More from Vancouver...
Well, it's been a fun few days so far... and the weather has been AMAZING. Sunny and pleasant since Saturday; comfortable temps and just cool enough at night to have the windows open. According to caarianna, this is the nicest weather they've had in months...
TS Update: Sunday afternoon we drove over to downtown Vancouver, using the Burrard Bridge, which I think is the one they used in Switchman, but it didn't look that familiar (of course, it CAN'T be the case that things have changed in the last ten years, can it? *G*). We went to the Harbour Centre (eeeee! tower! Switchman!) and rode to the top, and I was just grinning like a loon the whole time we were up there. It was almost eerily familiar, and I truly did keep expecting to see Jim any minute. We went up to the restaurant but we'd already eaten lunch, and they wouldn't let us just wander around. Maybe we'll go back at some point - isn't that where Megan and Jim and Blair have dinner in Foreign Exchange? And then they see the power go out across Cascade from the top?
Then we parked and walked around Gastown a little, which was very quaint and cute. I wonder why they never filmed any eps of TS there?
After that we drove around Stanley Park. OK, for those of you planning to come to Vancouver - do not drive in Stanley Park on a Sunday in what is apparently the first instance of good weather in nearly ten months. Oh, my God, the traffic. Cars, bicycles, horses, pedestrians... but I can't really blame anyone, it was a spectacular day. I'm pretty sure I saw where the bits of Love and Guns were filmed where Jim meets Blair, and later Blair and Maya. I should be able to recognize it, I look at luna_61's lovely wallpaper of Jim walking by the water every day because it's the wallpaper on my laptop. But it was hard to be sure as we were in a car and it would have been hard to just stop. And my dad has been so good about indulging this odd obsession of mine. But we might try to go back later in the week, on the theory that a weekday will be less crowded.
Today we ate lunch on campus, so I got to take pics of the Chemistry Building (Hargrove Hall) and the Main Library (Hargrove Hall steps from Sentinel, Too, I think?) and the fountain in front of it. The fountain looks really different - I will have to check my pics against shots from the ep. But the Chemistry Building looked familiar, and the street in front of it. And there were people playing Frisbee on the lawn! With a red Frisbee! Squeeee! But I was already in the car and had packed up my camera :o(
Wednesday we're totally free, so we're planning to go north and check out the Capilano Suspension Bridge, and also go a little ways up the Sea to Sky Highway towards Whistler. Don't know if we'll go all the way to Whistler, though. I've been there before, for a conference, several years ago. I'd also like to convince Dad to take the Seabus over to Lonsdale Quay (or maybe just go there after the Capilano Bridge) so I can find Colette's and the loft exterior. And at some point I'd like to visit the Rose Garden, which is just around the corner from us, next to where we're performing Saturday night. Oh, and go to Vanier Park - also fairly close to UBC - where I think the end of Fool Me Twice was filmed? I don't imagine that giant hand statue is still there, though.
I checked the Space schedule and TS is playing at 11 am here this week. Unfortunately, we're usually rehearsing then, but hopefully on Wednesday I'll get a chance to see it. I mean, I have all the eps... but to see it on TV, really on TV... that would just be cool. Plus my dad is starting to wonder what all the fuss is about...
This was our second day of rehearsals and things are starting to jell. It's a fairly rigorous schedule: we start at 8:45 and go until about 12 or so, with a break in the middle. Then we have the afternoon off, and return at 7:30 for an evening rehearsal until 9:45. I don't mind the late rehearsal that much - my chorus in Chapel Hill rehearses on Tuesday evenings - but lots of the people here are retirees, and from the East Coast, so that makes for a long/late day.
The music we're doing is really lovely. We're singing the Requiem by Healy Willan, who apparently is not very well known outside of Canada and the Anglican church. We weren't able to get any professional recordings of the piece. This requiem was actually unfinished, like Mozart's - the choral parts were done, but one of his students had to fill in a good bit of the orchestration. And then we're doing two pieces by Ralph Vaughn Williams: Serenade to Music and Five Mystical Songs. There's something that's just so magical and exciting about a room full of people singing together as the pieces start to take shape and we start to blend as a choir. Makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up. I hope we'll get a CD of it, but we're performing with the Canadian Broadcasting Company Radio Orchestra, so there may be issues with recording it.
Anyway, right now we're just hanging out in the room, watching Space and waiting for evening rehearsal, so I think I'm gonna put this time to good use and get some writing done (maybe on my orgasm, although with my Dad in the same room, my porn-fu is not what it should be *G*). More later!
