The Adventures of Astrogirl and Euroboy

Anti-Vancouver

2011-10-09T22:51:00.000-07:00

We pretty much failed at vacation planning this summer. The original plan was to take a big, fancy trip to San Francisco the first week of July, but then Chris was away and then I was away and by the time we came back there was just no time left to arrange anything. To both our employers’ delight, we went and cancelled the vacation days we’d booked.

As the pathetic summer continued to rush by, we still never got around to booking things in SF. Then our second-attempt vacation days in August were suddenly upon us and we still had no plans! So like the responsible, boring adults we are, we spent our first few days off getting stuff done around the house and around town. (At least we got a new mattress out of the deal, yay for a healthy spine!) Then, with half a week plus a weekend to spare, we finally decided to just go online, book a wine tour and a cheap hotel in Kelowna and get the heck out of here!

Day # 1
WINE DISNEYLAND

“I have to go to the bathroom.”
“ALREADY?”
“Yes, already.”

Thus, bathroom break #1 landed us at the adorable tourist information shack in Abbotsford. Chris had to pick up maps (and use the bathroom AS WELL, I might add).

The map said take Highway 3.
The lady in the tourist shack said take Highway 3.

7.5 hours later, we arrived in Kelowna with the entire city shouting,
“Why on earth did you take Highway 3?”

Apparently you can get to Kelowna in 4 hours if you take Highway 5.

Highway 3 has things like rock slides,

Where you have to wait in a lineup of rednecks while they clear the road.

Even the dogs have to just sit and wait and admire Putt Putt.

On the bright side, you can play with some kids by a beautiful lake.

Or watch the dump trucks carry giant hunks of rock away that very well could have fallen on your car... that is, unless you haven’t already been forced off the road by a massive logging truck.

Ok ok, the ride was actually really pretty and for the most part it was quite smooth. No time to check in to our hotel before our late afternoon wine tasting, though! When we finally got to West Kelowna, all we could do was fill up our very empty tank and then change out of our sweaty clothes in the parking lot before rushing in to meet our group of international wine tasters at Mission Hill Family Estate.

The tour started with a little stroll through some of the vines…

Then a trip down to the display cellar…

And finally a very fun visit to the tasting table!

I think I have a nose for this!

I'll show you a nose!

After our tour, we explored the pinnacle of the estate: the wine shop. More tasting ensued, followed by lots of browsing, a little stumbling and giggling, and finally emerging with a Pinot Noir, a Riesling, and a couple of other wine-related trinkets. Fun times!

Now quite on the peckish side, we and our wine wandered over to the estate's restaurant on the terrace overlooking the lake, only to find that tonight was fully booked. Oh well, romantic dinners can also be had elsewhere in the Okanagan, as we were soon to find out.

Before making our final departure, however, we decided to explore the beautiful grounds a little more. As we learned during the course of our $20 tour and wine tasting session, Mission Hill winery was built by the guy who invented Mike’s Hard Lemonade. He happened to also be a wine expert, had a couple of million dollars lying around and decided one day ten years ago that he wanted to build a winery in the Okanagan. So he bought this big hill next to the lake, hired architects, designers, artists, and even soil engineers and constructed this amazing place. I call it Wine Disneyland.

Firstly, the view of the lake by which we would not be eating our dinner.

This bell apparently had a flaw, so they couldn’t hang it in…

…the bell tower. Darn!

These are just… arches, I guess.
Arches. Just because.

Another stunning view of The Arches of Questionable Utility.

One last shot of the two hungry young travellers before continuing on.

Thank goodness for ridiculously long daylight hours because after we made it across the bridge to Kelowna proper, we were still able to have an awesome, meaty, saucy dinner out on the patio at Memphis Blues BBQ. Mmmmmm ribs and lemonade!

The Days Inn was to be our home away from home. Similar to our actual home, it was the cheapest place we could find in the city. It was relatively clean, at least. The TV worked, as did the toilet and shower I am happy to say. The beds were cheap and squeaky, though, and the curtains were hideous and broken and probably infected with who-knows-what. No AC either, and Kelowna was hot! Separate beds, here we come.

Ahh, romantic getaways.

Day #2
Okanagan Dreamin’

We woke on the second day of our Kelowna trip to complimentary coffee, toast and dubious boiled eggs in the hotel lobby, then cruised on out of town once again to our second winery, Gray Monk.

We didn’t really plan on doing wine tours all weekend, but we really didn’t have anything else planned and thought hey – this one is free so why not? Besides, it's the Okanagan experience!

At Gray Monk you can just show up on the hour and they’ll give you a tour. We didn’t have huge expectations and Chris wasn’t a big fan of Gray Monk wines to begin with, but in the end we were totally surprised! This was no Wine Disneyland, of course. It was better. It was the real thing!

The first thing you encounter when you pull up is this adorable, European cottage-type structure with glorious flower baskets hanging all around.

Sniff sniff!

Welcome to the other side of the lake!

Get those sunglasses out, hun! It’s another gorgeous day! And don’t mind my finger in the lens…

Now, when I say it was the real thing, I mean that a single, committed family has operated the winery for over 30 years. The the employees there were knowledgeable and kind, (particularly our lovely tour guide “Marilyn Merlot”), and our free tour took us right down into the rooms where they store the grapes, press the wine, test the wine, stack the barrels, bottle the wine, etc. etc. This is exactly what I wanted to see! Not some manicured lawns, French sculptures and dimly lit “display cellars”.

A very excited me and a real wine barrel (aka my new Twitter avatar)

Once again sticking my nose in things…

This is the wine bottling room. I actually learned how they make champagne. Fascinating!

This is the emergency stop button in the wine bottling room. And me. Getting into a little trouble.

With our minds full of vinification, Ms. Merlot guided our tour group back upstairs and treated us to a FREE tasting of 4 wines (recall: at the other place we only got 3 with the $20 tour). Then, as we shopped around in their busy little store, a charming young salesman treated us to yet another 3 tastings, two of which we ended up buying for our fancy new collection!

A red for you sir…

Hmmm I’m getting hints of rotten apple and hamster cage. Formidubbly.

After our tour and shopping fun, we stumbled and giggled our way over to their own particular restaurant on a terrace overlooking the lake, and thanks to the reservations we made when we first arrived, we were seated and enjoying our delicious appetizers in no time!

Roasted Okanagan gala apples and local goat’s cheese!

Well that didn’t last long…

I had a sausage as my main course. It was great but sausages really aren’t all that photogenic. Chris had the special pork medallions with a fantastic warm summer vegetable salad.

And of course…

We wandered in the vineyards a little before actually leaving.

Farewell adorable wine cottage!

What a nice morning! What next? Well, the beach of course.

There was this thing about not having beach towels, though. So we stopped at the mall for what ended up being an unfortunately long time, and I don’t really know where the afternoon went but by about 4:30 we were finally on the beach and – once again – giving thanks to the tilt of the earth for our extended summertime sun!

This little tent is Chris’s new pride and joy, by the way. Kelowna Zellers, you may have crappy service and no beach towels but you have wicked deals on mini beach tents!

So hot and dry! It’s like the anti-Vancouver.

Hey how did that old lady in a straw hat get ahold of my camera?

Chilling on the beach was great. We even swam a little and Ogopogo didn’t bother us one bit! After a while, however, the layer of motor oil on the surface of the water and the group of d-bags smoking next to us started to get a little bothersome so we packed up and headed off for dinner.

A little research into Kelonwa’s food scene pointed me towards RauDZ Regional Table. The chef is the famous Rod Butters, who appears to have tried to name the restaurant after himself. Not sure if that was a good call (Raooodss? RaawDIZZ?). Regardless, the place was hopping and super trendy. Unfortunately it’s also trendy to not take reservations. In the end we waited about an hour and a half at the bar. Boo to air conditioning blasting down my neck for 90 minutes!

Oh well. Eventually we two lazy beach bums got a great little table in the back and had some really tasty, locally sourced food. The jus on Chris’s lamb sirloin was… mmm I could have drank it out of a glass it was so delicious. I had a penne dish and, well once again, Chris had the more photogenic meal.

One other highlight was their liquid desserts – the one we got was a little glass full of dark chocolate and Kahlua and other such tastiness! Mmm toss it back!

After dinner we were oh-my-gosh TIRED.
What a day! Winery, terrace, mall, beach… now that’s what I call a vacation!

Day #3
Cheese Please

Forget complimentary styrofoam bagels and rubbery eggs, let's get some real breakfast! Thank you The Bohemian Café for a breakfast I will remember for a very long time to come. An amazing vegetarian chili and old cheddar wrapped in a perfect omelet with crispy, shaved hash browns on the side!

Still clutching iced coffees, we then wandered around Kelowna’s “downtown” for a little while to satisfy Chris’ inner urban planner and had some fun picking over bargain books at Mosaic. Filled with our tasty power breakfasts, we and Putt Putt then took off for one last wine country adventure: Carmelis – a goat farm and artisan cheese maker! A winding and complicated drive into the burned-out hillsides of the Okanagan Valley brought us with only minor detours into the presence of those precious cheese-providing goats!

Ma-a-a-a-a! We even got to see an adorable, wobbly baby goat!

We got to try a whole bunch of interesting cheeses and:
Goat’s. Milk. Gelato. Oh, where have you been my whole life? So rich and tasty. Salted caramel flavor? Yes, please!

The aged goat’s milk brie that we brought home and was slimy and gross and mouldy? Not so much.

Down at the farm, we fawned over the baby goat some more, but the store and the barn were all you could really see there, and besides it was time to hit the road. As we drove back down to town, we passed beach after beach that we craved to just pull into and pitch the mini-tent on. We resisted, though, not wanting to deal with the mountain roads in the dark or get home too late at night.

And sure enough, Highway 5 only took us 4 hours.

* * *

So much for San Francisco, I guess, but Kelowna was pretty darn fun and relaxing which is exactly what we were looking for. SF can wait. We were probably smart to do the shorter and cheaper trip too, since humongous life and career changes were right around the corner.

Quitting my job to go back to university? Who me? C’mon, only crazy hippies do THAT.

Just For the Weekend

2011-08-31T19:53:00.000-07:00

Regina. It’s just so temptingly close to all my nearest and dearest Manitoba family members that I simply had to book a plane ticket to Winnipeg for the weekend. (Having leftover travel allowance money didn’t hurt either!)

Friday afternoon didn’t come soon enough but the time finally arrived for me to jump into a taxi in front of my downtown hotel, arrive at the airport 10 minutes later and proceed to wait 1.5 hours to board my plane. Yes, It seems I slightly overestimated the time required for Regina’s airport procedures! I guess you never know out on the prairies…

I'm getting good at this.

After being in the air for less than an hour with a whole row of seats to myself, I safely landed in YWG and descended the escalators right into the arms of… no one.

Where are they? I didn’t even have any checked bags to grab (business traveller that I am), so I just proceeded to look around for my lovely sister. The thing is, the arrival section is not that huge, so this took all of 2 minutes. So I put my glasses on, looked around some more, phoned my sister, left a message, phoned my dad, phoned my sister again, and basically just stood next to the display case with the stupid Chicago Blackhawks upholstered chair in it (of all things) for over 10 minutes not knowing if anyone loved me enough to pick me up.

I guess I didn’t have to wait too much longer before my sister finally called me back in a frenzy. We’re on the way! We were at a wedding! We’re sorry! We’re coming! What door are you at?

Steph. I'm at THE door.

Then before I knew it, there she was in her fancy summer wedding-attending dress, running full speed along the drop-off lane median in her flip flops.

Always excitement with that one.

Well, I’m happy to say we eventually got to their car and my very handsome suit-clad brother-in-law chauffeured us all back to their country home in Rosenfeld, where fresh garden flowers were waiting for me in my own little bedroom.

I’ll take this over the Holiday Inn any day!

The whole weekend was just perfect. It’s so quiet in their little town, my little bed was so cozy, the smell of fresh flowers was all around me and the only thing I could hear when I woke up to in the morning was birds singing! No buses hissing and squeaking, no cement trucks roaring, no police cars wailing. Just little birdies. Ahhhh.

The Parents showed up on Saturday morning, we had a big breakfast together, then Steph and I worked out in the garden and just relaxed in the sunny yard for the rest of the afternoon while Mom took a nap and Dad and Trevor worked on building the new limestone driveway.

Oh yeah. And my crazy brother-in-law randomly purchased a wood chipper that morning. Those guys played with their new toy all afternoon.

Later on, we set up the fire pit and got out the hot dogs and settled down for a good old campfire. Grandma even showed up with rhubarb cake!

Grandmas are the best!

We made sure to finish up before 7:00, however, because there was a Canucks game to watch on my parents’ new big screen TV. And to end a perfect day, they won!

Later that evening, we also caught up with a special someone on the webcam.

"Make sure you get my good side..."

The next day I was privileged enough to attend Steph and Trevor’s tiny community church. They even let me practice with their choir!

After that it was lunch with Dad who then whisked me off to the airport for my early evening flight back to Regina.

Even better than the Casino Regina bus!

I really am closer than I appear, you know.

Oh, it was such a great weekend! Thanks guys!
I hope you're prepared for me to invite myself again at Christmas ;)

* * *

My flight back to Regina was good. I had a seat-neighbor this time but I was nice and shared my newspaper.

Then there I was on Sunday night back in Regina I was hoping to just sneak my grungy, well-travelled self into my room and let the peace, quiet and birdsong linger in my mind for a few more hours. Unfortunately, though, Dad’s egg salad and pickle sandwiches had long worn off and I had to eat dinner. And it wasn’t like I had cupboards full of food in my hotel room so I had to go out. In the spirit of avoiding contact, I decided to just slip away and get some takeout. Of course, it being downtown Regina and a Sunday evening, everything was locked up tight. Then I decided on the next best thing – obtaining something microwaveable from Safeway.

I donned my yoga pants and sneakers, grabbed my purse and headed down for my little trip to the store – only to find a group of like 8 of my fellow trainees in the lobby. “Hey Jen! Come have dinner with us Jen! How was your weekend Jen?” It was really nice to see them, of course, and I was happy to chat dreamily about my nice weekend, but there went my secret escape! Being in old sweatpants and everything, I politely turned down their invitations and did eventually head out to the Safeway for my microwaveable "delicacies".

No more flowers and birds, though. I guess my relaxation would have to come in the form of popcorn and Food Network once again.

Jet-Setter

2011-08-30T13:22:00.000-07:00

Business trip, anyone?

Who, me? Yes, apparently even low-level federal government drones can be sent away on “business!” I did not know this. However, as it turns out one of my biggest events this summer was a 10-day business trip to Regina for a training seminar. Why would my work send me to a week-long training seminar in Regina when we have perfectly good training facilities here in Vancouver?

Because that’s where the training is held, of course.

I’d been to Regina once before, about 12 years ago on a high school trip. We stayed for all of one night and then just kept on driving on our way to BC. I remember an A&W. That is all.

This time I was coming from BC, thankfully not on a tour bus, and thankfully not with 40 other 16-year-olds (although it sure was fun at the time!).

Starting out in Vancouver on Monday morning, Chris was still away on his own Eastern pilgrimage, so I had to and make sure I put the house back in order after my two wild weeks of singledom, and last but not least make sure the car was parked perfectly straight (lest The Driver have a giant cow when he gets home).

My stomach, as per usual, was all in knots about packing and getting ready but once I finally pulled the key out of the door I was cool as a cucumber!

YVR: expertly navigated. Flight on tiny jet plane: totally smooth. Pickup in Regina: on time. Hotel room: giant - and last but not least: free!

Home sweet home. Never had two beds all to myself! Take that, band trip.

My chic seaweed-green bathroom with curvy tub and wheelchair-height vanity. Cool, I've always wanted to see my knees in the bathroom mirror...

Even a microwave! More luxury than home.

The first night in Regina we had a welcome dinner at a place called Beer Brothers. Beer? I think I quite like these people already! On the prairies again, I saw fit to get a Winnipeg brew and a perogy dinner. Yeah!

After dinner it wasn’t even close to getting dark out, and after my plane ride I was still quite restless. Besides, I wanted chocolate and tea. Seeing as I was in a foreign city’s downtown (apparently bordering its sketchy neighbourhood), I asked the front desk about the nearest convenience store. She looked at me like I was out of my mind. “It’s raining. There’s a Shopper’s but it’s five blocks away. You’ll probably want to just use the vending machine upstairs.”

Umm. I'm not sure but I think I can handle five blocks. And it’s only drizzling. I’m from Vancouver after all. Look, I even have an umbrella.

Suit yourself crazy Vancouver lady!

So out into the flat streets of Regina I went, in search of the snack food oasis that is Shopper’s Drug Mart.

Oh no! Drizzle!

Success! And a giant new one at that! Sure beats the vending machine.

Of course the mosquito-spray shelf. Hah. Haven't used that stuff in years.

Now that I'd procured my goodies for the next few days, I made my way back all five blocks to the hotel. I took a more residential street this time, and here the cars were stopping for me left and right. Like, on streets with traffic lights. THEY had green lights. Yet they stopped so I could cross. Regina, so cute.

The training itself ran during the regular workday in Service Canada’s huge Regina training facility. The view from the basement windows onto the sidewalk was slightly less impressive than the mountains and harbour here in Vancovuer, but at least the chairs were comfy. The whole session was geared towards client service and effective communication. (Just so you know, they didn’t send me here because I needed improvement! Apparently everyone in my position is supposed to go to this thing when they start working. It just took them 3 years to get my trip arranged. Hrm.) So for a week and a half we spent our time with a group of adorable and fantastic leaders, doing a lot of “adult learning” type activities, you know, with lots of standing in circles and groups and using markers and flip charts and stuff. We also got to tour Regina City Hall and the mayor’s office, which was cool. All in all it was pretty fun. Better than actually working, at least.

All aboard the “adult learning” bus!

Since my office only seems to be able to send one of us to this seminar at a time, I was the only one from Vancouver in the whole 35-ish person training group. Looks like I’ll have to make some friends or this will be a very crappy two weeks! Lucky for me, there were a lot of awesome and interesting people there from all over the place. It was like camp! Only with beer.

