come down! we have the only gack in town...

just a random reference to the doctor seuss obsession of the moment for cole - one fish two fish. he loves that book and reading it many times a day certainly does keep it in your head.

those words were what i thought today when we hopped on board the free olympic line trolley to granville island. it was a lovely ride - so silent and clean and european - it reminded me of the seamless luas system we rode in dublin, minus the temporary confusion about which side of the tracks to stand on. ;-) not necessarily super convenient to get to for us, since we had to walk along the olympic barricades on quebec street and then along noisy west 2nd to get to the starting point at olympic village skytrain station. but an excellent concept and addition to our public transit system - i'd love to see more of this kind of streetcar here. it was so stroller-friendly, being at street-level compared to the skytrain and not having those bus stairs (or bus drivers and their nauseating gas-brake-gas pedal situation) to deal with.

we wandered at granville island, buying cards at paper ya, fruit & veggies in the market and stopping for a treat. i must admit, i bought cole a powdered donut hole from lee's just because i thought it would be cute to see him covered in white sugar. it was very cute. he was certainly very pleased to reach into his paper bag and find such a treat.

oddly, a whole group of tourists came over to say how cute cole was and then they started taking his photo. weird! i didn't have a problem with it for any particular reason, but if it was a sign of the crowds to come i'm not sure about that. i always wish to take photos of interesting locals when we travel - people that capture a place, like the stereotypically quaint look of like an old irishman sitting on a stile smoking or a group colourful gypsies having a full-on cookout, complete with caravan, on the side of the road to stratford-upon-avon, but i end up feeling like that would be rude and intrusive, treating people like sightseeing landmarks, so i don't... sometimes i just don't understand folks.

but it was a lovely day for being outside and in jolly spirits. we sat out behind the market where cole ate and then chased birds in the sun. we had to go back in after the kids sitting beside us had bagels - "bagel, bagel, bagel" was all i heard from cole after he was done with the birds. he's had a cold lately and not been eating well, so of course i dutifully took us to siegel's (which is the bagel company i think i like until i buy half a dozen and remember that solly's is my actual favourite). of course, bagel in hand, he promptly declared "no this one" and threw his piece away. ah well, another trolley ride was in the cards.

we rode back and then hopped two skytrains to connect us back home. cole had a blast pointing out all the things people were doing with very to-the-point descriptions: "banana lady" and "drink water" guy, "big people, stairs" and so on... it was quite the fun morning.