TS Update: Sunday afternoon we drove over to downtown Vancouver, using the Burrard Bridge, which I think is the one they used in Switchman, but it didn't look that familiar (of course, it CAN'T be the case that things have changed in the last ten years, can it? *G*). We went to the Harbour Centre (eeeee! tower! Switchman!) and rode to the top, and I was just grinning like a loon the whole time we were up there. It was almost eerily familiar, and I truly did keep expecting to see Jim any minute. We went up to the restaurant but we'd already eaten lunch, and they wouldn't let us just wander around. Maybe we'll go back at some point - isn't that where Megan and Jim and Blair have dinner in Foreign Exchange? And then they see the power go out across Cascade from the top?
Then we parked and walked around Gastown a little, which was very quaint and cute. I wonder why they never filmed any eps of TS there?
After that we drove around Stanley Park. OK, for those of you planning to come to Vancouver - do not drive in Stanley Park on a Sunday in what is apparently the first instance of good weather in nearly ten months. Oh, my God, the traffic. Cars, bicycles, horses, pedestrians... but I can't really blame anyone, it was a spectacular day. I'm pretty sure I saw where the bits of Love and Guns were filmed where Jim meets Blair, and later Blair and Maya. I should be able to recognize it, I look at luna_61's lovely wallpaper of Jim walking by the water every day because it's the wallpaper on my laptop. But it was hard to be sure as we were in a car and it would have been hard to just stop. And my dad has been so good about indulging this odd obsession of mine. But we might try to go back later in the week, on the theory that a weekday will be less crowded.
Today we ate lunch on campus, so I got to take pics of the Chemistry Building (Hargrove Hall) and the Main Library (Hargrove Hall steps from Sentinel, Too, I think?) and the fountain in front of it. The fountain looks really different - I will have to check my pics against shots from the ep. But the Chemistry Building looked familiar, and the street in front of it. And there were people playing Frisbee on the lawn! With a red Frisbee! Squeeee! But I was already in the car and had packed up my camera :o(
Wednesday we're totally free, so we're planning to go north and check out the Capilano Suspension Bridge, and also go a little ways up the Sea to Sky Highway towards Whistler. Don't know if we'll go all the way to Whistler, though. I've been there before, for a conference, several years ago. I'd also like to convince Dad to take the Seabus over to Lonsdale Quay (or maybe just go there after the Capilano Bridge) so I can find Colette's and the loft exterior. And at some point I'd like to visit the Rose Garden, which is just around the corner from us, next to where we're performing Saturday night. Oh, and go to Vanier Park - also fairly close to UBC - where I think the end of Fool Me Twice was filmed? I don't imagine that giant hand statue is still there, though.
I checked the Space schedule and TS is playing at 11 am here this week. Unfortunately, we're usually rehearsing then, but hopefully on Wednesday I'll get a chance to see it. I mean, I have all the eps... but to see it on TV, really on TV... that would just be cool. Plus my dad is starting to wonder what all the fuss is about...
This was our second day of rehearsals and things are starting to jell. It's a fairly rigorous schedule: we start at 8:45 and go until about 12 or so, with a break in the middle. Then we have the afternoon off, and return at 7:30 for an evening rehearsal until 9:45. I don't mind the late rehearsal that much - my chorus in Chapel Hill rehearses on Tuesday evenings - but lots of the people here are retirees, and from the East Coast, so that makes for a long/late day.
The music we're doing is really lovely. We're singing the Requiem by Healy Willan, who apparently is not very well known outside of Canada and the Anglican church. We weren't able to get any professional recordings of the piece. This requiem was actually unfinished, like Mozart's - the choral parts were done, but one of his students had to fill in a good bit of the orchestration. And then we're doing two pieces by Ralph Vaughn Williams: Serenade to Music and Five Mystical Songs. There's something that's just so magical and exciting about a room full of people singing together as the pieces start to take shape and we start to blend as a choir. Makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up. I hope we'll get a CD of it, but we're performing with the Canadian Broadcasting Company Radio Orchestra, so there may be issues with recording it.
Anyway, right now we're just hanging out in the room, watching Space and waiting for evening rehearsal, so I think I'm gonna put this time to good use and get some writing done (maybe on my orgasm, although with my Dad in the same room, my porn-fu is not what it should be *G*). More later!