And the beer paired perfectly with the hockey. Oh, HOCKEY. Of all the weeks in the year, I had to go and leave Vancouver during the Stanley Cup finals! Fortunately, I had some other Canucks fans in my group and we made sure to find a bar and watch each and every game. On non game nights, I actually made sure to eat healthy foods and go exercise so that I could handle all the beer and pub food that I knew was coming my way. For some reason jogging in Regina was really easy... hmmm.

Yes, those are blueberries in my beer. Marilyn was super impressed.

In the end, suffice it to say that the Caucks did not sweep the series and leave me alone in Regina while they paraded through downtown Vancouver with the Stanley Cup. I was lucky enough to make it home for the last few games. And that is all I am going to say about that.

How did we get around to all these bars, you’re wondering? Well, Regina isn’t huge, and the downtown is not really a “happy hour” kind of place. But here we were, 35 government employees with no other responsibilities at the end of the day but to spend our meal allowances! Seeing as we were all visitors from far away and had no vehicles, getting out for the evening occasionally required a little ingenuity. One of the strategies we discovered early on was the pimpin’ Casino Regina shuttle bus – oh baby. As fate would have it, our Holiday Inn was located in the general vicinity of the Casino Regina. And Casino Regina had a complimentary shuttle bus, so when we wanted to go somewhere, we would just walk into the casino for a few minutes, then casually ask an attendant for the shuttle to take us back to our “hotel” on the other side of town. Within a few minutes we would be whisked away – for free – in an air conditioned, leathery, sparkly, minibar-outfitted party bus!

Overall, Regina was pretty good to me. The people are incredibly nice there. Even the airport security, which is a rare thing indeed! Aside from that first day, the weather was also pretty great, and I am still treasuring the memories of some amazing Thai food, a fantastic farmer’s sausage, and a really nice glass of wine with a delicious lunch on a beautiful patio. Not needing to cook or clean for 10 days was pretty sweet, of course, and I decided to take advantage of the “me” time by going for a massage-chair pedicure at a really nice spa. That, and a lot of sitting in my hotel room with a bag of popcorn watching Food Network.

And Regina loves ME.

Just regular ol' prairie folk.

My lunch time hangout, Scarth St.

Anyone for an awesome patio lunch in the prairie sun?

Yes! Food make strong.
(This is my new buddy Jon from Winnipeg - "the homeland")

I found another friendly face at the spa! Sp-bahhh

So I guess I can now say that I have travelled on business (and not just taking the train to Surrey to peddle music folders). Of course, it was no conga-line glow stick middle-aged dance party but it was good enough for me!

Now I know what you’re thinking… Jen, you were gone for 10 days so there must have been a weekend in there somewhere. What did you do? Did you get sloshed on government money? Did you party with the Roughriders? Did you count cards at the Casino Regina? No…

I went to Winnipeg!
More about that soon.

It Happened Again

2011-07-22T16:49:00.000-07:00

It is time again to say a few words about that special day that sneaks up occasionally and makes me a year older. This year, my beloved decided to celebrate the occasion by attending a friend’s wedding in Toronto and subsequently visiting his family in Orlando.

So in order to prevent the looming birthday loneliness, I got the party-planning gears a-turning! Now to celebrate myself in proper fashion, there must be good food, artsy entertainment and a tasteful amount of alcohol.

Thanks to Facebook, I was able to scrounge up a motley crew of revelers and off we went!

First stop: The tastiest, healthiest and funkiest Middle Eastern restaurant on all of Main Street, East is East. Thanks again to all those who were brave enough to lounge around on Persian rugs and eat lentils and roti off rough-hewn wooden stump coffee tables with me.

Next stop: Hairspray. The musical. Front row seats were waiting for us to plant our bums and witness the most energetic, rainbow-colored 60’s musical of all time. How did we score front row seats, you ask? Are we made of money? Well, actually quite the opposite! As it turns out, in that particular theater, the very front row seats were the cheapest of all. Apparently those seats have a “limited view” of the stage, but I decided to go for them anyway. In the end it was the only reasonable place where our whole group could sit together anyway. As it turns out, there were a couple of scenes where we couldn’t see their feet. That’s it! “These seats are awesome!” is what we all thought as we gazed up in awe at the rainbow spectacle and bopped along to the beat of the amazing performance.

You can’t stop the beat!

Who are you calling Miss Baltimore Crabs?

Last stop: A trendy gastro-pub just down the block, reserved exclusively for young-ish and beautiful people just like us. Reservations in place, we were immediately escorted back to our own little section, where we planned to snack and sip our way into the wee hours (yes, for me that means about midnight). I was just about to order a rye and ginger ale when my friends intercepted me with demands that I must order a much fancier and more expensive birthday drink. Ok, ok. So I went over the cocktail menu and eventually found a champagne cocktail with a name like “wild diva” or something like that. Then, about 15 minutes after I ordered it, the server came back and said they didn’t have this or that ingredient so I had to choose something else. Great. Here I’ve been in a bar for 30 minutes on my birthday and still haven’t had one drink!

In the end I had my rye and ginger ale, then about an hour later when server came back, I got some kind of mediocre pineapple drink and then the night was over! We had so much trouble tracking down a server the whole time, it’s almost like they didn’t want us to spend our money there. Well then, fine with me! I was tired enough by then and happy to be whisked home by my fantastic friends.

My old buddy Erin even came all the way from Abbotsford for the celebrations and got to spend the night at my man-free house. The next day, she and I cruised around the city girl-style in you-know-who, went and saw the Hangover 2 (without hangovers, it turns out) and ate some great ramen.

What is this, a P.F. Chang's?

With that, I concluded Birthday 2011. Good times were had by all. Chris came home a few days later but I don't actually know this firsthand because I was off to Regina for my own work-related escapade before he even got here.

We finally reunited at some point in the middle of June when I got home, and it turns out there was a little bit of birthday left to celebrate!

Presents! Gulab jamun! And sheep! What more could a girl want?

Yeah. Maybe I should actually write a backgrounder on our household sheep one day. Maybe.

A Drop More of the 'Shine My Dear?

2011-07-22T11:28:00.000-07:00

May long weekend! Typically the best weekend of the year. Chris happened to be out of town this year so I was going to be all by my lonesome. No worries, though! I was fully prepared to hunker down and work my regular Saturday shift and maybe just go for a bike ride, read some books, watch some 80’s movies… you know, just chill.

Then suddenly I got an invitation from my lovely friend Katelyn to spend the weekend at her family’s cottage at the lake. How do I have such cool friends? I do not know. Luckily enough, work let me take a last-minute vacation day and just like that I had the whole weekend to chill in the mountains!

Putt Putt was pretty excited too, and he even offered his services to haul us and all our weekend stuff out to Hope, BC. Now, about 10 minutes before I was going to jump behind the wheel, I got a call from another one of our friends, Katy, whom we had been trying to convince to come along with us! “I’m in!” she says, and Putt Putt and I were more than happy to swing around the block and pick her up.

The weather this May Long wasn’t quite as pleasant as previous years, but we certainly made the best of it, sitting on the dock despite the drizzle, pulling weeds in the garden, cooking fantastic meals, hanging out inside on the old couches and reading old books and playing piano. Oh, and the sauna. Sitting in the sauna with chilled glasses of homemade white wine. Ahhhhhh. All in all just a tiny bit better than working the Saturday shift.

One morning I woke up and was greeted by a few woodland friends on the patio.

Well hello there, I think I will call you Blacky-head!
Katelyn later told me this is a Sterlings Jay. Ok fine.

Honk Honk, good morning Jen! You look beautiful today!

Huh? Coffee?

On Sunday we were able to cruise on over to nearby Camp Squeah where our church was having a weekend retreat. We got there just in time for breakfast (french toast, fruit salad, bacon), which of course led to lunch (giant burritos) and eventually dinner (perogies and farmers sausage). Oh, and in addition to gorging ourselves on camp food, we also had a church service and also did some hiking and exploring. The weather even improved just long enough for us to hike way down into the canyon and stand in wonder at the edge of some huge rapids. On the way back up, we took a detour and explored a little place everyone called “The Hermitage”. What? So are there hermits? I see enough stinky dirty men in downtown Vancouver, thank you very much! Nobody would tell me as we hiked along, but to my delight, there were no stinky hermits living at this “hermitage”. At one point in the 1970s, apparently one quite handy and contemplative theologian crafted a collection of homey little shacks up here in the forest and lived up there for a year or more, just reflecting and such.

It was a pretty impressive place with a nice view and the structures were really beautifully made. Some of them had dark corners, though, and I was afraid to wander inside, lest creepy critters jump out at me.

I didn’t have my camera along on that hike, so no pictures unfortunately. Maybe next time!

Sunday night is when we hit the sauna. Yes Katelyn’s uncle saw fit at one point to grace the family’s cottage with a fantastic little sauna in the basement! Our big plan was to do the whole Scandinavian thing where you get nice and hot and then go jump in the lake. We were all guts about it until we fully understood that the lake was a good 200m from the house along a winding 45-degree pathway… and it was raining…. and we’d each had a couple of glasses of wine… Sauna it is, then!

To be fair, those two young whippersnappers stayed up a couple hours past this old lady and I’m not completely clear on what took place. At least we were all present and accounted for in the morning.

Monday eventually came, and after we packed up the car and very slowly and reluctantly left the cottage, we decided on a tiny bit more hiking in the neighborhood.

Katelyn had some serious equipment going on.

These 7-foot original high altitude douglas fir hiking sticks will run you about $80 a pair at MEC. We just found them on the ground.

Katy was very excited when we reached our lookout point.

Picking edible flowers, which I cannot attest to eating. So brave, these two.

In this picture you can see one smaller river running into the Fraser. See the two colors at the fork? Amazing!

Unfortunately, the hiking couldn’t go on all day. We needed lunch and we also needed to get on the road. You know, it’s always dumb stuff like eating and jobs and responsibilities that keep you from spending quality time in the woods. Maybe that hermit had the right idea…

Anyway, thanks for a fun weekend girls! Putt Putt and I stand ready to forsake our responsibilities at any time!

Blue Blue Feelings

2011-07-01T22:16:00.000-07:00

Sadly not all weekends can be gnarly old school rock and roll road trips (for me, anyway). But I suppose as life continues to threaten to go back to normal, you just have to keep threatening it back with new adventures! Luckily my friends will often help out in this regard. Even friends from work, it turns out!

Now, I don’t talk about work all that much, mostly because it’s been the most boring element of my life the past three years. (Have you seen Julie & Julia? THAT IS ME.) Oh, and also if I told you certain government secrets I’d have to kill you.

Anyway… despite the fact that the job we do is probably best suited for a bunch of limbless drones programmed to navigate ancient software and apologize to clients all day long, the office is actually full of pretty cool people.

One of whom is Megan, a groovy and talented single lady with whom I have had the occasional after work walk, skate, coffee, bowl of ramen, etc. Today, however her little email reads something like:

“Do you want to go to a Canucks game on Thursday… it’s on me!”

My response was something to the effect of:

“You’re shitting me.”

As it turns out she was not shitting me.

There was something about her brother having season tickets and not wanting to go to this particular game, someone else being not available, it being her birthday soon, and just like that I was going to a Canucks game – something I had been wanting to do ever since we moved here, but was never able to justify price-wise or even just convince Chris or anyone else to accompany me. But Megan! She and her kind soul made my little dream come true, just like that! Almost makes spending 3 years of my life tethered to a desk in a government call centre worth it. Almost.

So sure enough, later that very same week, there I was outside of Rogers Arena for the last home game of the season against the Minnesota “who?” Wild. Before the game we were even able to witness the unveiling of the new Roger Nielsen statue and once we had surrendered our dangerous water bottles and climbed up to our posh seats in the very top row of the balcony, we were also able to feast our eyes on the 2010-2011 awards ceremony.

What a treat!

Yes, our seats were literally in the very last row at the top of the balcony at the end of the rink but I wasn’t complaining one bit. How much money can a regular guy dish out for Canucks season tickets anyway? Besides, there was a party box just behind us, and we had the same view as they did. Not even a strip of Plexiglas separated us from those privileged attendees and their fancy food and drink. In fact, their bar was directly on top of our heads!

“Oh man, I’m so glad me and my 1970’s self got into this party box tonight, but what is with these strange women milling about underneath the bar?”

Who, me?

During one intermission I actually turned around, smiled cute and asked if I could put my fountain drink on their bar for safekeeping. The blue version just nodded through his beer-haze. Nice!

Off to the one side behind us, we were also in very close proximity to the Rogers SportsNet broadcasting aquarium in which we got to check out the backs of the commentators and watch a muted version of their captivating hockey banter.

“Don’t look now but there’s a blonde girl with weird glasses checking you out”

At some point after the awards ceremony but before our beloved boys in blue took to the ice, I was able to sneak out and procure some party boxes of our own – filled with hot dogs, pretzels and drinks! That’s right, free tickets meant no holds barred at the concession stand. Happy birthday Megan!

Just as I settled back into my seat and arranged my goodies for convenient cheering, the lights went dim and it was on!

ding-a-ding-ding-ding-ding dingalinga-ding ding-a-ding-ding-ding-ding wooo0000OOOO000ooo

The Canucks grand entrance with the music and the lights is just super exciting. The game was a load of fun too. All the big stars were out scoring lots of goals. Go SEDIIIINS! We kicked their butts 5-0 but of course! I really couldn’t remember the last time I saw a real live hockey game. It brought me back to the good old days at the Sunflower Gardens watching the Aces or the Maroons play – only today I wasn’t wearing ten layers of clothing.

Luuuuuuuu!

Not that I didn’t have a legitimate appreciation for the Canucks prior to attending this game, but afterwards – oh boy. Now I had witnessed the authentic Canucks machine in action. Playoffs were starting now too, we were at the top of the league and it was like the whole city got Olympic fever all over again but everyone had exchanged their red shirts for blue.

I won’t go into details about each heart-stopping game that Chris and I and our friends devoted ourselves to watching for the entirety of May and June. Nor will I comment on the unfortunate final outcome, or the even more unfortunate outcome of the outcome (at least not today). We are obviously fine. In fact, we are more than fine. We got to spend the last couple of months consistently on the edge of our seats with our family, friends, sheep and even some perfect strangers, wearing matching shirts, eating fried things and drinking beer.

What more could you ask for?

Well, I suppose it would be nice to drink that beer out of a giant, shiny cup.

Next year.

Old School

2011-04-08T18:56:00.000-07:00

It all started with a Facebook message.
(What doesn’t these days?)

From my my age-old schoolmate and fellow Manitoba transplant Erin:

“You interested?”

Below was the image of an all-too-recognizable album cover from our very favourite dream boat teen idol punk band MxPx.

“March 26th, Seattle”

My instant response was a garbled mix of emphatic pop culture Internet acronyms and exclamation points.

Apparently MxPx is still playing music, I had no idea. I think they might have gotten back together for one night only, but then again maybe they’ve been playing whiny high school-themed punk rock continuously ever since 1997 when I first feasted my grade 9 ears on their Teenage Politics album. Whatever the circumstances, the countdown was on for a rocking girls’ night out in Seattle.

Like, OMG what r u gonna wear?

Our countdown continued through about six tedious work weeks, our first car payment, my dad’s short visit and subsequent departure for his 3-week adventure tour of Vietnam, as well as a major natural disaster in Japan during which Erin’s sister managed to evacuate herself from Tokyo the day before they shut down the airport (!)

Eventually, though, March 26th rolled around and only a 3-hour drive lay between us and some serious good times.

We crossed the border like pros.

“Where are you ladies headed?”
“To Seattle for a concert”
“Which band are you seeing?”
“MxPx”
“Oh, cool. I didn’t know they still played! Have a good time.”

After an obligatory stop at random giant US grocery chain to load up on Chex Mix and cheap wine, we cruised up to our hotel in the mid-afternoon. The Hyatt, that is, thanks to Erin and her savvy Priceline.com dealings.

Ahhhhh.

Why, what a nice chair!

18th floor, baby!

Due to our shared appreciation for nice hotel rooms, we literally just sat around in our new home for more than an hour before dragging ourselves up and across the street to the luxury shopping mall and our dinner destination: The Cheesecake Factory.

“If you want to sit out on the heated patio, we can seat you right away. If you want to sit inside, it will be at least 45 minutes.”
“Ummmmpatio.”

The patio was covered from the rain, at least. I think “heated” was a little too strong a word, though. The top of my head was toasty warm, at least. But even with the rest of my body braced against a brisk Seattle draft, I quite enjoyed my giant cheesy, beefy, avocadoey, honey mustardy Cheesecake Factory burger!

Next step: getting ready.

Back in the hotel, we cracked open the supermarket wine, turned on the music and started with the hair, makeup, etc. This is a bit of a change from 10 years ago, we thought, remembering the days when we were fresh out of high school, working as a retail clerk and a care worker; the days when we would have just thrown on our sleeveless t-shirts and some hair gel, jumped in the Grand Am with skateboarding stickers on it, driven 5 hours to a concert, then 5 hours home again the same night because we couldn’t afford to take a day off work or eat at a restaurant. Oh, memories.

But here we are today, an accountant and a public servant, chilling in the Hyatt Regency, sorting through our brand name clothes and makeup, and using paid vacation time so we could leave at a reasonable afternoon hour in a late model Audi and eat a legitimate dinner before the show.

“Almost ready there, granny?”
“Hang on, I’m having trouble getting into my Spanx”

Hah. Just kidding.

Rock and roll! (Credit Erin’s iPhone skills for this rad picture)

At this time, allow me to provide a little background to the upcoming mini-scandal. Our tickets said the doors open at 7:30, show starts at 8:30. They also indicated that there was going to be 3 bands playing. Since we weren’t all that interested in these random other bands that were playing, we decided to get there around 9:00. Not too early, but not too late. Just in time for maybe the second band, and for sure to see MxPx! Our big plan was to take a taxi so as to avoid parking woes and threats to the Audi during our time in sketchy downtown Seattle bar-land.

