Here with Andrew

I wanted to write about this awhile back but it totally slipped my mind for a second. I always remember the reactions that people get when daylight savings comes around and we end up moving our clocks forward one hour. That means…

1) “Losing” an hour of sleep
2) Having to adjust your sleep schedule accordingly that first night
3) Deciding whether or not your cell phone will change its clock no its own and adjust your alarm accordingly (I failed at this on Sunday; ended up getting up late for badminton).

The biggest benefit for me though, which is probably the same case for a lot of people, is that it’s still bright when it’s late. This really helps after a long day of work since i’m able to head home or head out when it’s still bright, even at 6 or 7 pm. Heck, I went for a run yesterday and it was still bright even by 7:30 pm finished.

But what are some other implications of this time change? Apparently, it can also negatively affect people. If people have troubles adjusting to the time, then they’re not as awake. I think there have been studies done to show that the Monday after a time change, drivers are not as alert. That’s pretty scary especially since I was thinking about as I was on the highway on the way to school…

I also think there’s a general lack of awareness of daylight savings. To be honest, I had no idea it was coming up until someone had mentioned it to me. I bet Google gets a significant percentage increase in search results for words like daylight savings, or losing a word, on the few days before and after it happens. Would be cool to know.

Hopefully the implications of Daylight Saving are positive for you and that you’ve adjusted by now. I definitely know how bad it feels to “lose” an hour but once we gain that hour later on in a year, life feels awesome again!

Over the Olympic break, my sister and I wanted to try out some new food on one of the Sundays. This was the same day as one of the Canada hockey games so we didn’t want to head downtown (my sister ended up going to Ebisu afterwards anyways). Off we went to West 4th! (I brought my camera this time)

Trattoria Italian Kitchen is a little place near Burrard and 4th. It belongs to Glowbal Group, which is pretty well known for having some classy restaurants in Yaletown that attracts celebrities.

Service was pretty mediocre on an overall basis; it was slower than I would have expected and we weren’t even addressed when we first walked into the restaurant. I think the staff was very engaged with what was going on with the Olympics which is probably why it didn’t meet my expectations as much.

It seems like the place is pretty popular for breakfast as most of the tables around us were having breakfast.

For starters, we were offered complementary scones. These are probably the best scones I have ever tasted. They were very soft and went well with the lemon cream dipping that came with it. I would definitely make sure to try this out if you ever visit this restaurant.

For our starter, we ordered the Beef Carpaccio. This was better than the ones i’ve had at other restaurants and the portions were quite satisfying (but at $13 it better be)! It was cut thin and there was a creamy sauce that went with it.

Time for an entree! I first heard about this place when my sister mentioned their downtown location. One night, she brought home Kobe Beef meatballs, which were pretty good. This dish was the Spaghetti with Kobe Beef Meatballs and it was served with this truffle type cream sauce. Although the portions are not as large as I would have liked, it definitely met my expectations for this type of restaurant.

My sister went for the BC Salmon (?) Eggs Benedict. It looked good; I just tried a bit of the salmon and it was pretty good. Still would prefer having pasta over this though.

Our total bill was approximately $40 after tip, which is on the pricier side for a lunch meal (at least for me). I would recommend this place for smaller parties/a date if you want to try some good quality food though.

Food – 4
Ambiance –  3.5
Service – 3.5
Overall – 3.7

My friend sent me a really interesting article today.

“In these Olympics, Canadians only paid attention to Canada”

Take a read through it if you have some time, especially if you followed the Olympics closely recently. My friend and I discussed it a bit but here are some of my points.

• As with most huge claims, I think the writer of the article might be overgeneralizing a bit. I’m sure many Canadians were very amazed to see some of the performances from athletes from other nations other than Canada, not that the article doesn’t support this necessarily.
• It’s typical for a nation that is hosting the Olympics to be proud of the athletes that come from their nation. Thus, it doesn’t seem to me that we’re doing anything necessarily “wrong”. I haven’t researched very far back into Olympic history but hasn’t this been the case for many nations and host cities before? Correct me if i’m wrong.
• It’s not very fair to compare us to China’s SUMMER Olympics in terms of ticket sales. Maybe on an overall basis as a host city for the Olympics but there are too many other factors that influence this including but not limited to venue sizes and budget set by the host city and the IOC.
• The newspapers and media, particular Vancouver ones, are likely going to be putting information that they think the public want to hear. Of course they want to hear about the achievements of gold, silver, bronze medalists from other nations. But being part of the Canadian culture, we can connect and relate with fellow Canadians that are doing well at the Olympics as well. I think this is why it seems like the media seemed flooded with Canadian related Olympic achievements.

I definitely think this writer brought a good and different perspective so major props for that. I didn’t think too much about it at the time so this was a good eye-opener. I guess you can say I was caught up in the excitement of the Olympics being here in Vancouver as well. But this offers a good perspective to consider. I do think we could have done a better job welcoming the world, at least explicitly , maybe.

What do you think?