The Village

25 September - Went and did a little bit of proper grocery shopping for the first time - couldn’t get too much as I had to bike it all back but did manage to acquire some decent breakfast cereal (Weetabix) and an overpriced sampling of my favourite condiment (Vegemite - a Quebecer whom I met in the kitchen asked what it was and I offered it to him - I don't think I improved Australian-Quebec relations with that though). Whilst in the supermarket I noticed two women shopping, one of whom was horribly burned - i've never seen a person with such horrific injuries, she had no ears and a stump where her right hand used to be and her face was just a mass of scar tissue (i think she still had her eyes though) - it's not a big thing but it's certainly something I don't think i'll forget.
Afterwards when I returned to the hostel I was invited out to dinner with the international students, which was very nice of them. It's quite amusing spending time with such young people (it turns out that one of them is 16 as well). One of them (the Vegan (who is surprisingly overweight for someone with such an apparently healthy diet), who also happens to be a very self-proclaimed lesbian, was desperate to go to the Village, Vancouver's flaming gay district, when we finally arrived after some poor navigation she almost leapt for joy at the sight of the rainbow flags lining the street. As with most gay districts there was nobody dancing shirtless in the streets and minimal places where 17 year olds could go so I think they were a little disappointed. We had a rather good Thai dinner (being an expert on Thailand, having spent about a month in the country and many years in restaurants I explained to them the intricacies of Thai dining, never put your fork in your mouth and always leave some rice on your plate - they just didn't get it though). I ordered a beer and when they realised that a restaurant wouldn't likely ask for ID they all jumped on the bandwagon as well, it was extremely obvious that they were underage but the waitress didn't seem to care. For all their apparent intelligence and maturity they are still just teenagers though and a couple of them have a woeful appreciation of tact, manners and basic social skills. Geraldo couldn't stop rubbenecking and the volume of his voice and the shit that came out of that boy's mouth, I ain't never heard. I did have a very good talk with the Spaniard whose name I can't spell and he gave me a bit of a rundown of how the school works - they're all on scholarships but necessarily academic ones - although they're all quite bright I think. It's a very long winded selection process which considers academic, extra curricular, psych testing and a bunch of other things. I certainly don't feel like an underachiever around them though. After we got back to the hostel, sans booze unfortunately for them (we couldn't find a bottle shop on the way back), I gave them a bit of my cherished duty free Jamesons. To my disgust Geraldo mixed his with Snapple and gulped it down (afterwards he complained that he shouldn't have eaten that day because the booze had no effect on him - I made an internal note not to give him any more of my whiskey). We chatted for quite a while but I decided to crash at midnight (i woke up at three and they were still going), am sure i'll see them again today though ...