The handsome doormen at our hotel were more than happy to whistle up a cab and our cab driver promptly got us to our destination. As we followed some jacket-less, tattooed youngsters through the haze of “cigarette” smoke into the lobby of the club, our ears registered some very distinct beats… a bass line… then lyrics – all of which knew all too well...

The band we came for was already playing!!!

We looked at each other like, WHAT THE #&@%?

As we very quickly comprehended, they were first on the bill. Why on earth this occurred, we still haven’t been able to figure out. As it was, we were able to witness approximately half of their set, the last 4-5 songs or so… from the back of the crowd. If I stood on my tippy-toes I was able to occasionally see one of their dreamy heads bob up and down, then another. It all depended on how the massive lumberjack in front of me decided to shift his weight.

A priceless glimpse of the singer Mike, thanks again to Erin’s iPhone. Yuri the awesome drummer is somewhere behind that hand jutting out from the front row.

Unfortunately for me, the guitarist (and my all-time favourite) Tom was somewhere way over on the left side of the stage. That washed out blur behind Mike’s shoulder is him… I think.

(Notice also the enormous “MXPX” banner on the stage. You’d think they’d be the headliners...)

The songs we did hear were as fun as ever, of course, and we sang along and cheered as we relived every single high school emotion, beat by beat. As soon as they were finished with the show, however, so were we. We tried our best to stay and give a real chance to this… this other “band” that was to play next, but really our minds had been poisoned against them from the moment we walked in. Dear Gatsby’s American Dream, you have made lifelong enemies of two Canadian girls tonight.

When we decided we couldn’t take any more pretentious hipster alt-rock, we headed back out into the Seattle night. Thankful that we took a taxi to get there (otherwise we would have missed MxPx altogether!), we were determined NOT to spend our hard-exchanged dollars on a taxi back to the hotel, especially since we were so disappointed with the show and it was still early enough that public transit was still running.

Who are the oldies now, huh MxPx? … finishing your set at 9:30pm… pfft.

Thus began our quest for the Bus Tunnel.

Back that afternoon, the front desk girl at our hotel (“Oh, MxPx? I didn’t know they still played!”) had told us about a certain bus. That this bus stopped at a certain location near the club. This bus, however, for all we could tell from all the bus stops in a 3 block radius of the club, did not exist. We decided to scoot into a random Marriott hotel and ask their front desk person where this bus stopped. He said it probably went through the central transit station aka “Bus Tunnel” with all the rest of the city buses. He tried to tell us how to get there, he sounded oh so confident and we were exceedingly reassured. We proceeded to follow his directions to the letter, walked the blocks and blocks and turned and walked blocks and blocks more, only to find ourselves at a generic intersection with no transit station in sight. Thanks, pretentious hipster Marriott boy. Hey, there’s a band playing you might like…

So there we were at a random street corner at 11pm, trying to discreetly look at our Seattle pocket map, when a stout, crooked silhouette starts making its way toward us from up the street. Oh great, we thought, a homeless person; the last thing we need right now!

In my limited experience, though, no homeless people are as disgusting as Vancouver homeless people, so we weren’t too worried about this little bag lady coming up to us. Still, we weren't exactly thrilled.

“Do you ladies need any directions?”
“Uhh, actually yes. Do you know where the Bus Tunnel is?”

“Oh sure!” she says, as she points two blocks away to a collection of artistic neon light strips that are so ugly they could only have been decided upon my some civil government committee. “Just cross the street here and head towards those lights. You’re going back to the Hyatt? You’ll come to a few escalators that go down into the station. Make sure you take the one on the left and find the stop for bus 550”

“Wow, thanks!”

Then, of course “If you don’t mind I’m homeless, and I’ve been trying to scrape together…” blah blah blah usual homeless spiel.
We were so thankful, we actually went against both of our internal Vancouver personal safety rulebooks and gave her a couple bucks worth of change. We also figured the Marriott would probably be better off with her at the front desk. Or our Hyatt for that matter.

A Seattle bus tunnel all to ourselves, how fabulous :/

Or should we say… DÉRELICTE!!!

Lets reflect on the evening, shall we?

The whole bus tunnel experience itself was rather amusing, actually. We were literally the only ones there and had all night to sit and wait and fool around. It was crawling with bored but friendly security personnel, too, so we felt safe. Not like in Vancouver where you would probably find 5 or 6 random, smelly piles of dirty sleeping bags and empty coffee cups with people sleeping under them. (Vancouver, I still love you – but for many other reasons!)

Our bus eventually came right on time, and we proceeded to cruise through some underground train tunnel thing. As the clock inched past midnight, our surprisingly perky bus driver made an unscheduled stop just for us a few blocks from our hotel. As we laughingly strolled past a Vietnamese restaurant called “What the Phở?” We decided that despite the band fail and the transit woes, we were just not ready for our girls’ night to be over! Not wanting to deal with any other transportation, however, we comfortably installed ourselves in the Joey’s at our hotel, finally coming to terms with the trendy, young professionals that we are. Long Island iced teas were the special of the night and… let’s just say that after a hectic night, 2 ½ shots of liquor at once will really loosen you up!

Warning: Long Island iced teas may lead to uncontrollable laughing fits, flirting with the waiter, making fun of certain bands, scarfing cheesecake leftovers, missing stairs, falling over and watching The Hangover in your hotel room until 2:30 am.

The next morning wasn’t as bad as you may be thinking, however. We had until noon to check out and we slept really well in our giant, individual beds. Taking further advantage of our hotel experience, I actually went for a really nice swim in the lap pool before breakfast. Breakfast being a coffee and croissant, which I gratuitously ate in my giant bed, getting pastry flakes absolutely everywhere.

That's the look of someone who didn't have to make her bed.

Hotel lobby chic.

The source of my reckless croissant. Tully’s Coffee goes jungle.

The afternoon included one more trip to the mall, as well as World Market (Loves.) Lunch came in the form of pan-asian noodles. American-sized servings, of course, with way more meat.

Srs ramn.

Eventually, we reminded ourselves that tomorrow was Monday and we actually had professional responsibilities, so we forced ourselves to head back north across the border.

“Where were you ladies this weekend?”
“In Seattle at an MxPx concert”
“Oh, I didn’t know they were still together…”

* * *

Is this the end of an era?

Perhaps our era was already over in 2001 when we spread our wings and departed from the ol’ hometown, choosing various exciting paths that didn’t necessarily entail moshing and crowd surfing. Or perhaps we’ll continue to hold a little piece of MxPx in our hearts, and every 10 years or so find that somewhere, somehow they’ve reunited to play “one more show”, each time at an earlier hour than the last, and perhaps Erin and I will continue to go to these shows in increasingly nicer cars and stay at increasingly nicer hotels, until one day we’ll arrive in our Bentley just in time for Happy Hour in the crystal atrium of some Four Seasons somewhere, and finally experience their entire concert, beginning to end.

Looking forward to it!

Das Auto

2011-03-20T16:07:00.000-07:00

Let’s get back to NOT buying a condo, shall we? With Christmas out of the way and home ownership off the table for the moment, our lives began to resume their normalcy. Bus-work-bus-dinner. Bus-work-bus-dinner.

It’s not that bad, really. The bus is relatively quick and reliable (providing a single snowflake doesn’t fall), work is… well I’m doing as well as one can there and I’m just lucky to have another contract right now. Then, after the bus gets us back home again, dinner a la Jen is usually not too shabby!

For some reason, though, our little Vancouver rhythm just wasn’t doing it for us anymore. Perhaps it was the newfound freedom we felt when we escaped from our real-estate bubble, or the restlessness built up after two weeks of suburban holidays, or perhaps we decided it was time to keep up with the Janzes. Whatever it was, we decided to buy a car!

I guess I should say we decided to shop for a car.

What’s that hissing sound I hear? It’s like it’s all around me…. could it be? A car bubble??

Oh yes.

Conversation after conversation, discussion after discussion, advertisement after advertisement, website after website, car, car, car, CAR, CAR!!

I do suppose spending a lot of time talking about big decisions is good and everything, and it mostly helps us really weigh the pros and cons. The thing is, I like to make decisions quickly. I have the discussions, weigh those pros and cons, stroke a bunch of things off the list and narrow it right down in short order. My esteemed partner does not operate this way, however. Nothing ever gets stroked off his list until the very end. He likes to keep all the options there in his mind and let them stew about for an indefinite amount of time while discussing this and discussing that and discussing this and discussing me right up the wall.

J: “What do you think, new or used?”
C: “Well, we can’t afford a new _______ which is our top choice, but we could definitely afford a new _______.”
J: “I don’t think we need a brand new car just for fun on weekends.”
C: “That’s true.”
J: “So I guess we should focus on used cars then?”
C: “Hmmm, used cars are cheaper but new cars are shiny and they come with a warranty.”
J: “So I guess we should focus on used cars, then?”
C: “You know, we could get a new _________ for about the same prices as a used _________. But it wouldn’t come with __________....”
J: (goes and gets the Advil)

As if it could be any other way, this kind of conversation played over and over again as we trapped ourselves in another big-purchase bubble. Welcome to Communication 101 in Relationship Land! I’m really not trying to infer that one person is right and the other is wrong. We are just two people with really different ways of making decisions. In the grand scheme of things, I think Chris really makes me more thorough and less impulsive, and at the same time think I help him avoid getting distracted by tiny details and going on tangents (more or less). Provided there is enough Advil around, we make a pretty good team!

In the end, this wunder team took approximately 6 weeks to choose – and find – a completely awesome car! Was this a long time? Was this a short time? Who’s to say? We didn’t “need” a car. Bus-work-bus-dinner was working just fine. We just “wanted” a car (as terribly consumptive as that sounds) and that meant we weren’t pressed for time.

Now, I know you are itching to know how, exactly, we came to find our new wheels! (If you’re not, well you know where to find the pictures).

Eventually, after all our hours of talking and researching, we narrowed the search down to a VW Golf/Jetta/Passat from 2004-2009 with a TDI Diesel engine. After about a week of monitoring Auto Trader and Craigslist and who knows what other websites Chris pored over after I went to bed each night, we came across a 2006 silver VW Golf at the Honda dealership down the street (of all places). Chris made an appointment to see it a couple days later and we went down there. Arriving at the dealership, we scanned the lot for the Golf, didn’t find it, went in and met with the salesman only to be informed that it was sold yesterday to someone else! “I try to call you Chris,” says the small, round eastern European-ish salesman, “you not come to appointment yesterday, someone else buy Volkswagen.” Chris says he was pretty sure he made the appointment for today. The salesman points to Chris’ name on a random paper chart that was apparently from yesterday. "No, was yesterday". Chris gives up.

The Honda salesman obviously then tried to sell us a Civic but didn’t get very far. Out in the lot, though, we ended up admiring a Volvo station wagon and even took it out for a test drive just for fun. Hah. It was nice to drive, actually, it was a good deal and it would have been a super useful car. But a station wagon? We’re either too cool or just not cool enough. Hard to say.

Now, despite our laborious Volkswagen decision, that afternoon we went on a bit of a Volvo tangent. The Civic-peddlers behind us, we took a stroll up the street to the Volvo dealership. There, we ended up sitting down and talking to a fantastic, tiny old Chinese salesman in a three-piece suit. He answered all of Chris’ manly car questions with happy, wrinkly eyes and the occasional outburst of hoarse belly laughter. After assessing what we were looking for, he told us about a compact sedan that he had for sale, a fully loaded 2005 model with something ridiculous like only 20,000 kms on it. This practically brand new Volvo that sells new for $35k+ could be ours for only $16k!

“The only reason… I have not sold it yet… is that it is FIRE ENGINE RED! HHHA HHHA HA HA HA HA!”

I suppose we seemed interested enough, so he tossed us the keys and Chris and I took it out for a spin. Boy, was it ever red. Not that we cared so much about the color. Red is still better than white, we both agreed. Oh, and it had leather interior, sunroof, digital radio and all the bells and whistles you could ask for. It was pretty fun to drive, too. Some daddy from Hong Kong had apparently bought it for his daughter while she was studying in Canada. It had its share of bumps and scratches (go figure) but nothing major. What a deal, too! It had barely been driven and literally the only reason it was so cheap was because it was such a painful color! We had so much fun driving it out by the airport that we almost put a deposit down. In the end, though, we played it cool and went home. We decided we’d never be able to re-sell a lipstick-colored car and besides it was gas, not diesel, and not a Volkswagen. We were happy that German heads prevailed.

It was a fun day shopping and cruising around but however enjoyable it was, we were still left without a car to call our own.

About a week or so later, thanks to Chris’ ever-vigilant monitoring of Craigslist, we found a very sweet looking grey 2005 Passat with everything we wanted at a really good price. The only problem was that it was in Portland, Oregon. Now, we don’t need a very big excuse to take the weekend off and cruise down to Portland (hello Powell’s Books!), and Chris had called and talked to the dealership and things looked promising. We were even prepared to deal with the vehicle-importing paperwork and everything!

It was Monday afternoon and I was at work, just about to ask my supervisor about taking a day off for the Portland adventure… when suddenly Chris starts emailing me from his office, rapid-fire:

He writes: “I just talked to the guy in Portland, he’s holding the Passat for us until Thursday.”

Then, within 30 seconds: “Check out this ad from North Vancouver” (another VW Golf)

30 more seconds later: “Can you call me ASAP?”

Of course, here I am knee deep in my own workday, but I take a few minutes to call him and we agree that the Golf ad looks really good. "Sure, give them a call."

5 minutes later another email comes in: “Yup, it’s for real, should we go see it?”

Before I can even respond with "sure", he writes: "Should I put a deposit down?"

30 seconds later he sends me the prize email of the day: “F*** it! I’m putting down a deposit on the Golf!”

What’s this? Has the ever-so-meticulous decision-maker finally cracked?

Who’s to say? In any case, the salesman wasn't there that night but the very next day after work, we met at my office and took the SeaBus across to the North Shore and found the VW dealership. We met the completely normal and very nice salesman, he showed us the sparkling clean and accident-free car, handed over the keys and we took it for a cruise. The radio and speakers sucked. Otherwise it was completely awesome! By the time I putt-putted the little diesel guy back into the lot, we knew he was going to be ours. Apparently there was someone else ready to snatch it up (not a sales-lie) but we most certainly had dibs because of Chris’ brilliantly hasty decision to put down a deposit over the phone!

In the next two hours, just insert a lot of sitting at desks, a lot of Chris talking, a lot of me smiling and nodding, a lot of numbers, calculators, printouts and “consulting with the manager”, and we walked out of there with a done deal! $17k (because we don’t like to talk about HST) for one fabulous German car, eight tires and two years of warranty. All that was left to do is run the credit checks, go over the car once more, and pick it up on Friday. Oh, and let that other interested party know, "You no put down deposit. Someone else buy Volkswagen" :)

Yup, we were two happy kids that night, even as we dragged our exhausted selves back on to the SeaBus, the SkyTrain, the regular bus and into McDonalds for a very late dinner. Indigestion aside, we were still on cloud 9 as we cruised home on one more bus and slipped into bed.

Then suddenly our happy, sleepy Chris got a phone call.
Your grandfather passed away today.

And just like that, it was like someone suddenly pulled a plug and all the car-joy just drained right out of us. So did the sleepiness, because after the extended phone call with Florida, a plane ticket to Germany had to be bought, work schedules figured out, lots tea prepared and plenty of hugs administered. I lasted as long as I could that night, helping with this and that, but eventually sleep took me over. I did manage to get the next day off of work so I could go and pick up a few things and get his suitcase in order while Chris went to work and re-assigned all his tasks. We also had to end up making made special arrangements to go pick up our new car one day early, so on Thursday morning we bussed back up to the dealership and all the VW people accommodated us beautifully. That same afternoon, Chris was on a plane to Germany. Poor Chris got to drive our new toy home from the dealership then couldn't touch it for two weeks!

I, on the other hand….

What did I do with two weeks to myself and a new car?

Bus, work, bus, dinner.

Seriously. I’m so used to picking whatever I need up on my way home from work so I never need to drive to the store or anything and besides, we need about 80% less groceries when Chris isn’t here ;) As for the evenings, I just enjoyed more of that alone time that I had a taste of just before Christmas. You know, lots of baths, jazz music, books, movies and take-out (yes, all my baby-mama friends, I know you hate me right now). I guess I just didn’t much have the desire to go out on cold, rainy Vancouver nights, car or no car! Also, I think I would have felt kinda bad cruising all around the city on my own while Chris was stuck in a tiny village overseas attending his Opa’s funeral.

Soon enough, though, Chris returned to our wet and chilly land and we’ve been zooming around in our new little guy ever since. Just last weekend it actually stopped raining long enough for us to take some real pictures!

May I introduce... Putt Putt!

C: “Oh my gosh do you have your shoes on the SEATS?”
J: “Oh my gosh relax I took them off!”

J: “Come on, give him a nice, big hug!”
C: “But my new sweater will get dirty… don’t worry Putt Putt I still love you”

Just chillin, looking sexy. No big deal.

Ooooh, check out that rear end!
Nice car too.

Ready to giver…

The faces of two happy car-owners (whose eyeballs had not been exposed to the sun in about three weeks)

From Vancouver - Auf Wiedersehen!

The Christmas of the Queen-in-law of the Universe

2011-02-23T18:36:00.001-08:00

Long ago, we talked about doing that thing that couples do where you spend Christmas with one family one year, and the other the next year, back and forth each year until you have too many kids to haul around and the parents get too old to cook Christmas dinner and they start coming to your place instead.

I guess our little plan to be normal like that was doomed from the start. The start being 2005, where we were just two fresh-faced newly-together boyfriend and girlfriend coming home from Germany who were already booked for Christmas with their respective families. Fair enough. In 2006 it was Christmas in Japan. Lame as Christmas is out there, we just stayed put in our Maison Cosmos and had Krisumasu Kakey with all the other beautiful young Japanese people, gozaimasu. Next up, Christmas 2007, we were living in Canada again and we actually made it from BC to Manitoba together, even if it was for a sort of non-Christmas spent in the hospital waiting room. 2008, I have a new job and no time off so I stay in Vancouver, waist-deep in snow while Chris is interning in Europe. Then came 2009 and it was finally time for real Christmas with the Stockmans. But what’s this? This year they moved from BC to Florida? Well, the trip is a tiny bit farther, but why not? And hey look at this! It almost seems like we’ve got a good start to this Christmas visiting pattern that we dreamed about so long ago!

