It's a small world after all

One day at the centre of the global microcosm that is Vancouver...

7:35 am: I have a Columbian coffee at my usual cafe, Blenz (the Canadian coffee company), on Granville Street. An Australian backpacker flirts with the barrista for a minute until he realizes she's not interested. I read a Vancouver Sun article about how street protests in Kathmandu are forcing Nepal's increasingly autocratic king to reconsider restrictions on democracy in the face of a long-running Maoist insurgency.

9:25 am: My English-as-a-Second Language students begin writing their final exam. Five Mexicans, four Koreans, three Japanese, one Taiwanese and one Brazilian try to catch details of a recording of an American and a Briton talking about living and working in Australia.

12:05 pm: I overhear one Korean student mention how she is planning to go to Kamloops, BC, to study English. "There are just so many Koreans here!" she complains. "I need to go somewhere I can speak to real Canadians all the time."

1:35 pm: During a graduation ceremony, one Columbian student giving his going-away speech reads a phonetic transcript of Japanese that means "I am your friend always. Please come and visit me in Columbia."

2:10 pm: My co-workers (including three Caucasians, one Chinese-Filipino-Canadian who is married to a German, and a German-Canadian who is married to a Hungarian) persuade me to join them for a late lunch at a nearby Lebanese restaurant, El Caravan, on Seymour Street. Egyptian artwork decorates the walls and furniture. We are served by a friendly East European waitress.

4:15 pm: At the graduation party at the Gecko club, I interrogate one very young-looking German student as to whether he is of legal drinking age as he gulps down some pale ale. "Of course!" he insists. "But anyway, I am German," he reminds me. "Beer is in my blood." I am about to reply when I'm tapped on the shoulder by a Turkish-born Swiss man who wants to ask me a question.

7:30 pm: My wife and I arrive at the Original Tandoori restaurant and are soon joined by our close friends for dinner. A Greek, a Frenchwoman, an Indo-Icelander, a Ukrainian, a Hong Kong Chinese and an Eastern European Jew discuss "Memoirs of a Geisha", East Indian culture, Tanzinia, business and possibly swinging a deal on a cheap desktop computer while we gorge ourselves on spicy Indian food.

10:47 pm: We arrive home and scan Yahoo! News to see if there are any updates on the situation in Nepal before I go to sleep.

tags: multicultural, microcosm, ethnic, Nepal, Columbian, Brazilian, Taiwanese, German, Turkish, beer, tandoori, spicy food