Monthly Archives: August 2014

The Orpheum

The Orpheum is a grand old theatre in downtown Vancouver that was built by the Scottish architect Marcus Priteca, which officially opened on November 7, 1927 as a vaudeville house. It was the biggest theatre in Canada when it opened, with three thousand seats and it cost $1.25 million to construct. I was fortunate to take a tour of the theatre which has  huge and beautiful crystal chandeliers and the original Wurlitzer organ.

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Posted in British Columbia, Historical, Inspiring, Summer | Leave a comment

West Coast

This summer we’ve had such beautiful weather in British Columbia. I just spent a week camping on the west coast and exploring the beaches and landscape overgrown with vegetation.

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West Coast Sunset

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Things I Will Miss About Iceland

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My three weeks in Iceland and a week in the Faroe Islands has come to an end. On the last night I stayed in Reykjavik and in the morning I had some time to explore the city. I used my tripod and the self timer on my camera to take this self portrait.

On the way to the airport I was thinking about all the things I will miss about Iceland:

  • the mountains
  • the huge glaciers
  • the large number of waterfalls
  • geysers
  • Icelandic horses and their full manes
  • black sand beaches
  • funky churches. The church pictured above is called Hallgrimskirkja and it was designed to resemble the basalt lava flows of Iceland’s landscape. It’s one of my favourite structures in Iceland because of its art deco style and symmetry. It took 38 years to build and has a huge pipe organ inside. I went up into the church tower where there is a great view of Reykjavik.
  • the wonderful Skyr yogurt. Blueberry was my favourite and you can’t get it here in Canada.
  • Kleina which is an Icelandic fried pastry. It is made from flattened dough cut into small trapezoids with a special cutting wheel called a kleinujarn.
  • getting a sandwich at the Sandholt bakery. They are worth standing in line for.
  • listening to the Calm After the Storm by The Common Linnets and Lof by Hjalmar. I can’t stop listening to the song by the Icelandic Reggae band Hjalmar.
  • watching Arctic Terns fly. They can hover like a hummingbird and feed by plunge-diving.

At home I’ve decided to put my images to the side for awhile. I need to take a break and then look at them again with an objective or fresh set of eyes. I will start uploading my favourite images to my website over the next few weeks.

Posted in Summer, Travel | Leave a comment