This means Christmas 2010 should take us back to the frozen prairie, right? Well… we were already there this summer, and well… it’s frozen prairie. When your other option is sunny Florida in December the choice just isn’t that hard anymore! Pattern shmattern.

This is why, once again this year, you will find me getting ready for Christmas by packing my tank tops and painting my toenails. Chris, of course, was long gone already by the time I pulled out my suitcase. Thanks to his mounds of vacation days, he was able to leave a whole week ahead of me and enjoy some quality brother and sister time before this pesky in-law showed up.

As I mentioned last time, my week of singledom was also pretty good; lots of Christmas parties, friends and food with a few ordinary days of work sprinkled in. Eventually, though, I had to zip up my suitcase, lock up the house and find my way into the U.S. of A with the bajillion other people that choose to fly on December 23rd.

Knowing now what to expect from airlines in the states (that is, not a heck of a lot), I had mentally prepared myself for a moderate amount of crap. Thanks perhaps to this mindset, I ended up being quite happy in the end! As you may be aware, choosing seats when you check in online is a joke (let’s see, there are exactly two seats available: Aisle Seat J-next-to-the toilet or Middle Seat K-between-two-fat-people) so I ended up booking some random middle seat in the back of the plane. Not thrilled, but mentally prepared for this kind of thing. Then suddenly, while waiting at the gate to file in and take toilet-fresh back row seat, I hear my name being announced on the P.A. “Would passenger Jennifer Giesbrecht please report to the gate”. She even pronounced it correctly (whoa). Of course I went up to the desk, fearing the worst. It turns out, though, that I hadn’t been kicked off the flight, nor had my suitcase been run over by a gas truck! It was just that some family with a baby wanted my seat, and since I was a poor sap traveling all by myself on Christmas, they wondered if I would mind sitting somewhere else (not in business class, though, let’s not get carried away here). Sure, I said, are there any seats available closer to the front where I will be less likely to spend the flight writhing from motion sickness and toilet-smell? To my surprise, she said – sure, here’s one aisle seat right up front. And I totally know what you mean about the back of the plane...
Whauuh? A nice flight attendant? I suppose they do exist!

After this surprisingly pleasant interaction, I made my way into my brand new seat and settled in for the trip to Dallas. No movies, though. As I said, let’s not get carried away.

Now, I know you’re waiting to hear about Christmas with the Stockmans and all I seem to be doing is ramble on about my airline experiences, but don’t worry we’re getting there. But flying is cool! So just scroll down to the pictures or bear with me for a few more minutes.

I was pretty excited to be in Texas, even if just for an hour! First of all, I thought Dallas Fort Worth Airport was pretty awesome. I came out of my gate to be greeted by some kind of awesome cartoon skyscraper-castle-tunnel thing, behind which was (I swear) a barbecue restaurant, right there in the terminal. Woot Texas! Now craving ribs, I wandered around the lofty corridors of the sparkling airport for a while, used my Canadian Starbucks card to buy American-priced Starbucks at par, rode the longest escalator I’ve ever seen, saw a guy wearing a suit with an actual string tie, actual cowboy boots and an actual cowboy hat, then visited the Dallas Cowboys souvenir store and hung out with the super nice sales girl for a while, just chatting and watching UFC. Hehehe.

Later on, while waiting at my gate to board the next plane, I overheard a lady asking another lady if she spoke French. No ma’am, I don’t. Then she tried asking her a question in English which really didn’t work at all either. Then the French lady caught me watching them and looked up at me like a lost little bird, so I came over and told her (in French) that I spoke a little French! She was really, really excited about this and started blabbing to me right on the spot. Through a few accompanying hand gestures, I was actually able to understand her and also to answer her question! Yeah French class! (She needed to know the telephone prefix for the Orlando area, of all things) Just before boarding the plane, we even talked a little more, about where we were from and why were going to Florida, etc. I was so impressed with myself for having a conversation with an actual Parisian, that I didn’t even mind the random middle seat I had on the way into Florida.

I arrived in Orlando just around midnight (9pm to my Vancouver sensibilities) and was greeted with big hugs by my usual entourage: Chris and his little brother Kenny. They then whisked me off to suburbia where I would spend the next week in and amongst the rare breed known as the Stockmans, celebrating the beloved Christmas season.

Oh Tannenbaum!

I'm getting a very festive vibe from this room. I wonder what it could be?

The next day being Christmas Eve already, I was ready for the traditions to begin! Chris had been regaling me for years already with tales bout Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve. “It starts at midnight and it’s like 3 hours long, and you’re dead tired at the end because it’s the middle of the night. They sometimes have a mass earlier in the evening too, but that’s for people who aren’t hard core like me" (right, Schatz).

Sure enough, though, at about 9:30pm, the whole family (minus one Kenny who stayed home with the dog) got dressed up and piled into the minivan and we rode on out to the Basilica of the National Shrine of Mary Queen of the Universe. Yes, this is really the name of the church. I wonder if the locals just call it BNSMQU? I would. Because it's hard core. Anyway, it’s huge and gorgeous. It’s a Catholic Basilica that they say doesn’t actually have a parish but is funded entirely by donations from Orlando tourists (and snowbirds, I imagine). Catholic Disney? Hmmm.

Now, you may be wondering why we left at 9:30 pm for a church service that’s supposed to start at midnight. Well, apparently Catholic churches get ridiculously fire-code-violatingly full on Christmas, even in Orlando, and the family just wanted good seats! Luckily for me, there was great orchestra and a choir performing and the place was really beautiful and decorated like crazy for the holidays. I didn’t mind one bit sitting there for two hours as the place filled up. Most amusing, though, was when the head priest came up the aisle at one point and made a good-natured little joke about us all being there so early because we don’t have lives. That’s right, a priest told us to get a life. Nice.

The service was very good too and I held up quite well thanks mostly to the fact that Orlando’s 3 am is only Vancouver’s midnight. Afterwards, we all groggily filed out of the church and headed home to bed. Or, in Chris’ case, to spend the rest of the wee morning hours wrapping presents. This is his tradition. I’ve stopped trying to figure it out. I, of course, gracefully fell asleep on the side of the bed that he wasn’t using as Santa’s workshop.

Not 4 hours later, however, does Dad Stockman apparently feel rested enough to spring out of bed and start going crazy with a set of jingle bells at the bottom of the stairs. These jingle bells are a long-standing family tradition and their early morning song translates roughly to “It’s Christmas Day so come downstairs for family time... Now.”

Due probably to the pillow, the blankets, the closed door and the fact that it was 4 AM to my Vancouverite body (not so advantageous now, is it?) I didn’t actually hear the bells and neither did Chris Kringle next to me who was probably just getting to his 2nd hour of sleep. When we weren’t seen rushing down the stairs, a scout was sent to retrieve us. Come on guys! Dad rang the bells!

Are you KIDDING ME…?

Was my first thought on Christmas of 2010.

In my mind’s eye I see small children in footie pajamas and messy hair hurrying down the stairs and diving under the Christmas tree. Not so much four groggy adult children lumbering down the stairs and heading straight for the coffee maker. Oh well. Traditions are traditions, and even at 4 AM I didn’t want to rock the boat. I did take the liberty of a few seconds to wash my face and put on sweatpants, though. I’m sure everyone was thankful.

Finally together in the living room, someone handed me a mug of hot chocolate, presents were given, presents were received and everyone had a jolly good time through the haze and lethargy of sleep deprivation.

Merry Christmrrmmzzzzzzz

You’re looking chipper.

New wardrobe? Thanks Santa! Let’s see if I can wear it all at once…

Next up was the tradition of Christmas breakfast! Eggs, meat and meat. You see that little bowl next to the middle orange juice? Those are apple slices that I smuggled onto the table. And my stomach acids thanked me. Really, though, the breakfast was awesome. I’m a sausage girl, what can I say?

Christmas breakfast was followed immediately by (what else, but) preparations for Christmas dinner! I literally went upstairs, took a shower, came back down and started peeling potatoes. When dinner prep was done, and the turkey was safely rotating on the barbeque out by the pool(!), naps were most certainly in order.

Let’s hear it for keeping those PJs on all day long!

Before we knew it, meal time was once again upon us. But this time instead of orange juice there was grape juice. The kind that’s been forgotten in a wooden barrel for a few years. You know, the good kind. Accompaniments to the juice there were, of course, the delicious charcoal roasted turkey, stuffing, cranberries and (not just mashed potatoes but) another Stockman family treasure: potato soufflé. Mmmmm. Wanna know the secret to getting along with your in-laws? Wine, potatoes, butter and swiss cheese.

Everything set?

The adorable family!

Plus me ;)

We really didn’t have anything exciting planned for the rest of our stay. I know there are some of you who would find it unfathomable to visit Florida and not go to theme parks, but you know it’s just not my thing, nor did I want to shell out that much money. There certainly were a number of other things in Florida that I would have liked to do but random stuff always seemed to get in the way:

- Airboat ride through the Everglades Headwaters? Too cold (for the boat company)
- Gatorland (Alligator zoo)? Too cold (for the gators)
- Wet n Wild waterslides? Way too cold (even for me)
- Kennedy Space Centre? Been there, done that. And the Saturn V rocket isn’t going anywhere.
- Florida Keys? No car, no time.
- Paparazzi boat tour through Orlando celebrity neighborhoods? Nobody wanted to go with me. Go figure.

Therefore, during our week in Florida we really just tagged along with the family on their day-to-day business. We were mainly out there to spend time with them, after all. We did a lot just around the house, helping, reading, watching movies and playing (aka breaking all the records on) the Wii Fit. I should really use the term "fit" quite loosely, though, because you see Chris' dad had a couple of days off this week as well, so he thought it might be fun to cook us a whole bunch of our favourite foods (in addition to Christmas breakfast and dinner) one after the other, every day. I honestly have no idea how I digested it all.

When we weren't stuffing our faces with lasagne or spaghetti and meatballs, we'd accompany the family on various shopping trips (shopping, always just a tiny bit more fun in the States than at home).

Here we are at Nordstrom.

If I had a department store, I would totally hang fake Dutch art all over it too.

Hey grab some liquor along with those wholesale-sized groceries!

How about a wholesale-sized camping chair? Fits two grown men!

Or one small woman lying down.

Christmas in the malls is always super exciting, too.

Where’s Chris-do?

I also just love it that Florida is such a different ecosystem than at home. Spend 6 hours in a plane and so much changes! Although the gators are apparently hibernating, and the manatees are all huddled together fro warmth somewhere, at least in December it’s not 35 degrees and humid like the rest of the year. There's still a lot of sun, and don’t forget about all the wicked palm trees!

This is on Lake Monroe (Marilyn, perhaps?) next to an adorable little German restaurant we visited.

It's meee again!

This is Chris and a tree that’s been overgrown with Spanish Moss. The beautiful, wispy moss grows on a lot of the big trees out here.

Off to the German restaurant. Let’s get some schnitzel, everyone!

Last but not least in my little photo montage, more palm trees! Yaaayyy!

In the parking lot of American Eagle. Just growin’ there like no big deal!

On our last night in town we had big plans to go to the Cheesecake Factory for dinner like we did last year. Some family friends from Vancouver were actually on a Disney cruise with their little boy that week and were coming into Orlando the same night so we all made plans to get together for dinner. We arranged to meet at the restaurant at a certain time, knowing very well there would be a ½ hour wait or so. Then suddenly we all showed up super early and then someone suddenly decided that we didn’t want to wait for the Cheesecake Factory but instead go to a random funny-smelling Italian restaurant across the way where we could get a table immediately. Noooooooooo! Went the little Canadian tourist in my head. I’m leaving tomorrow and I was looking forward to this all week!!!

Of course, being the good in-law that I am, I just smiled and took my seat in the Italian restaurant. I had a mediocre salad and some lamb chops (which were actually pretty tasty). Oh, and one last glass of wine to drown the sorrow. Alas, no cheesecake.

With that, we made our way back to the house and forlornly packed our suitcases. Then we hit the sack, only to wake again after a few meagre hours for our flight at some cruel, pre-sunrise hour.

At least we were traveling together this time, not that we actually sat together. Because letting a couple choose seats next to each other would also just destroy the whole online booking system, I’m sure. At least we were on Air Canada, though, which meant legitimate seat-back entertainment and reliable beverages. Who needs to sit next to their husband when you get your own personal Ben Affleck right there in the headrest?

Awww, just kidding.

Returning to YVR is always kinda fun for us as well. Chris really likes hanging out in airports and you’ve probably noticed that I get my share of amusement from them as well. Also, due to the rapid-fire timing of our flights, between the two of us we had consumed all of one bag of Chex Mix and two bottles of orange juice in the 8-ish hours that we’d been on the go. Much like last year, when we arrived in Vancouver we were STAR-VING so we loaded up on Subway and Jugo Juice while watching planes in the airport's sweet observation lounge before making the rest of the gruelling 15-minute journey back to our little red house. Yes, thank you Vancouver for building a $2 billion dollar train that takes me home from the airport!

This being New Year’s Eve, of course there was that nagging obligation to stay up for the countdown to midnight, which was an extra 3 hours later now that we were back out west. Don’t even think I tried. We even had a friend over that night but I most certainly fell asleep around 9 pm and was out for a good 2.5 hours on the couch before opening my eyes briefly for the big moment. Whatever movies they watched and goodies they consumed, I ended up experiencing the next morning, fresh and alive while the others slept late. (It's so FLUFFY!!)

As I recall, Chris and I both had a few more days to ourselves before hauling our butts back into the office. I don’t think we did much at all except relax, admire our presents, examine all the weight we'd put on and basically wind down from the whole big family Christmas. That’s one more crazy trip to Florida for me, certainly enjoyed and perhaps more importantly… survived. Lets just say you won’t find me buying my own giant house in swamp-burbia any time soon. Nor the frozen prairie for that matter. Then again, either of you give me a $2 billion train and we’ll talk.

The Adventures of Government Girl and Bubble Boy

2011-01-23T19:19:00.000-08:00

Hello! How’s life in 2011? What a random number for a year. It doesn’t really lend it self to anything interesting, does it? Oh no! Is your computer Y2KXI compatible? Dsh dsh dsh dsh I got my first real six-string…. In the summer of 2011! Eh. Oh well! Hopefully it will still be a year of continued good times, new opportunities and of course peace, joy and happiness.

What the heck have we been up to since we kayaked ourselves crazy in Victoria? Not much, to tell the truth! Basically, since the end of August it seemed like just one, long countdown to Christmas. No birthdays, no anniversaries, no vacations. We are so lame! We even took a 4 or 5 day stretch off work around Remembrance Day, but what did we do? Nuscsht!

Why, might you ask, are we two young, beautiful, childless go-getters being so boring as to not even warrant a blog entry since the summer? Well, looking back on it now, it appears the reason for our lacklustre lives these past few months would be what I have started calling our “real estate bubble”. As in, we started thinking about buying real estate one point in the fall, and all of a sudden we found ourselves inundated with viewings, agents, banks, approvals, prices, interest rates, mortgages, budgets and all those crazy, crazy things that go along with buying a home. It was actually pretty fun all things considered, but eventually it also started to seem like every single conversation we had was about real estate and every single fun thing we thought about doing and every single fun place we thought about going was pre-empted by constant budgeting and hunting and plotting and scheming! We were trapped in a bubble!

Sure enough, though, after a couple months of this bubble-life, we had about 10 or so viewings under our belts and we’d narrowed it down to one place in a solid building in a super neighbourhood, close to the beach and UBC with a little bit of a view. We went over our budget a few more times, we sat down with the mortgage broker and then with our agent and put together a really good offer! (Now the story is going to get a little complicated, so bear with me…) Our next steps were: submit the offer, get it accepted and hand over a 5% deposit. This deposit was needed to finalize the deal because we wouldn’t take possession until February 1st. The reason we had to wait was because there were tenants in the suite and the owners are required to give them 2 months notice to move out. It wasn’t a problem for anyone, really. We were just supposed to get our deposit back in February and put it towards our mortgage down payment. No prob, Bob!

Well.

After writing up and signing our offer with the real estate agent, we started talking about the actual mortgage, for which we’d already been pre-approved. And well, you see, our agent kind of likes to tell other peoples’ horror stories. It’s not a bad thing, really, and she’s pretty fun to listen to. Her stories actually made us wary of a lot of important things like construction flaws to look out for and other financial loopholes. Naturally, one such story was about a deposit situation like ours. Some guy makes an offer, gets a mortgage approved and makes a deposit on a place. Then, a few weeks before possession he happens to get a new job. Good for him, right? Wrong. Come mortgage date, some low-level paper pusher at the bank goes and denies the mortgage, saying that the approval is voided due to the "change in his employment situation." No mortgage for you and thank you for the 20k deposit!

Now, apparently after a few headaches this guy got things sorted out, but it really got me thinking about my own employment. Hmmm. Thanks to our ever-fluctuating budget, the government doesn’t give young whippersnappers like me actual full time jobs until we’ve been working there for 3 whole years (at which point the union forces them to do it). Instead, what we get are little contracts that get renewed every 3-6 months. As (un)luck would have it, my group's contract was expiring on December 31st of this year, a mere 4 weeks away, and nobody was bothering to tell us if we’d still be employed in January. I mean, they were already giving us our work schedules for the new year, planning meetings, assigning us tasks and everything! It was pretty clear that we’d still be employed. Heck, they were even hiring new people and scheduling me to train them! But did I have an actual new contract of employment for 2011 to show the bank? Nope. Was anybody in management going to do me a little favour and write up my contract before anyone else’s, just so I could put an offer on a condo whose price was just reduced and is probably going to be snatched up by someone else by the end of the weekend? Yeah, right.

And that’s about when our bubble burst.

