to assuage our growing confusion about just how old/sophisticated we really are, we decided our next excursion should be karaoke.

That's right. Someone actually chose "Who Let The Dogs Out?" Probably Dara.

I've always found karaoke to be a strangely disorienting experience. You are suddenly assailed with a keen sense of self-consciousness, and draped in an ambiguous shame, similar to what you feel going to a strip club. You imagine (in a vaguely racist way, I suppose) all the Asian businessmen that have been in that room before you (you probably imagine them tottering about, sloshing sake everywhere, you intolerant boor), powering their way through a keyless tour-de-force performance of "Every Rose Has Its Thorn," swinging their necktie above their head in spirited rebellion against 9-to-5 weekday oppression. "I am not defined by a cubicle! I am more than an insurance policy! I am young and in love!"-- and you think, "what am I doing here?"

Disappointed by the lack of Lou Bega songs available.

Cyrus played karaoke tambourine, thus sparing us his rendition of "Red Red Wine."

Of course, like a strip club, it's still a good time. Ultimately, between selections such as "Who Let The Dogs Out?" and "Nookie" by Limp Bizkit, I'd say we wiped the sophisticated wine-swilling cheese dinner tally clean off the karmic slate. Speaking of karaoke, can we all agree to put a moratorium on that whole "did you know that karaoke means 'empty orchestra' in Japanese? Isn't that hauntingly beautiful?" thing that everybody loves to pedantically rattle off every time karaoke is mentioned? Listening to Cyrus Navabi's poignantly heartfelt performance of "My Humps" is hauntingly beautiful, OK?

At this point, I figured it would be a good time to be self-reflexive, to step back and evaluate my progress with getting to know this city. There is, on the one hand, a rather unquantifiable aspect to this-- I've been to loads of new places, met lots of new people, and discovered many nooks and crannies, crooks and trannies of the Vancouver scene I had never experienced before. At the same time, there is an empirical component of my heuristic journey of discovery which can be measured.

So, about a week ago, I sat down with celebrated geography professor Michael J. Saringer, and he tutored me on the numerous areas/regions of Vancouver. I've been conducting something of a summer project to learn both the streets of downtown Vancouver, as well as the city's broader regional layout, and it's time to see how much I've actually retained. So, here's a map of the Lower Mainland, divided into electoral districts, which I've attempted to label:

This is what it should look like:

I'm feeling quite good about 16 out of 20 (YVR was a careless mistake, anyways). If you find yourself underwhelmed by this rather tepid geographical awareness, compare it to my conceptual map of Los Angeles:

"Which way is the beach?"

And now for the most important news of the summer:

Yesterday, I finally beat Arsenal 3-1 on World Class difficulty in FIFA 99. Hold your applause. Well, perhaps a nice polite golf clap would suffice, I am a humble man. That being said, I am fairly confident that this feat secures my spot in the storied annals of anachronistic video games as the single greatest FIFA 99 player of all time.

"The best FIFA 99 player of ALL TIME. All time."

Indeed, it has been a summer of profound self-discovery and achievement, and we can only hope that this veritable apotheosis of human greatness can, in fact, be surmounted in the ongoing pursuit of bigger and better things-- yes, clearly my adventurous soul intends to soar above the Aonian mount, while it pursues things unattempted yet in prose or rhyme.

This is what it looked like.

My, this entry has been a tad tangential. There is still a ton of stuff I have to relay, including more of Vancouver's sultry nightlife, beach bonfires, meanderings through pitch-black forests, concerts, and the single greatest discovery of the summer, tantamount to disinterring El Dorado or reaching Shambhala-- seriously, you will crap yourself in disbelief. Await my next post in which this revelation for the ages shall rain down in a Roman shower of hot glory!

I did it all for the nookie,

-Max
Twitter: @MaxSzentveri

Tonight's Starting Line-up
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