I went to the Flying Beaver for (breakfast/lunch/dinner) today. The weather was a bit chilly, but the sun was shining for the second day in a row, so I couldn’t waste it by hanging out in my hotel room.

It’s about a 45 minute walk from my hotel, but Vancouver is astoundingly well set up for pedestrians. I had a sidewalk a comfortable distance from the road everywhere I went and there were crosswalks wherever I needed them. Even more astoundingly, drivers seemed generally used to pedestrians and properly yielded to me in crosswalks. Bicyclists in Vancouver are the biggest challenge to pedestrians. Despite the enormous bicycle lanes, they feel some strange need to bicycle up and down the sidewalks. I don’t mind bicyclists on the road. I do mind bicyclists on the sidewalks.

There are some pictures of the sea planes up in the gallery. I had a good, though not excellent pizza. The service wasn’t very good, but I was sitting out on the patio in the cold. I probably wouldn’t have minded the bad service, except it got very cold and it took the waitress about half an hour to bring my check. That, and she brought me the wrong beer. Despite the fact that I was quite cold despite being well-dressed, there were several Canucks out there in shorts.

My sim lesson last night went quite well. It was just me and the instructor, which got a little bit weird when it came to talking to Air Traffic Control… Since the instructor was both ATC and my non-flying pilot, he was doing a bit of talking to himself, which seemed to bother him a bit more than it did me.

I made a few silly mistakes, but overall thought I did pretty well, given that it was the first time I’d done the engine failure procedures. Most of the lesson was spent single-engine. Compared to the jet, the Dash is a beast with an engine failure. Since I’m switching from 12am to an 11pm schedule, it wasn’t immediately obvious, but I essentially had a day off. (I had a lesson at 12am on the 22nd, but the next one wasn’t until 11pm on the 23rd.)