In the end, we didn’t submit the offer, another one was made by someone else and we said goodbye condo. It probably would have been just fine, which is easier to say now than at the time. We really could have just put in the offer, paid the deposit, my contract would get renewed a week later (which it did) and the bank just hands over our mortgage in February without even batting an eye! Really, the chances of anything going awry were pretty slim. At the same time, though, being on a government contract really can be that unpredictable, as some of my friends found out last spring. What it came down to in the end, was that there was a hint of a chance that umpteen thousand hard-earned dollars could just disappear and we wouldn’t be able to do anything about it. The right decision just seemed to play it safe.

Disappointed? Sure. But to our surprise what we felt more than anything was relief! I don’t want to say that we weren’t ready for it. We are going to be awesome homeowners. At the same time, we also suddenly felt for the first time in months that we were allowed to have fun! We suddenly felt great about planning a vacation next summer, going back to school, flying out to see family more often, buying a car or getting the whole wedding thing off the ground. I’m sure we’ll buy a place eventually (and who knows when the right place is going to pop up) but we’ve decided to take a break from the serious real estate shopping right now. It would certainly be nicer for me to have a permanent contract, but also to afford something bigger than a 1-bedroom, or even just have jobs that we actually like while forking half our pay over to the bank for the next 30 years. Ah, dreams.

Not long after the calamitous condo controversy did we (literally) leave it all behind, by hopping on a plane to Florida for the holidays. Chris had a few extra vacation days, so he took off about a week earlier than I did, which was just fine by me because I took full advantage of having the house to myself for a while! Oh, what’s that? You don’t like to turn on the bathroom light in the morning? You don’t like cheese sauce on your pasta? You don’t want to watch Come Dine With Me on the W Network? Awww, too bad cuz you’re 5,000 miles away!

Soon enough, though, having survived a few various rowdy and not-so-rowdy Christmas parties throughout my Jen-week, I, too, had to put myself on a plane to Florida.

It was a decent trip complete with good, well-timed flights, handsome men picking me up from the airport, lots of rest and tonnes of food. Even though it was pretty cold again this year, there was a lot of sun and even just seeing that shiny yellow ball up there in the sky is enough to make any Vancouverite a little weak in the knees.

That’s all I got for today, but stay tuned for more about my palmy, balmy Christmas in Florida – as soon as a certain handsome brother-in-law sends me the pictures!

Oh, and speaking of pictures, I thought you might be interested in seeing what our almost-condo actually looks like.

To Sea Or Not To Sea?

2010-11-28T08:41:00.000-08:00

Back in the West, we did our very best to proceed with the summer. Long days at work hardly reach the surface of my memory as I reflect on the weekends, the friends, the sun and the good times.

Good times!

One lovely, hot weekend I ended up getting rid of my Saturday shift (again! Bad me.) and we made some serious plans to jump on the ferry and head over to Victoria. We had been invited by our dear friend Jessica, who has a great little house out there, and we even convinced our other dear friend Haley to come along for the trip! (She has Saturdays off on a regular basis, after all) In the end, Chris got to spend the entire weekend with three awesome ladies. Who could ask for anything more? ;)

We’re on a boat!

The ferry ride was pretty gorgeous, as far as I remember. But then again, as long as it’s not storming out here, you’re guaranteed to have some really beautiful scenery. We arrived in Victoria in the late afternoon, and just as the boat was preparing to glide into port, we just… stopped. A few minutes later they announced that there was a power outage in the terminal and, since the lights weren’t working, we couldn’t dock the boat. Maybe it wasn’t the lights. Maybe it was lifts or pumps or whatever else ferry terminals need power for, but there we were, just floating! We could see the shore, we could see the terminal, in fact, we could probably see Jessica in her little Yaris in the parking lot if we looked close enough. Thinking back now, I suppose we were luckier than the people waiting inside the terminal waiting to board, because on the boat we did have power, and they even started handing out free coffee and tea all over the place to keep people from getting antsy. No problem for us, it’s the weekend! We graciously accepted our free coffee and just hung out on the top deck, watching the beautiful summer sunset, as most others were down below, probably sitting in their dark cars.

Haley kept busy in her usual way.
“Ack, don’t take my picture. I’m in my creative space!”

Eventually, just as the sun was slipping past the mountains in the distance and we were polishing off our free coffees, did the lights come on and we inched neatly into port. We found Jess no problem, patiently waiting for us at the entrance. A couple of hugs later, we and our bags were all tucked neatly into her car and we on our way into Victoria.

Welcome, friends!

It was a hot weekend. Well, “hot” in Vancovuer/Victoria doesn’t really mean what it means in most other parts of the world, but it was pretty much as hot as it ever gets here. So, let’s say 30 degrees. In my books, perfect.

We had a relaxing evening just hanging out at Jess’ place, digging into some cool watermelon and chatting away. The next morning, our adventures began. To fuel up for the day, we started with breakfast at my perennial Victoria favorite, Molé. Well, the coffee was great, as usual, but somehow our food took intolerably long to arrive (I mean, even long for the West Coast) and as good as the coffee is, it still doesn’t make you feel much better about sitting and waiting for 45 minutes in a gazillion-degree window booth.

Passing the time. Disclaimer: this is not Haley’s artwork!

One good thing that came out of our extended waiting was that we stumbled across my old friend Craig! He’s studying in Victoria and we’re a little out of touch, but when you’ve been roommates with someone, they always have a little place in your heart. I was mid-sentence when I suddenly saw him on the sidewalk, gasped and ran over to him at full speed. He was so surprised to see me too and he even joined us for a bit of coffee even though he’d just finished eating at the very same restaurant.

At some point after Craig had gone again, our food actually came, and for some reason I ordered a tofu scramble, because for some reason I wasn’t in the mood for eggs, and for some reason the tofu scramble tasted like salty breadcrumbs.

Nice, until it ends up in your mouth. Pflch.

Hoping I’d at least ingested enough protein to carry me into the afternoon, we proceeded to our next destination, Brentwood Bay. Who’s ready to kayak for the very first time??

We are!

Well, to be more specific, Chris and I were the first-timers. Jess and Haley, each having grown up in beautiful BC have, as a requisite it seems, have taken a turn in a kayak few times before. (Like growing up in Manitoba – who hasn’t been on a snowmobile?) Anyway, we still didn’t have all that much experience among us as we donned our life vests, grabbed our paddles and negotiated our bums into these precarious plastic vessels.

The plan was to go each in a separate kayak, but all they had left was two singles and a double. Who’ll go in the double? Anyone? No? Jess will. Ok, we need one person to go with Jess…

“… They say that a double is harder to steer…”
“… And they tip over easier…”
“… I’m afraid of water…”
“… My legs are too long…”
“… Jess how good are you, really?”

Eventually my brave and gracious heart gave in. I’ll go with you, Jess. I am, apparently, the least afraid of drowning.

As it turns out, Jess and I really cruised! Now, she and I are both pretty nervous drivers. We’re the type who grips the wheel, checks the wrong mirrors, forgets the parking brake, etc. Basically, we hand the keys to Chris whenever possible and just plain stay home in bad weather. Yes, we were hesitant to get in a kayak with each other. But on the water – look out! With me in back steering like a master and her in front, paddling as smooth as butter, we were all over the double kayak! We left Chris and Haley in our spray as they teetered out into the bay behind us.

It was incredibly sunny and hot and absolutely gorgeous. We splashed each other a lot (both accidentally and on purpose) and it was awesome. We saw a ton of beautiful jellyfish and driftwood and even survived the wake of a couple of boats. At one point we decided to go and take a breather on a beach we saw that had some huge arbutus trees.

The master paddler.

You see Haley? Pallets are good for more than just boxes of w-ECBF…

As we came up on the beach and struggled to un-wedge ourselves from the kayaks, we saw a lot of big (what we hoped were) animal bones in the shallow water and on the beach. The beach was a little dirty with cans and other things scattered about; baby stroller with seaweed all over it, old rusty boat, stuff like that. These things just randomly end up on natural, Vancouer Island beaches I guess... I’m just happy we didn’t come across a foot. Anyway we chilled a little while longer under the huge, beautiful trees, and then began to arrange ourselves back in the kayaks. As we were doing so, a couple guys with a cute little girl came down to the beach from the higher ground. We said hi. They said hi and looked at us funny, I assumed because we were wearing puffy red vests and carrying around plastic torpedoes… and then we were off.

Geez, I thought. I hope we weren’t on some private beach or something. And then I had a recollection of the map I’d looked at on the way into town.

Indian reserve.

Guys? I think we just kind of trespassed on an Indian reserve. Does anyone know if that’s against the law? Do they have the same laws in those places? Do they have laws? Well. If I had a dirty old beach on my land, and a couple of nice kayaking Indians wanted to rest there I wouldn't have a problem with it. So good. Moving right along.

After all our paddling and sun-exposure, when we got back to the house that evening we were ready to chow down. Jess had prepared some seriously yummy hamburger patties that morning and it was time to get ‘em on the grill! Apparently the secret to good hamburgers is Worcestershire sauce and honey! She even had a few salmon fillets (BC girl, represent). We rounded out the meal with some bread, salad and all sorts of other good things that barely fit on her little table. The evening consisted of us sprawling on the living room floor, nursing our tired arms and watching French movies on TV. Good times.

The next day once we were up and at’em again, we filled up on Chris’ famous banana oatmeal and made a beeline for the Royal BC museum. They had a special display on insects, spiders, bees, bugs, snakes, eggs and all those kinds of icky things that scientists like to put in creepy jars of liquid. It was super interesting. The rest of the museum had loads of Aboriginal art and other cultural things and, of course, the requisite fake village with the old mills, printing presses and haberdasheries. My favorite is always those old mini movie theatres that play Charlie Chaplin loops. Sitting down mid-museum is always a welcome thing. And you get to see a movie! Except for some reason in Ottawa’s mini museum theatre they play footage of the Winnipeg General Strike. Oh, Ottawa.

My apologies for the lack of photos from the museum. I guess we just didn't bother! Erin took a few good ones when she was there this summer, though, and here are a few from the museum's website:

Reminds me of Yamashina Heights... Chris, quick! Gimme your shoe!

Herpetology = frogs in creepy liquid. Mmmmm.

George Vancovuer's ship. A little more roomy than a Kayak!

Oh, and was it frigid in that museum! Here we were, all dressed down in our skimpy summer clothes thanks to the hot weather, and in the museum they’re just pumping the air as cold as can be. Those dried spiders gave me enough shivers, thank you very much. Luckily, though, we were able to leave the building and come back in with our tickets. So halfway through out tour we all decided on a lunch break outside. More specifically, we had all been quite looking forward to getting our hands on some of the mean fish and chips from Redfish Bluefish down by the water.

So. Good. Take that, Molé.

Eventually, we reluctantly left the beautiful harbour and, with fish-filled bellies, returned to the museum for one last floor. Before we knew it, we were were done with the museum and they were kicking us out of the gift shop for closing time.

That very same evening – thank the Lord for loooong summer days! – we returned to the house, packed everything back up and Jess whisked us off to the ferry terminal. It was, of course, yet another gorgeous ride back over to the mainland. We even got to see some sea otters playing in the sunset.

Looking slightly more relaxed (and kayak-experienced) than before, yes indeed.

Of course, the ferry terminal is still a significant distance from good old Main Street, and since our Vancouver friends aren't all quite as mobile as Jessica, we had to cram onto a bus from the terminal back to the city. The night was still pretty hot, but with the bus windows open to the sea air, it was actually a pretty decent ride.

Although... this girl may not be enjoying the bus ride so much. That or she didn’t like me taking the picture… I guess we’ll never know.

Good times, Jess! Thanks again for having us!
Me + you = kayaking again next year!

Not Everything's Flat on the Prairies

2010-11-07T15:07:00.001-08:00

Once upon a time, there was a girl. A small town girl with big dreams. One day, she left her small town and her little family. She studied and lived many places in the world, saw many things and met many people. Yet she made sure to return at least once each year to her small town and her little family. This is the story of one such visit.

* * *

Since I had booked the my plane ticket on sale some 4 months earlier, I had a relatively comfortable wake-up time, a neat trip to the airport on the train and a direct flight from Vancouver right into Winnipeg International. My beloved, on the other hand, didn’t decide to come along until a couple of weeks before, so he had to buy a ticket with HST, wake up significantly earlier than I did and switch planes in Calgary, all so he could arrive in Winnipeg at approximately the same time. Mr. International Travel didn’t seem to mind, though! Also, even though I was the one with the direct flight at the reasonable hour, my suitcase was the one that got delayed. Pffft.

Despite the disappearing baggage, we had no troubles finding each other again in Winnipeg thanks to the quaint size of Winnipeg Airport and their genius positioning of escalators that take all arriving passengers and put them on public display as they descend from the lofty gates into the baggage area. Once reunited on solid ground, we proceeded to scan the crowd for signs of any Giesbrecht, most notably my Dad – but there was no sign!

This is strange, we thought, as images of car accidents and heart attacks crept their way into my subconscious. We tried calling home but had to leave a message, and just when we were about to start searching the airport in concentric circles, did we hear a familiar, fatherly voice from behind us. “Hey guys. I got stuck in traffic.”

Apparently Winnipeg has traffic.

Well, I didn’t notice much traffic (or people, or trees for that matter) as we made our way back through the city en route to the old Sunflower Capital, stopping only to satisfy us hungry travelers with some serious A&W. Now this is what I spent the last two months working out 4 days a week for. Let the vacation begin!

We arrived safely at the homestead in the late afternoon to be joined in short order by the rest of the family: mother, sister and brother-in-law (evil cat-niece and cat-nephew to be seen at a later time). To celebrate our arrival, the family had made some grand evening plans: dinner out on the town at one of the finest establishments this side of Rosenfeld - Pizza Haven. The fam insisted on ordering the local favorite: schmauntfat pizza (schmauntfat being a traditional cream gravy made with sausage drippings and various other fattening substances). It might have a different name on their menu, I’m not sure. The other toppings included ham, bacon, fried onions, salt and pepper and mozzarella cheese (how can it be a pizza without mozzarella cheese?) Well. Even though I grew up eating schmauntfat on a regular basis, I don’t know if I was quite ready for that pizza, especially after the traveling… and the Uncle Burger. I ate a piece to be adventurous, but then pretty much stuck to the normal taco pizza.

(Remember when taco pizza was a new and jazzy thing? I do. Does that make me old?)

Anyway it was a super fun evening just spending time with everyone. I got to see a few old friends as they stopped in for their own pizzas, actually. And just as we were getting up to leave, I heard my name once more. Jen… hey Jen… I turned around to see this group of three cute girls who had been sitting at the table behind me the whole time. The one was waving at me and smiling – and I had no idea who she was! I came over to her and said hi, I looked at her with squinty eyes, like, I’m so sorry! I’m trying to remember you! Then she said it’s me, Norma…

And then like ten light bulbs turned on in my brain. But Norma my friend. Seriously. We’ve known each other since grade 4. You were the “N” in the Jeneric Club. And you always had really curly long, dark hair. And no glasses, I might add. And here you are with short, pin straight fabulously highlighted hair and sporting a pair of designer glasses. Hellooo!

Yeah she looked way different and totally great and it was awesome to see her. I ended up chatting with her and her sisters there for so long that most of my family just left me in the restaurant and went home.

Two whole blocks, how dare they.

That night we crashed at my parents’ place and were greeted in the morning by a gentle courier at the door with my suitcase. Just. In. Time. We were already packing for the long weekend and our camping trip to the lake, and I really didn’t want to have to wear my sister’s underwear the whole time! So, my belongings once again in my possession I was feeing infinitely better as we hooked up the boat and Dad’s homemade camper (aka “The Cramper”) and cruised on over to Rosenfeld to meet up with Steph and Trevor.

Warning: parents whose kids have moved out will often downsize the seating capacity of their vehicles. This may force certain adult children to ride in the back of a homemade Cramper.

Out in Rosenfeld, we removed ourselves from the Cramper (it wasn’t a bad ride after all!) and got a little tour of Steph and Trevor’s new house! May I present homestead #2.

What a perfect place for those two! Huge yard, garden, two-car garage – and a teeny tiny cozy house.

We weren’t long for Rosenfeld, though, because the Whiteshell Provincial Park was calling our names! We entertained ourselves during the car ride there with Subway sandwiches, huge prairie cloud formations and invigorating conversation. Who knew car insurance statistics could be so terribly engaging? :|

Making up for the schmauntfat.

Are we there yet?

Alas, before we knew it, the car ride was over and we were rolling into our new forest-home away from home. Setting up camp was a weekend-long adventure for the boys, as was cracking sunflower seeds and sipping on Heineken for Mom and me. I did occasionally assist in certain areas such as campfire-making, cooking, and cajoling people to come swimming with me in the lake.

Get me in the water!

Aww! Aren’t you glad you came along to the beach?

It’s always great to spend time with the family. Sometimes I have no idea why I live so far away from everyone, but it’s just where life has led me, I suppose. Plus Vancouver has less mosquitoes. Today I get the whole package, though: family and mosquitoes!

On one afternoon we decided to put the beer and snacks aside and burn a small percentage of the camping calories by going on a short hike. The lovely Whiteshell Provincial Park, being in eastern Manitoba, is smack in the middle of all the lakes and trees and giant rocks that make up the Canadian Shield. For prairie dwellers like my family it’s quite exciting, you see, because it’s not flat as a board. Our hike was fun. We got to climb on lots of rocks, eat some fantastic little wild blueberries, get some really muddy shoes and some good, hot exercise. In the end we were even rewarded with a bit of a panoramic view!

One other activity that allowed us to deviate from our general lounging around was some good ol’ fishing. You may have noticed my dad’s snazzy Alumicraft fishing boat in the pictures above. When planning this trip, I had communicated to my dad very early on that I would be a really really happy little girl if we could take the boat camping. And it turns out when you don’t live at home anymore your parents will actually sometimes do things you ask :)

So on one other fine afternoon, we grabbed some snacks, put our hats on tight, and with our specially-purchased out-of-province fishing licenses in hand, we motored out into the middle of Big Whiteshell Lake. Destination: that big rocky island out there that looks like a place fish might like to hang out.

