Kate and I got up at Chez Wahlborg around 9 AM and headed downtown to go to the Experience Music Project that we had considered going to the previous day but were scared away when Ross told us that it cost $30 to get in. After Ross set us straight on the fact that current admission price was $15 and gave us a buy one, get on free coupon, we decided we could afford to invest in this activity. (This was not as good as the deal that Ross initially promised us which was that if we mentioned his name at the door, they wouldkick everyone else out of the museum and summon the ghost of Jimi Hendrix to give us a private tour.........needless to say, this turned out to be an unfounded claim).
The museum was really cool and certainly worth the $7.50 that we ended up paying per person. Ross informed us that the museum is essentially the private collection of Paul Allen (of Microsoft fame) who wanted to show off all the vintage guitars that he had been throwing his money away on for decades. It is definitely an impressive collection. The museum featured a large amount of Jimi Hendrix memorabilia which we did not peruse at all. There was a history of the electric guitar exhibit that was interesting and had Kurt Cobain's guitar from the Smells Like Teen Spirit video. There was also a display entitled "The Northwest Passage" that detailed many of the performers from Seattle and the general northwest US that achieved some amount of commercial success. Who knew Sir Mix-a-Lot was from Seattle? The exhibit really made me start to think about how much the grunge movement affected me as a ten or eleven year old kid and how it influenced everything that I've listened to since. It also made me convince myself that I wanted to go buy Alice In Chains entire back catalogue which I would probably quickly regret. Upstairs from these exhibits, they had a sound lab where you could play various instruments (guitar, bass, electronic drums, keyboards, etc.) I haven't had the opportunity to play guitar or drums in awhile given that all that stuff is in storage and it was nice to screw around on that stuff. They also had a theremin which was super cool.
After the museum, we headed straight to Vancouver, B.C. which was about a 2.5 hour drive. Luckily, we were not searched at the border. I was slightly concerned that we might get a hard time for having so much crap in our car but those fears were unfounded. Our hostel was really cool but on the border between the sketchy part of town and one of the cute neighborhoods (Gastown). The hostel was in an old building above a bar that claimed to have been in operation since 1897 or something. It made me feel like I was in Europe again and made me want to go straight to the bar and proceed to get shit faced. After gorging myself on spaghetti that we made in the hostel kitchen, we took a quick walk through Gastown and around Downtown. Vancouver is right on the water and surrounded by mountains so our walk had some pretty remarkable views. After our walk, we hung out in the room for a bit and then gave in to the temptation of the bar downstairs. We split a couple of pitchers of Canadian beer, watched some preseason hockey (so awesome to be surrounded by people that care about hockey) and ate some chicken fingers. The bar got pretty full for a Thursday night. This was a late night for us but we wandered up to bed around 11 pm.
This is a steam power clock in Gastown. Not sure if you can tell but there is steam rising from the top of it......because it's steam powered.
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