Delusion-Elle

Buon giorno, dear readers. Or rather, buenos noches. It's midnight; the start of a new day. Time to catch up on yesterday (er, today?).

I do not understand or like how people seem to bring up relationship problems with me. I mean, I have no idea what to do under any such circumstances. I can't have any idea. I've never been there. I've never felt that exact kind of heartache. Sure, I'll listen -- I'm always a willing ear -- but if you are soliciting for some advice, I cannot offer you anything useful. [/rant]

Today was a day spent on assignments. I'm not totally done everything, but I've only got my music assignment, which is due Thursday. I plan on working on it throughout the beginning of the week. While I worked on finishing up my 221 assignment and lab (from last week -- God, I'm such a fail), I watched the NHL All-Star game! Granted, it was kind of a poor excuse for a game, but it was fun to watch. I mean, seriously. Sedin versus Sedin. I think everyone wanted to know which twin is the better of the two. And it turns out that it is Henrik. Team Lidstrom beat Team Staal by one goal. One measly goal! If only Lundqvist hadn't been pulled so early, Loui Eriksson wouldn't have given Team Lidstrom that extra little push, and we would've gone to OT. And that would've been fun.

And after having streamed many a hockey game online, I've noticed certain topics of discussion in the accompanying chatboxes:

• Canadians will bicker and argue over their favourite hockey teams, but mention of poutine will quickly reunite them and cause a warm fuzzy feeling. Everyone else will be repulsed by pictures of poutine, but admit that it sounds quite tasty. Polish folks will look up recipes and insist on recreating it. In Poland.
• Canadians have a sense of humour when it comes to Canadian stereotypes. Oh, that reminds me, I've gotta walk my polar bear soon. He's so antsy that he's even scratching up my dogsled. :(
• There are a crapload of Finnish and Swedish people who follow the NHL. There are so many of them that it gets to a point where North Americans start crying "SPEAK ENGLISH PLEASE" and all the Swedes just say "svenska" over and over and over again. lolwut?
• North Americans hate on Scandinavians.
• Scandinavians respond by linking to articles like this on Wikipedia. No one cares about you and how developed you are, Norway.
• Everyone eventually starts hating on America.
• No one likes curling.

Tonight was DineOut night with my friends. DineOut is a big thing in Vancouver, and it's a big draw for tourists and foodies everywhere. Me, I'm no foodie, but I was looking for an excuse to have a little fun with people I'd already established friendships with and eat food that was guaranteed to be of a fairly high quality. The restaurant we chose was Aqua Riva, an eatery that people had previously voiced desire over wanting to dine at, so it was definitely an experience I was curious about. Firstly, the location is fantastic. Getting to Waterfront is easy since it's a common connecting point for all three lines, and as soon as you step outside, BAM! You're right there. I admit that on the outside, Aqua Riva doesn't look spectacular or anything, and the logo is kind of ... plastic-looking? I can't really describe it, but the blue was too reminiscent of swimming pools at community centres. I'm not sure why exactly, but it did. Anyway! The aesthetics of a restaurant certainly aren't everything.

There was a small waiting area upon entering with small little couches. We waited there for a few minutes (maybe 5?) before being offered coat check and being seated. The picture on the left here was the view from our table. Yes, that's Canada Place and the neighbouring Five Sails Restaurant that we plan on going to next year. It's supposedly quite swanky there. Looking forward to that!

The menu was the seat DineOut one so our choices were fairly limited. Service was quite good and waiting times between courses were long enough to get some good conversation going, but not too long to cause stomach wambling. (Yes, that's the right word, I'm a dictionary.com nerd, shut up.) For an appetizer I chose the salad with grilled salmon. I'm not generally a salad kind of person (having it every day does that to you), but I'm not fond of mushrooms -- an ingredient in the scallop dish -- nor am I overly fond of soups. My beef with soups is not so much the taste or consistency, but the temperature. I always burn my tongue on soups and I'm sick of that happening. I think that I just have a super low tolerance for hot foods.

For my entrée I had the rib-eye steak which was absolutely delish! After the salad (which was mildly yummy veggie-wise, and downright good salmon-wise) I wasn't too keen on the clump of stringy veggies under my steak. On the side were some disks of potato. The steak was oh so very good tasting and juicy! I definitely don't regret my choice. The potatoes were a teensy bit dry (overcooked?), but the flavouring turned out nice once I got over the initial dryness. I could go on and on about the steak, but I'll resist. I tried a bit of pasta off of my friend's plate and it was very tasty, though I was quite hungry and wanted some food of substance. Same goes for the risotto I sampled. I'm starting to wonder if there are restaurants in Vancouver where the food actually tastes horrible. On to dessert!

The last course of my meal was an apple and cranberry crisp, topped off with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. I chose this over a chocolate banana mousse cake as I'm not fond of banana flavouring. Bananas I'm totally fine with, in fact, I quite like them. But once you use banana as a flavouring (candy, pudding, yogurt, etc.), it just doesn't taste that good. Except for my dad's banana bread. That's some good stuff. Anywho, the crisp was absolutely scrumptious and I was very pleased with my choice. And yeah, I know it's pretty standard to have a bit of ice cream with baked goods like cobbler/crisps/pies, but the ice cream went very well with it and really added a creamy sweetness. On the right (and above) is a picture of the banana mousse cake, complete with banana crisp!

Overall, Aqua Riva was pretty good. I'm not sure if it totally lived up to the (self-imposed?) hype, but I wouldn't say no to eating here again.

I am absolutely in love with this song right now. Music makes things right.


I am kind of upset right now that a friend of mine just befriended that troublesome TA on Facebook. I FEEL LIKE I HAVE FAILED. *puts above song on 'repeat one'*

All photos in this entry are property of B4BYme. Please give her all credit for taking them, even if she didn't, because these pictures are from her camera.