It was so great just being out there on the lake. So beautiful and peaceful.

I know why people have yachts

Peaceful is great until the fish start biting. Then it’s game on!

Hey – I think I got a bite!

A clam?!

I’d never caught a clam before. Boy was that thing hard to get off my hook! Clam-jaws of steel!

It wasn’t long after the clam that I started catching actual fish.

And then Dad started catching fish.

At one point, we also went for a little excursion/pee break on the big rocky island.

Here’s Dad in a touching display of Winnipeg patriotism.

By the late afternoon, I had three good-sized walleye in the live well, just waiting to be dined upon, and Dad had caught 4 or 5 smaller ones and a perch that he released, but poor Chris looked like he was on his way to getting skunked! Now, I’ve caught plenty of fish in my life, and Dad has probably caught truckloads, but Chris had never caught a fish ever before (as far as he could remember). He was a good sport, though, and was really enjoying the boat and the lake as well, and was ok when we decided to go in after trolling past the island a couple more times.

Then, suddenly his rod jerks, he stands up, he starts reeling, and before we knew it, there he was, holding the biggest walleye of the day!

Oh yeah!

Back on dry land, I let my daddy gut and fillet the fish that I’d caught, but Chris got right in there and did a good portion of it himself (under the tutelage of the Master Angler, of course). He even kept the fish cheeks! Mmmmm. (No really, the cheeks are awesome)

Gotta love a man with fish cheeks. Blub blub.

Back at the campsite, we proudly displayed our catch to the family and began to prepare the feast. I concocted a lovely beer batter for the fishies and dad pulled out his camping specialty, a big pot of oil on the camp stove and homemade french fries! We didn’t eat Chris’ big catch that night, however. No, it was placed in a ziploc bag right next to the ice packs in the cooler, as it was to come home with us and be a special present for Grandma G.

As the long weekend came to a close, so did our big family camping trip. Thanks to Trevor and Steph (and go-mode) we took down the tents in record time, hit the road again and made it back home for dinner and more chillin' on the patio. I guess we had more relaxation in us after all!

As we weren’t heading back west until the end of the week, we made sure to have plenty of visits with grandmas, cousins, aunts, uncles and friends, as well as the all-important trip to the MCC store and a new tradition – the sculpture garden. What a cool town.

Grandma K had us over for cabbage roll casserole. I think Chris had three plates.

Grandma G took us out for an awesome restaurant lunch.

It was right in the restaurant, too, that Chris pulled out the old dirty beer cooler with the walleye fillets in it and proudly presented it to Grandma. She was thrilled!

It was so good to see them. When I’m out in Vancouver I tell myself every couple weeks to call them, but then it often just doesn’t happen. *sad feelings of a bad granddaughter*

Now, it being 2010, I may or may not have graduated high school 10 years ago. (Taco pizza, anyone?). My elderliness aside, 10 years is a reason to party, is it not? Thanks to Facebook, people apparently don’t have real big high school reunions anymore, but thanks also to Facebook, people can stay in touch with the people from high school that they actually like, and meet up with them for some good times when they come back to town!

As luck would have it, the other one of our gang to live out in the B-dot C-dot (the one and only Erin) was visiting Manitoba the same week as I was! How could you not organize a brunch and spa party with all your girls? How could you not???

It all started when I got picked up in Rosenfeld by none other than Shannon in her fancy new car. Yes, we’ve come a long way since high school – but that doesn’t mean we can’t still listen to ‘90s music!

Go MxPx!

We met up with the other girls in Winnipeg at the most adorable little breakfast place with awesome fruity-decorated dishes.

Did I mention it was adorable?

Narmmmummm.

Luckily some of my friends are smart enough to take group pictures.

Oh… here’s one that I managed to find!

What is this? Did I just put all of their grade 9 pictures on the internet? OH YES I DID! I’m evil.

Moving along with our day, after our petit dejuner, we were off to the spa because we are classy sophisticated women now, after all, and such women go to spas.

Classy, sophisticated women also try on sparkly hats and printed sunglasses at Urban Planet. What, you didn’t know?

As Shannon couldn’t accompany us to the spa, Erin and I got transferred into Suzy’s minivan.

Yes, she has a minivan. You know why? Because she is a classy and beautiful and talented entrepreneur and mother of two! Hm, what have I been doing these past 10 years??

Oh Erin, you’ve always liked fancy toys…

Ahhhhhh. The spa was fantastic. I don’t have any pictures from inside because, well, a lot of it involves half-nakedness. But it was sure fun! We all got fluffy white robes, they served us a big fruit tray out by the mineral pool, we soaked in there a while and then each girl went in for one treatment or another. Some got pedicures, massages, etc. I sort of went all out (I was on vacation!) and got a Japanese Seaweed Scrub Body Polish and Vichy Shower. What’s that? Well let’s just say afterwards all my skin felt (and smelled) really really awesome. After our treatments we all hung out in their little lounge in our robes and snacked on the spa’s finger food buffet and just chatted for a really long time (Yes, finger food buffet. Could it get any awesomer?)

Should we make a booking for 2020? I think maybe we should!!

After the Spa, I met up with Chris and Steph and Trevor, who had been exploring Winnipeg on their own that day. Apparently they lost track of Chris for a while, and when they found him again, he was very excited and said he’d been… dancing with wolves. I’m still not sure what he meant, but he came out with a bunch of pictures like these:

Wa-pi-ti

For dinner that night Steph and Trevor catered to our yuppie side and took us to a locally-sourced, trendy restaurant called “Fude”. Apparently it’s just pronounced “food”, but I insisted on saying “fyoud”. People still seemed to understand.

Here’s steph with a southeast Asian curry made with bison meat.

Chris mentioned that he was now very familiar with bison meat. Hmmm…

Cheers! Here’s to sisters and saskatoon berry sangria! Mmmmm.
With that delicious meal, we concluded our big day in Winnipeg. Only one day left to spend at home, better make the most of it by taking in some of the famous sculptures.

I love this picture. The fist is so powerfully random.

Some last moments with family were spent where else but on the patio. After yesterday I was feeling the spa-love and gave both Mom and Steph pedicures.

Cute toes! Now all we need to do is get you in some high heels ;)

The plane ride home was great. Air Canada entertainment systems rock, by the way. Last year I flew to Orlando with some American airline and I was sorely disappointed with pretty much everything. I guess we’re spoiled up here!

My suitcase was even overweight by about 2 pounds but the agent let it go. So awesome. It even arrived at my destination this time around. But why was my suitcase 52 pounds? I may or may not have raided Steph’s garden a little. Garden fresh Manitoba red potatoes weigh a lot! Who knew?

Best souvenirs EVER.

Thanks for a great time you guys!
Remember, you're always welcome in Vancouver too!

Cruising the Strip

2010-10-22T15:08:00.000-07:00

What is summer without a nice bike ride out into the middle of the ocean?
What? You’ve never tried it?

Well, the key is to first fill up on coffee and donuts.

Actually, I’m kidding. That was only an excuse to put up these awesome pictures of Chris I took one day when we were out for coffee. Facial expressions during eating and drinking = way too much fun.

Now, I know what you’re thinking. How do you take a bike ride into the middle of the ocean? Well, all you need is a couple of bikes, a free afternoon and a big, long sewer pipe.

Really! Ok, so the Fraser River runs through the Vancouver area on it’s merry way to the ocean, and most of the areas around the delta are full of silt and all marshy. Great for water birds, but no fun for people. There’s one area close to the airport, though, that actually has a strip of sandy beach and they’ve made this into a sort of back-roads regional park. Now, since the municipal government had its hands on this area anyway, I guess they decided to set up a big wastewater treatment facility there too, and build a 4km-long pipe out into the Georgia Strait. But not only did they build a 4km-long pipe out into the Georgia Strait, they built a walking path right on top of it and a bike path beside!

Check this out

That’s an 8km long ride altogether, not counting the other 16km you ride to get to and from the train station. Since it’s right down in the delta, though, the land is all pretty level (for Vancouver, anyway!)

That picture in that link was taken by some other Vancouverite who happens to display her life on the internet, such as myself. I really wanted to find an image that showed how long and thin the path is. When you really get out there, you kind of start to wonder how sturdy that little strip of land actually is!

It held us until the end, I’m happy to say. When we reached the end of the point, we just spent the next half hour of lounging about in the sun, climbing on rocks, watching the ships and consuming our chocolate bars and other energy-boosting goodies. I also managed to snap a few shots of my own before we turned the bikes around.

Giant pile of rocks at the end of the pipe

Always be sure to wear a helmet when you venture into the middle of the ocean.

I’m the king of the… wastewater pipe?
(I love this picture)

This park is a super place to watch planes coming in, too, since it’s so close to the airport. It’s apparently good for stargazing as well, since you can get pretty far from the city lights. We tried to catch a meteor shower out there one year, but the clouds sort of ruined that plan. Such ruiners, clouds.

Other weekends this summer have found us in places like little White Rock, where Chris will generally want to go to reminisce, me to shop, eat and relax, and our friends because we force them to come along :) Of course, it’s not that hard to force people to go for a stroll on the beach with a cup of coffee and watch the sunset.

Come, join me on this normal-sized bench…

Normal sized, you say…?

Canada and Canadians

2010-09-17T16:00:00.000-07:00

We got up to plenty of other shenanigans this summer, you can believe it! Canada Day is always good for getting into some trouble, right?

Well, if you call attending a big family festival “trouble”…
Of course, when Chris and Sean get together you always have to look out...

… for matching sweaters!

Yup, this year on Canada Day we ventured out to Steveston again for their Salmon Festival and giant barbecue. Only thanks to Sean we didn’t have to put up with the lengthy bus ride to and fro. And thanks to Sean’s 4x4 pickup truck we didn’t even have trouble parking. And I quote: “That grassy ditch looks just fine to me!”

The salmon was toasty and excellent, along with the bread, the salad, the cotton candy, the gelato and the coffee. Mmmmm what is a festival without food? Like a computer without internet. What’s the point?

Just as we were taking our final stroll through the old fishing village, who do we run into but Altona people. Out here! First I hear my name… I look up and see Marty and Erin all the way from Abbotsford, enjoying the fishy goodness along with the masses on this fine Canada Day. Then I see Marty’s parents are there too – all the way from Altona! We caught up with them a little later and had a nice chat. Marty’s mom Carole made sure to take a picture of Chris and me so she could show my mom when she got back. Otherwise it would have been pretty hard to believe we just ran into each other all the way out here in a tiny fishing village on the fringes of British Columbia.

* * *

Moving right along with July, then (and just glazing over those unfortunate days in between where we’re stuck droning away in lofty grey offices), how about some minor league baseball?

The ballpark is actually just a 10-minute bike ride away from our house. I find it hard to believe we’ve lived here for almost 3 years and we never actually went to a game! Well, we haven’t actually seen the Canucks or the Lions play either, but I didn’t want to be a hockey player or a football player when I grew up, now did I? A baseball player? You betcha. Oh, the mysterious dreams of little girls…

And so one hot evening in July we jumped on our bikes and headed out meet one of my darling coworkers and check out the Vancouver Canadians. (Original, I know. But they are the only Canadian team in the Northwest League… not that any of the players are actually Canadian… ahhh professional sports)

Here we are in the grandstands!

And there are the boys of summer.

I knew it would be a lot of fun. Because it was a baseball game! Chris hadn’t had the full experience before though, so he wasn’t pre-sold like me ;) But after seeing all the home runs, the strikeouts, the stolen bases, the pop files, doing the wave, singing “take me out to the ball game” and flagging down the hot dog guys for better-than-anywhere-else hot dogs, he was all for it. Ha! Vancouver won the game by a long shot too, so the crowd was really jazzed up. Oh, and I almost forgot that night was fireworks night. To end a great evening, after the game they shut off all the lights in the park and put on a serious musical fireworks display.

Then, after all was said and done, we just jumped on our bikes, weaved through all the unfortunate, bulky, traffic-jammed vehicles, and were home before most people got out of the parking lot :)

* * *

What else have we been up to besides slogging through who knows how many more tedious days at work while dreaming of the beach? Well, going to the beach, of course! Yes, one seemingly nice evening, I got a call from none other than Erin saying she was dropping the in-laws off at the airport that evening and was wondering what we were up to while she was in the neighborhood. Sweet. I’ll get food ready. You drive. Beach picnic and sunset here we come!

Come on! There’s enough for everyone!

In order of appearance: Chris, log, sand, water, mountains

And last but not least, the guest of honour. Who bravely braves the sand and surf in her [insert sweet brand name here] sandals :)

But why was the weather “seemingly” nice, you ask? Well, the sun had been out all day and it had been really hot during the week. We’d pictured a pleasant beach picnic on our blanket in the evening air. The thing is, the evening air was blowing at about 30-40 km/h. For some reason, the minute we put our blanket down and pulled out the grub, Mother Nature in charge of Spanish Banks beach decided that our salad dressing and hummus did not have enough sand in it, and that lettuce simply did not belong on our plates, rather scattered on the ground around us. Oh well. We quickly learned that if we hold our plates under our sweaters and pull our arms inside to feed ourselves, we could mitigate the sand-consumption and lettuce-scattering factor.

As the sun continued to sink over the water, though, the wind did pretty much die down and we were able to just hang out and have a really nice time.

Thanks again for calling me up Djjd, we’ll hang out again soon!

* * *

On that note, I think I’ll call it a day for this blog post! Stay tuned for more from summer including bikes, beaches, ferries and even some rookie kayaking!

June is my Middle Name

2010-09-05T12:22:00.000-07:00

Dear Mr. Sun, thank you for finally coming out! Just as I finally pull up the page to reveal the next pixellated image of a random tropical fish on my dollar-store calendar, does summer decide to begin. Yay for June! Of course, summer does not care whether I am stuck in my grey cubicled office or not, so it’s just going to be up to me to put off the cooking and the chores and those other “optional” after-work activities in favour of some quality time outside. It also helps when the one with whom you normally cook meets you after work for some beach time.

All I need is a sunset and a book

Can you tell which one of us was stuck going batty in an office all day and which one spent the day walking in the park and eating gelato?

Moving on to more adventures under the sun, I got a little phone call the following week from my friend Katelyn whose family owns a sweet cabin on a beautiful little lake out in Hope, BC. She was getting people from church together for a weekend out there and wanted us to come! Are there canoes? Yes? Goodbye Saturday shift, hello Lake Kawkawa! As Chris and I had Friday off too so we got to go with the early birds, Katelyn herself, another friend Shelly and her baby Carson who was quiet and beautiful the whole ride there. Arriving before everyone else, we helped unpack the car and then got the first pick of the umpteen bedrooms! That’s right, this place was quite huge (and Chris was scared we’d end up in a leaky ramshackle cabin somewhere in the woods, pffft). More friends started arriving in the evening and before long, we had a little fire going down by the dock and we were just hanging out and enjoying the lake and the evening. The next day involved a bit of laying on the dock, a bunch of canoeing around the lake, sandwich-making for lunch and barbecuing for dinner, all the while hanging out with great people in even greater weather.

The house was at the top of a hill on the road, looking quite small and nondescript from the front, but the minute you enter it you find that it expands into a tall-windowed living room and kitchen, a big patio and another floor that stretches down the hill, followed by a beautifully gardened zig-zag path down to a private dock and boathouse.

The view from the living room

Here’s Chris by the dock, nautical print pashimina and all…

After a serious 10 minutes of canoeing...

...we reached the other side of the lake and this pretty rock.

Turning around, we just happened to notice this pretty rock!

Looks like a nice place to relax after a strenuous afternoon of canoeing, does it not?

At some point between canoeing and barbecuing on Saturday, we were taken on a short adventure to the Othello Tunnels, a series of railway tunnels that were painstakingly blasted through the most treacherous mountains in the Coquihalla Canyon.

It was incredibly gorgeous. Just awe-inspring the way those cliffs loomed above you on both sides and the way the river roared past underneath you and echoed off the sides of the mountain. As for the tunnels, some of them were so pitch-black in places that you couldn’t see a single thing. You could hear water dripping in various places and other people shuffling carefully past you, but your sense of sight was totally gone. The tunnels weren’t small, either. I mean, a train had to pass through them so they were pretty tall and wide. Totally shielded from the sun, too, they were ice cold. Black, drippy, echo-ey, chilly. Can you imagine the eeriness?

I didn’t have my camera along so these pictures come from some tourism website ;) What’s a girl to do?

If I recall the info posts correctly, the railway was supposed to connect BC with the USA for trade, but that route kept getting demolished by landslides and snow and ended up being just too dangerous to use. Now it’s a fabulous rest stop. Nature: 1, Humans: 0.

We spent Sunday morning at the cabin as well, just basking in the time we had left. We canoed a little more and even watched a World Cup Soccer game (Mennonites cheering for Germany, Hah!) Yes that's right, the cabin had a TV too, although we really had to work with the rabbit-ear antennae to get a decent picture. See? We're not afraid of roughing it.

*Sigh*
That weekend was a real treat. It was super super nice of Katelyn to host all of us at her cabin like that and the weather was, as I have probably mentioned numerous times, awesome.

Can't wait to see what July has in store!

Butterfly Season

2010-08-20T10:30:00.000-07:00

Next on the list for the new, older me was my last trip to the opera this season. What's that? You didn't know I had season tickets to Vancouver Opera? But of course! Oh, what I sophisticated flower I have bloomed into…

Actually come to realize it, I don't think I've blogged about any of the operas I went to this year (and I went to four!). Lazy me, just writing giant long entries whenever we go on trips somewhere or when the Olympics come to town, pfft. Well that might just have to change! (Or I might just be writing about this opera as an excuse to show pictures of my fancy pedicure… one can only guess).

Waiting at the bus stop by my sophisticated self. My overall maturity and intellectual loftiness must just frighten people away. It can't have anything to do with my giant weird sunglasses.

On the bus on the way there I decided to finally take a picture of my fancy nails for y'all.

Oooh la la!

Ahem, as for the opera. I had honestly been looking forward to this show since way back last year when I got my ticket pack. Madama Buttefly, the tale of a pleasure-seeking American naval officer in Japan and the young geisha who marries him only to be ruined by her own hopes and dreams. Hrm. White guy can't get laid at home so goes to Asia in search of tiny manhood-starved woman? That story is so original it sets off fireworks of inspiration in my soul.

Ok ok, my own scathing observations aside, this story is really touching. From my limited observations, you are technically allowed to "spoil" operas but I somehow still don't feel right about it. The story isn't even really about who does or doesn't die in the end anyway - and somebody always will, because it's an opera - it's a story of deep devotion and bitter disappointment and will leave you mournful and angry and enthralled all at the same time.

And if I may just continue to play opera connoisseur a little longer; the real treat in this production ended up being the incredibly colourful, angular and altogether evocative design of the whole show. People will often say they don’t like it when old stories and plays are put in modern or abstract settings, but I dare them to see this opera and keep that blanket opinion! Oh, and the singing was pretty good too.

Here’s my sorry attempt at illegal picture-taking inside the theatre from my bargain seat in the back row. And that's only the design of the pre-show curtain.

Hanging out with my fellow dilettantes at intermission.

Ah, intermission - the make or break of the opera-goer. It broke me the last two times, I'll tell you. (What's that you're sensing? An anecdote coming on?) You see, my season tickets were for Thursday night shows across the board. Which is great, because I have Fridays off for sleeping in, and operas can get quite late seeing as they're 3(+) hours long and all. My problem was that Thursdays (aka opera day) I do go to work and that means I get up as close to 6:00am as I am physically able. The problem comes when you've been up since the crack of dawn, and here you are, way in the back of the balcony where all the heat of all those people down below you has spent the past two hours wafting up to, listening to beautiful classical music in pitch-darkness. It just won't matter how many dreamy tenors there are prancing around on stage, your eyes are going to c l o s e.

This year's season:
Norma - barely kept it together
Nixon in China - nodded off
Marriage of Figaro - zonked right out

Now, it doesn't mean that I don't appreciate the shows! I actually get terribly mad that I miss the endings but I seriously can not help it! I was so disappointed that last time that I vowed to never to break down again, and I developed a strategy:

Step 1 - come home from work and brew some strong coffee, even though you normally don't drink coffee
Step 2 - drink half of it with dinner
Step 3 - ice the other half and put it in a sealed bottle in your purse
Step 4 - add to your purse ice packs and a straw
Step 5 - smuggle your secret weapon into the opera (this is not difficult)
Step 6 - at intermission find a quiet corner away from the hoity-toitys and covertly slip the straw into your purse and the bottle of still-refreshingly-cold iced coffee (you will most likely not be bothered, but if you are, hopefully your leopard-print shoes along with your redder-than-red nails and bizarre sunglasses will stave off any confrontations).

And there you have it. Nicely cooled off and at the same time perfectly perked and ready to absorb every last note. A very successful strategy, if I do say so myself. Of course, if you're not into running your own personal caffeine cartel, you could just buy cup of intermission coffee from the theatre's concession… but where's the fun in that??

Right. Well thank you for checking out my pedicure - uh - I mean my riveting account of the opera. More adventures coming soon from Astrogirl and Euroboy as we take on the Summer of 2010.

Jen XXVIII

2010-08-10T21:37:00.000-07:00

What comes after May long weekend? Anyone…? Anyone…?
Bzzzzzt
It's my birthday!
Thank you for playing.

Let's get into a few details, shall we?

Birthday day #1 was Thursday, my actual birthday. I worked at Musicfolder that day which was not all bad in and of itself. You see, at Service Canada, nobody really knows or cares when it's anyone's birthday. What a grumpy place. But at Musicfolder… Musicfolder is where the lovely people work. I came in that morning to a shiny birthday banner, fresh baked muffins and coffee cake, not to mention a big gift bag full of summer presents; a beach towel, flip flops and a little cooler bag. You see? These people really do know me.

After work, one fabulous Haley came home with me and we started on dinner. I felt like making Tandoori on the grill, but alas the place we went for meat had closed down so we walked a ways further to the other store, only to end up with crappy salty tandoori legs, which we grilled and sadly chewed on for dinner. Oh well, that's what I get for buying pre-marinated stuff. Who wants to make a marinade on their birthday, though? Actually don’t answer that.

Oh. So a certain Schatz came home at some point in the evening. From work… on my birthday…

...empty handed.

Ouch, huh? Maybe I should have just stayed at work!

In his defence, he tried two flower shops on his way home but they were already closed :( I was like, not even a pack of gum, eh? But of course I also said it was the thought that counted ;) Oh well, he ended up coming through for me two days later with a pretty hefty gift card for Helly Hansen, though. After three years in Vancouver - decent raincoat here I come!

Birthday day #2 was Friday. The morning and afternoon are a complete void in my memory. It was my day off and it was gross weather, I know that much. I most likely watched TV or worked on my Portland blog. What I do remember is the evening, though. Specifically 4pm onwards. This is when Haley picked me up and we headed downtown for manicure-pedicures! She had researched all kinds of little places in the area and settled on this one. Oh, and was it cute!

After the pampering, we braved the outdoors once again with our pretty nails in our flip-flops and motored on over (in the bus) to my favourite sushi restaurant. As previously arranged, we were met there by Chris and Margery and Harmony and (her new hunny) Rob, making a total of six shoe-removing, floor-sitting, sushi-scarfing revellers. This was actually the first time we'd had our three vegetarian friends together in the same place. It was funny how excited they got about ordering food together.

After dinner we of course had to get dessert, and as is our custom when we're in that neighbourhood, we hit up the organic grocery store and bakery across the street from the sushi place. We cruised through the doors just as they were closing up and managed to pick out our sweets but then had to eat them outside in the courtyard like bunch of (well-dressed and pedicured) bums. After dessert the majority of us loaded into Harmony's car as she was gracious enough to give everyone a ride home. Oh yeah, and no sooner did we get to the car, than Harmony pulled out a potted herb garden, just for me!

(All the herbs in the pot promptly died over the course of the next two days, unfortunately. I don’t think they appreciated the car ride as much as I did. Oh, but I managed to salvage the basil. It teetered on the edge of existence for about a week but I put all the green-ness of my thumbs into that poor basil and brought it back. Now it’s taking up the whole darn pot :)

Birthday final day was Saturday. Worked the day away, nothing to speak of there. After work, however, I had a little friend waiting for me in the lobby. All the way from Victoria! Yes, Jessica in her all-ambitious celebratory manner had arranged months ago to take me to a gourmet cooking class for my birthday and today was the class.

Through yet more cold and misty rain, we walked the couple of blocks from my office to the Dirty Apron Cooking School where we were greeted by cute waitress-types who adorned us with (not-yet-dirty) aprons and recipe folders of our very own. We were then ushered into what looked like the set of a fancy cooking show and took our places with about 20 other hoity-toities with time and money on their hands who thought it might be fun to learn to make real Italian food.

The way it worked was thus: we would sit and watch the chef prepare the first stage of our meal, and then we would go off to our own work surfaces in the back of the room with our recipe papers in hand and emulate to the best of our ability what we’d seen the chef do. We made dessert first and set it aside to cool – lemon pana cotta. Then came another lesson in which we made course one – homemade goat cheese and arugula ravioli with a sage walnut butter sauce. We made the pasta dough and everything. When it was done we took and garnished our own plates and carried them over to the rustic little dining room where we sat all together and dug in. It was ridiculously good. And don’t even get me started on the wine.

Wow, Jen how did you get such a professional picture of your dish?? Hrm.

Next lesson was the main course – rosemary marinated lamb sirloin with herbed ricotta gnocchi and mushroom cream sauce. We watched the chef, went back to our stations and gave it another go. This time under the influence of cheese ravioli and white wine, mind you. But so what if my lamb was a little less precisely grilled as I would have liked and my careful pool of cream sauce ran all over the bottom of my plate, it was AMAZING!

The main course came with a lovely glass of red, and by the end of that I didn’t even care what the dessert tasted like, or what kind of special flour and gadgets they were trying to sell me in the kitchen store. In the end, I didn’t feel one pinch of cold either, as Jessica and I strolled back out into the drizzly darkness with more than 4 hours of cooking, eating and drinking under our belts, and our dirty recipe folders tucked under our arms.

So thanks everyone for a great transition to the ripe old age of 28!

Oh, and sorry for the general lack of photographs in this post. There are certainly more to come, but on the other hand, no waiting for images to load! I'm thinking of you Auntie Bev :)

Spring Training

2010-07-02T20:53:00.000-07:00

How to follow up the Olympics?

Well… yours truly returned to the regular grindstone of phone-counseling the cranky and unemployed. But Chris managed a little trip to Toronto to write a European Union employment test (fingers crossed – send us to Paris!) and while he was there he decided, “Oh, why don’t I just hop down to Orlando on a cheap flight and show up at my parents’ house and surprise them?” How great is that? So he just calls his sister on her cell one night; she makes some kind of excuse to use the car and comes to pick him up from the airport. She takes him home; he goes directly into his sleeping parents’ bedroom and turns on the lights. “Hi Mom and Dad!”

Ha! I wish I could have seen their faces. I wish I could have gone along with him, to tell you the truth – spend a week swimming in their pool, basking in the sun, shopping at the outlets, cooking in their fabulous kitchen. But alas I had to stay home and work. What do you have to do to get an appropriate amount of vacation per year anyway – let’s say 7 weeks? Oh yeah. Work for 20 more years. Ugh. But vacations are not going to be as much fun when I’m 50! Oh the world is so backwards sometimes.

Anyway. The weather in Vancouver was actually pretty nice that week, if I do recall. So I shouldn’t’ complain. I definitely spent all Sunday in the park, lying on the grass and reading, and I believe I grabbed my first ice cap of the season after work on another day.

Upon Chris’ return, however, May long weekend approached quite quickly, and it was simply calling out to us. Lucky for us, this year, I sat down with the calendar nice and early and strategized my vacation planning around those elusive long weekends. The result of my cleverness resulted in me getting a 5-day stretch of days off around Victoria Day! Yesss. Now what to dooo?

Some of you will recall our little getaway to Portland last year. We quite enjoyed that little city, and there were a lot of things that we didn’t get to see and do last time. Plus, it’s just the perfect distance from Vancouver for a long weekend trip so we decided to go back for more! Many discussions and calculations and web-searches later, we decided… to take the train.

Cool, huh? So as we found out, Amtrak has a cheap and very scenic Vancouver to Portland route that runs daily. It’s super convenient for us as well, as we live only a short bus ride from the train station. The whole journey takes a bit longer than driving a car, but if you factor in food and bathroom breaks, it’s about the same. Plus, you basically sit back and watch movies and eat snacks the whole time, which I would take over driving a vehicle any day. Long live the railroad!

DAY 1 – I’VE BEEN WORKING ON THE RAILROAD

So here I am at Pacific Central, at a very groggy 6:00am

We made our way through some sort of miniature US customs and come face to face with the big guy:

Auf Wiedersehen, Vancouver!

Farewell, dears. Worry not, I’ve got my carpet bag and my hat pins. Let’s find our seats on the trolley, shall we?

A little background here… They’ve got assigned seating on these trains and you really have no say in the matter. You check in, they slap a little sticker on your ticket and you go and find your seats. Chris was told to ask for the “scenic side”, which we did get… apparently… although it was hard to tell from the big fat wall and nasty curtains that were in the way.

Chris: “Oh. They’ll be getting a letter”

We affectionately named it the “smallpox curtain” due to its apparent age and general grossness.

After grumbling about our seats for the first half hour and getting absolutely nowhere, we eventually just settled in, busted out the snacks, books, ipods, etc. and got down to some serious traveling.

Serious. Traveling.

Well, maybe not so serious. The conductor of the train, you see, was a hoot and a half. I don’t remember his name, exactly, but he introduced the whole train crew by weird nicknames he’d given them anyway. I remember “Dynasty Steve” was manning the bistro car, and there were others like “Coal Fire Jordan” or some such thing. This conductor, he was constantly on the mic, like a hilarious cranky old tour guide as we crossed the Fraser River and made our way into Washington State. At one point (as was to happen many more times on our leisurely trek to the south) our train had to stop and wait for a freight train to pass. “If you’ll look to your right… you’ll notice we’ve stopped,” says the conductor in a sleepy voice. “If you look to the left, you may see a freight train passing by... It is the reason we’ve stopped.”

“Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, in approximately one mile, we will be passing by a field of sheep. If you’ve ever wished to see a field of sheep, you will have that opportunity half a mile. Thank you.”

“Ladies and gentlemen, a field of sheep.”

We saw plenty of other cool things on the way there, through our tiny crevice of window.

A couple of bald eagles

An aircraft carrier. If you look closely you can see the fighter jet on it.

Another big ship. Chris was super excited about these.

This is a great shot of the modern-day Tacoma Narrows Bridge. Anyone who was alive in 1940 may remember this. I certainly don't ;)

At one point as we approached Seattle, our trusty conductor pointed out an old military base and proceeded to tell us about how that’s where he joined up in 1969, what it was like, where he went and things, and now that he works on this railroad he gets to pass by it every day and relive the memories. Awwww. We rode on in silence for about 5 more minutes, and then on comes the mic again. This time no talking. Just… harmonica.

We didn’t believe it at first either, but he literally started playing “I’ve Been Working on the Railroad”, one lonely note at a time, on a harmonica, and as the song ended, we rolled into Seattle, (who knows how long past schedule) never to hear from him again.

Not exactly the European rail travel experience thus far, but hey! I got to see “Invictus starting Matt Damon” which was great. The other one they showed on the second stretch was an unspeakable travesty of which you will have to ask me in person, as I refuse to grace the internet with its name.

At last, we arrived in Portland, and by the end of our little journey we’d been tucked away in this window-challenged train car for more than 8 hours, and we realized – if this had been a plane we’d be most of the way to China by now. Oh well. Still better than driving on the highway, I say! And look – Portland!

A little more quaint than Pacific Central, isn’t it?

Pretty colors of a different city

Since we took the train, we decided to stay downtown and so we didn’t return the Kennedy School where we stayed last time, although it’s still the coolest place ever. This time we stayed at a brand new little Mariott, sort of a boutique style thing, just a few blocks from the train station, and, as it turns out, a few blocks from everything else as well!

Honestly, the place didn’t look all that fun when we booked it online. The pictures were all a weird color, the price was cheap”er” than most, but we figured it looked clean and it was close to the station. But the minute we had the doors swung open for us by two smiling doormen, we realized, hey – this place is way nice!

Dislcaimer: the bed was much neater but I’d already jumped on it and then realized I wanted to take pictures

For a mere $2 extra per night we sprung for the “corner room” which was (obviously) in the corner of the building. It had a big corner window and a completely different layout than your typical rectangle hotel room.

There was cute, local artwork all over the place

Internet. The single most important tool on a spontaneous vacation.

Last but not least, the bathroom, which was superb. I think I showered twice a day just for the relaxation factor.

And I cannot tell you how much I enjoy a bathroom with a window. Oh so many reasons.

OK. Enough about the hotel. Let’s hit the city! The night of our arrival, we cleaned off all the smallpox viruses and ventured out to the first of many brew pubs that we were to visit that weekend.

Best idea ever – sampler tray!

“Hmmm. Light hops, smooth, with a malty finish… yes quite nice indeed”
What a snob ;)

A rainbow of beer!

It was a very nice all-American dinner after our long journey. We got an excellent table, and just sat and ate and relaxed and got into vacation mode.

Warning: don’t climb the unpredictable waterfall-style public fountain while in “vacation mode”

DAY 2: KNOCK KNOCK! WHO’S THERE? OMSI. OMSI WHO?

Good morning cold and rainy Portland! No beach today? Well how about breakfast and a visit to the science museum? Sounds like a fine idea. Let’s the start the day with something hearty.

Mmm Jewish pastrami for breakfast. I was so un-kosher and put cream cheese all over mine. Mwa ha ha.

This place was pretty cool, even though the food was so-so

Having crayons is cool

And 99 bottles of pop on the wall!

Once we’d had our fill of pastrami, we headed over to the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry, also known as… you guessed it… OMSI.

We chose to go here on the Friday instead of Saturday because we hoped there would be fewer children (and fewer strollers, the BANE of my existence - giant strollers in public places). Alas, the number of children there on a Friday afternoon with no recognizable school-field-trip structure has let me to question whether children in Oregon attend school whatsoever. At least I’m taller than them so I could still see stuff.

This is apparently the most complete T-rex skeleton ever found.

I beg your pardon?

There was sort of a space exhibit too, which, of course, I could not resist. Look – I’m on the moon! (You will also recognize this pose from previous articles. FYI, it means I'm wearing a space suit :)

This was a future astronaut bunk bed concept. Chris was convinced that I would contract smallpox from lying in it. But I didn’t. Even without my space suit.

Chris got a chance to do this spinning space bike exercise machine. I still have no idea what the thing was supposed to simulate, but it looked sickly enough for me to avoid.

Here’s the reason Chris got out of bed today. A real US military submarine!

Apparently it’s been in movies and things. It lives here in the water next to the museum.

Chris got to go inside and see the torpedoes. I did the planetarium instead and listened to an annoying lady tell me stuff I already knew about astronomy. I should have gone into the sub. At least there’s pictures.

Oooh. Attack center. But watch your head. Actually - watch your everything.

This is what you get instead of a windshield

The kitchen – apparently submarine crews get the best food in the military. Compensation for the fact you live underwater with 60 other guys and no showers.

We had tickets to the IMAX in our museum package, but we sat in the dark for 10 minutes and were told that the IMAX was broken. Don’t ask me how you break and IMAX, but we got refunds for it and bought $7 sandwiches instead.

That night, as we were pooped from the museum, we went and chilled out at another fantastic pub!

This. Was. The best. Salad. I’ve ever. Had.

Memories: Artichokes, pea shoots, grapes, roasted almonds, Satsuma orange dressing, and little deep-fried balls of goat’s cheese and fennel. I had a beer from Washington, also tasty.

OH. And a dark chocolate bread pudding with caramel. OH. Yes.

Another relaxing evening!

DAY 3: IF ONLY IT COULD STAY BREAKFAST TIME FOREVER

Good morning, Schatz! It’s another terribly rainy day in Portland!

The bed was quite comfy, as you can see

At some point mid-morning we strolled out of our hotel and ended up at a very popular, very amazing restaurant. Sort of South American with a modern organic type of flair.

This was from the “power breakfast” menu. Inside the burrito there’s seasoned chicken and egg whites and cheese. After eating this I actually felt really great! It is really different from the fried-meat-and-eggs feeling.

Chris had the fancy breakfast enchilada, along with a delicious (albeit quite late in arriving, tsk tsk) mocha made with spiced chocolate.

Since it was raining once again, we decided to hang out in the city this day, possibly doing some shopping and taking advantage of Oregon's zero sales tax. (Seeing now the way this day ended up going, I’m glad I had the power breakfast!)

On our way to Patagonia, some sort of old wall that they left standing but behind which they built trendy things like condos and stores (like Patagonia). One of many trendy things we’d encounter.

Me and some trees on a wooden sidewalk. Ok fine, it stopped raining intermittently. But it was still way too cold for the beach :(

Chris and an anvil. He gets very excited about these things, you see, because until a few months ago, he didn’t even know that they were real. He literally thought they were some funny made-up prop for Looney Toons. Now he wants one as a bookend.

After a few more wanderings, we ended up at the mall.

DAD? You didn’t tell me you had a mall…

Now, I’m normally not a shopper, but when there’s vacation time to kill and I’m in a completely new and different place (recall: Orlando), sometimes I'll give it a go. Besides, (contrary to the above picture of blue skies, stolen from Wikipedia), it was raining buckets, so why not?

Well... I’ll tell you why not.

Because you'll go into the first store, you'll find a bunch of nice things and be ready pay and leave, so you'll go find your boyfriend but he'll tell you that he needs more time to pick out a belt, so you'll go back up to the women’s stuff for a few minutes, then come back down, but not find your boyfriend ANYWHERE. You'll look around the store again, you'll try phoning but not get an answer. Then you'll pay and leave said store and try calling him few more times without getting an answer, then you'll walk through the entire mall going into HIS favorite stores looking for HIM instead of shopping for yourself, after about an hour you'll get tired and go to the food court and get a smoothie. You'll sit down because you now remember reading somewhere that when you’re lost in the woods you should remain in one spot because it increases the likelihood of being found, and this is more or less like the woods, right? You'll try calling again and again at 5-minute intervals, and finally after another half hour he'll answer his phone saying, “where the hell are you? I’m still waiting in the first store!”

It turns out on the main floor of a certain store in a certain mall named after my father; there is no cell phone reception.

Now, after having a sad little argument about who should have waited for whom, and being tired and cranky about the whole debacle, we vacated the mall after not too long.

'
But not after visiting Hot Dog on a Stick! (Don’t worry, I didn’t actually eat Hot Dog on a Stick – although I probably would have tried it). Chris just got a lemonade, and I got a picture with the cute girl in the fantastically American food-vendor attire.

That day thankfully behind us, we had allow Portland to redeem itself to us with another brew pub visit.

Pre-processed chicken wings and unimpressive salads aside, we did manage to wind down quite nicely after all.

Let’s find out what’s at the end of this rainbow :)

DAY 4: TAKE MY BREATH AWAY(YY)

More cold and clouds, still no beach in sight. What is it when I go to the states? Hey California, feeling hot? Just send me on down there, I’ll bring some good ol’ Vancouver weather along.

Despite the lack of sun, though, we were determined to enjoy this day more than the last. First order of the day, breakfast! Chris had looked this place up already and made sure we would go here for brunch, which they serve only on Sundays. We even got there at 9:00 sharp and walked in just as they unlocked the pretty glass doors.

We got a cute little table in the corner by the windows and the fireplace. You also have the pleasure of viewing one of the few successes of our shopping trip the previous day: my ($10!) wool and angora sweater, which I donned for the fine dining experience.

Fine dining or not, portions are still American-sized! I had an omelette with chantrelles, peas and goat’s cheese. Yukon gold potatoes on the side. Delishhh.

And here is Mr. Christian (before coffee, perhaps?) With his smoked trout eggs benedict on a house-made brioche. Quite.

Next stop – a random location in the country just outside of a little town called McMinnville. Did we go on a wine tour? No. To a brewery? No. Did we go on a mountain hike? A bike trip? A river cruise? No. No. No.

We went to see the Spruce Goose!

More specifically, we went to the Evergreen Aviation and Space Museum, a completely random and very enormous congregation of airplane-hangar type glass buildings in the middle of a field in Oregon’s back country. It was put together by the late Captain Michael King Smith, an aviation enthusiast and hometown hero. Basically, he liked planes, he flew planes, he collected planes, and he wanted to make an airplane museum in his town. In 1990, they obtained and built a giant hangar around the “Hughes Flying Boat H-4 (HK-1) Hercules” also known as the “Spruce Goose” - the largest airplane (still) ever built. (Like, Howard Hughes, “The Aviator”, you know the story).

So, after our fancy pantsy breakfast, we jumped in a little rental car and headed for the hills.

Or… the tarmac?

The road leading from the highway was actually painted as a giant runway. Chris was way excited.
Is that even legal for traffic?

I actually thought the huge building looked like some kind of big cult institution.

Just an airplane cult, I guess!

If I had a golf cart, it would be this one. You know it.

So, you get inside…. and BAM! The Spruce Goose just takes up your whole field of vision. It’s giant!

Can you see little Chris?

Yeah, in this museum there aren’t even that many barriers or “do not touch” signs. Recipe for fun!

This was a miniature of the plane with Mr. Howard Hughes inside. Or is it Leonardo Dicaprio?

We even got to go inside the massive thing. There’s a viewing platform inside the door, but it has all glass walls. This is the view to the front of the plane. At the top of that staircase is a sort of lounge and then the cockpit. Apparently the cockpit can hold like ten people.

This is the view to the back. "Hellooo-eloo-loo-oo…" They put a plastic guy in there to show the scale. I called him Goose.

After sufficient feasting of our eyes, we moved right along to the many other planes in the hangar.

They used to make little stylish trick planes like this for those handsome flying aces.

Ouch! Medic! We need a Band-aid!

I rounded the corner and this guy scared the crap out of me. I called him Maverick.

This is from the days when Ford dabbled in aviation. The suitcases went inside the wings. Outfitted as a passenger plane, it had wicker chairs, woodgrain and even curtains on the inside.

Another plane actually ended up being the highlight of the whole visit for us (Spruce Goose shmoose). You’ll have to bear with me now as I go into a little more detail. Hah, and you thought you were coming close to the end of the blog post. Well, think again!

As I quickly learned, this was a B-17 Bomber also known as the “Flying Fortress”. Coming closer, I knew I’d certainly seen it in at least a few movies. It’s a very dramatic plane, after all. Paying an extra few dollars each, we got to climb right inside and get a grand tour from real veterans.

No, these weren’t the actual guys.

But they had a lot of catalogues of old pictures like this there as well, showing different kinds of terrible damage that these planes sustained while still returning home. We heard a few stories too. Guts and all!

So these planes were completely un-insulated and un-pressurized and made of metal just a few millimeters thick. The men inside actually had to wear insulated woolen suits and breathe canned oxygen to survive at the high altitudes. The inside would get totally coated with frost while at high altitudes. The name "Flying Fortress" just comes from the fact that they had 5 machine guns pointing in every which direction and carried over 4,000 pounds of bombs.

“Dsh-dsh-dsh-dsh-dsh-dsh” A regular Clark Gable.

Side guns from the outside

This is the bomb bay and just beyond is the cockpit. Just below the cockpit is the “nose turret”, the glass area on the nose of the plane, which had another big machine gun coming out of it. That V-shaped section in the middle was the only way to the rest of the plane. Basically, the pilots and the nose gunner would enter through their own front hatch and there was no access to the rest of the plane (or the other guys) during flight. They just had radio… unless the radio was broken.

This is the "ball turret" on the underside of the plane. Another machine gun. A (presumably quite small) guy would enter from the inside of the plane and then it would hydraulically drop down and he would shoot planes below… unless the hydraulics were broken.

And this is machine gun number five, in the tail of the plane. Apparently it was popular for enemy aircraft to approach you from behind (who woulda thought?), and this guy took care of them. The only problem was that enemy aircraft really really didn’t like him.

That exceedingly interesting little venture marked the end of our tour of the “Aviation” part of the Evergreen Aviation and Space Museum. That’s right, there’s more! To the next giant glass hangar we go!

Inside of this one, we were to learn about the development of rockets and spaceflight through the ages.

This is one of those missiles that were supposed to launch nuclear warheads out of secret silos in the Midwestern United States and irrevocably destroy the Soviet Union, in the event that the Soviet Union had launched nuclear warheads that were already on their way to irrevocably destroy the United States. (Hmmmm…)

Well look at that. I’m pretty sure I never thought I’d be standing next to a warhead.

This has to be one of the best pictures of all time. Jen! Watch out for that Apollo Command Module!

This is the instrument ring of a Saturn V Rocket - a vehicle with which we are very familiar, are we not?

Whoa. Did I black out? Chris? What’s that fearsome thing lurking behind you? Da-na… da-na da-na...

It’s an SR-71 Blackbird! They say it’s the fastest, highest flying and most pointy, scary-looking aircraft ever built. Apparently it flew from New York to London in 1 hour and 55 seconds. (I suppose those passengers only had time for one movie).

It was a spy plane. Apparently it could accelerate so fast, that it would consistently outrun surface-to-air missiles.

But enough about planes.

We, now, having some serious cases of museum fatigue, were finally able to jump into our rental car again, make our way back through wine country and collapse in our hotel. Having had late lunch of museum café fare, however, we were not ready for dinner, and, this being our final day in Portland, we decided to check off one more of our major destinations: Powell’s Books.

As was the case last time I didn’t take any pictures. But how do you convey in pictures the fact that a single new and used bookstore takes up an entire city block? If I took a picture, all you’d see is a single bookshelf. And it could be a bookshelf at Friesen’s for all you know. That’s why you’ll just have to take my word for it. This place is great fun. I came with a list and I managed to check off 90% of it. I had a stack of books about 2 feet high, some even in German. Chris did as well. We kept saying we’d meet up at a certain time at a certain shelf, we’d meet, inform each other that we needed another half hour, meet again, arrange more time, meet again, etc.

Eventually, though, the requirement for food was once again upon us, spurring us onwards and outwards, and after toting our masses of books back to the hotel, it was time to see about dinner.

Oh, dinner. After dropping off the books, we dragged our weary bodies to another brewpub in the trendy district by our hotel. But what? You’re not serving dinner anymore? Only pub snacks? Oh. Well, you suck! Buuuut maybe we shouldn’t have waited until 9:00pm either. Oh well. This is Portland, we must be able to find a place that caters to the young and hip and responsibility-less who choose to eat dinner at 9:30pm! Right?

Indeed. Just rounding the corner from our original breakfast locale, we came across this place.

It was so trendy I think everyone in there was sporting some sort of oversized pedophile glasses and/or skinny jeans. It was so trendy that you didn’t sit at your own table, because there was only a very large, long table, and you sat with everyone. It was so trendy that there weren’t flowers on the tables, but giant branches of evergreen trees in huge vases along the wall, and there wasn’t any artwork on the walls – because they didn’t “need” artwork. And… it was so trendy that it was serving full dinner until 11:00pm. Huzzah for trendy!

OK. Aside from all the trendyness, the food was just excellent. And not just because our stomachs had turned inside out by this point. I had a whole entire char-grilled trout stuffed with potatoes and parsley and garlic and all sorts of goodies. Chris had pasta with squid, there was a dandelion salad with pickled raisins involved, some more good beer… oh yes it quite hit the spot. And because you’re around a large table, you get to sit side by side and share all the dishes you get (oh, but just with your date!)

“Any dessert for you?”
“No, thanks” – we have another destination in mind!

Having been quite re-energized by our dinner, we had to stop one more place before turning in.

Now, long ago one of the first times I got my hair cut in Vancouver, my very cool hairdresser told me about this donut shop in Portland that I simply had to visit. The first time we were there, we didn’t get a chance because we weren’t staying downtown. But this time. This time. We made it to Voodoo Donuts.

This place is slightly beyond words. I imagine I would have more words for it if we went in the daytime. But, with the vacation clock a-ticking, we went that same night. I will attempt a description for the benefit of my faithful readers. This place is a hole-in-the-wall donut shop on a creepy side street, it's very badly lit but it’s painted completely pink on the inside, and had screaming vampire music playing (or coming from the night club attached, perhaps). It had all kinds of weird items hanging on the pink walls, a creaky, rotating display case with shrivelled examples of all their donuts inside and a very pale and disinterested sales girl behind a counter along with racks and racks of donuts. They say this place can get lineups around the block during the day. Fortunately, I suppose, we were there around 11pm and only had to wait for two or three people ahead of us. I’m not sure if you would get the whole screaming pink vampire experience during the day, either :P

We opted for takeout. Here’s our loot back at the hotel.

Chris got normal, boring donuts. A boston cream and a sour cream glazed. I ventured a little further out there, with their classic voodoo doll (pierced by a pretzel stick!) and a rice krispy and peanut butter donut. Very yummy all around.

Oh yeah. There was raspberry filling in the voodoo doll. Sooo vampire.

DAY 5: A CURE FOR SMALLPOX

Departures are so sad. Especially when you know you’ll be on the go for the next 5-10 hours and after that, back at work. We made the most of our last morning in Portland, though, with some last minute stops, one of which involved picking up coffee, breakfast and lunches from a fantastic bakery.

The train station was annoyingly packed and our train was full as well. Once again, Chris tried his charms in attaining a seat with a proper window, but once again they just slapped the stickers on our tickets and hurried us along. And, as Amtrak seems to have it in for us, we got seated by possibly the exact same wall and smallpox curtain that we’d had on the way here. This time, though, we just took a deep breath, tied up the curtain in a big knot up by the ceiling and made do with our window crevices.

Oh, and they played the same movies on the way back. Who does that??

This is a replica of the picture I took of Chris which misplaced during a recent hard drive malfunction. Not a bad replica, though, if I do say so myself!

Our return trip actually involved transfer onto a bus from Seattle to Vancouver. It was supposed to be cheaper, it was supposed to be faster. Supposed to be.

Getting off the train in Seattle, we entered this grungy, old, dark train station. We claimed our bags and went outside and boarded the already crowded bus, found some seats in the back by the stinky bathroom, only to have some other people get on and tell us they’d already been on the bus and we were in their seats. Oh, great. Seeing as these people came on the bus very last, and there were actually no more seats whatsoever, Chris and one of the guys went and talked to the driver. Thank you again Amtrak, the bus was overbooked. Once more I am forced to ask – who does this??

Well, after finding out that this particular overcrowded bus, which was supposed to reach Vancouver at 8:00pm, was also expecting an extra 3-5 hour wait at the border, Chris and I quickly jumped on the chance to remove ourselves from the vehicle. We accepted the refund on the bus tickets and quickly went back to the dingy Amtrak desk to arrange seats on the next train departing for good ol’ Canada. Truly, after having sat on that tiny coach bus for ten minutes we were fully prepared to fork over the extra fare for some comfy train seats home. We ended up being quite lucky because the very helpful Kevin Costner look-alike train ticket agent graciously put us on the last seats on the last train to Vancouver, and to top it off (in addition to our refunded bus fare), he gave us the train tickets for free!

As we had more than an hour before our new favorite train was leaving, it gave us a little time to stroll around Seattle.

Oooh, baseball.

We also stopped at Starbucks, because you just have to if you’re in Seattle, and got some frappucinos which re-eally hit the spot after our bus fiasco.

One more replica photo of us with our frapps, posing in front of the Starbucks sign. How realistic!

Once again, back at the train station, we had to stand in a horrendous lineup, but it was ok because we knew we wouldn’t be waiting at the border on the bus. We got our seat stickers like the train-traveling drones we are, waited in yet another line, and eventually boarded the train and found where we would be planting our bums for the next four hours.

And guess what??

WINDOWS!!

YAYYY!!

They actually put us in a four-seater with a couple of high school boys who looked harmless enough. The funny thing was that the boys were traveling in a group of four and the other two were seated across the aisle in a four-seater with another couple (you know, the ticket-sticker people have the ability to make people’s lives so much easier - they just don’t). Anyways, we offered to trade seats with the boys right away, and they were happy. We were happy too, actually, because we got to sit with this other nice couple and trade stories about our weekends. Also, we got to see views like this from our new side of the train:

The Olympic mountain range (complete with sunbeams)

The other great thing is, that we actually arrived back at Pacific Central a few minutes before the coach bus (the bus that left, if you recall, more than 2 hours before we did on the train!) Oh those suckers who wanted their seats back. Ha ha ha.

We eventually made it through mini-customs in the station, took one more ride on the city bus and we were home again. With that, our May long weekend 2010 comes to a close. Bad weather having no influence on the good times, which is as it should be.

But dear Mr. Sun,
Although I had a great holiday, please do not hesitate to come out soon.
Thank you.
Sincerely, Jennifer.

Le Blogue Olympique II

2010-05-30T17:07:00.000-07:00

Welcome to part deux of my Olympic recollections. Trusting that everyone enjoyed my account of the opening ceremonies, I will now proceed with the rest of the Vancouver games in all their hype and glory. The experiences detailed below will be mostly those as told to me by a particular Schatz, who, as you will soon understand, became the envy of many an Olympic fan.

First of all, I just want to say I didn’t expect the city to be that different. So it’s a big sports tournament, so what? Of course I knew they had been preparing for it for years and years, but I thought, oh they just build that stuff for the media. They warned us all about traffic and tourists and things, cordoned off huge sections of the city, but I didn’t pay attention. I figured, oh I’ll be lucky to even see an athlete walking down the street. All the visitors are going to cram into hotels, and I’ll be crammed into my office, and it’s not like I came from Switzerland with money from my Swiss bank account to pay hundreds of dollars for tickets to ski-jumping in Whistler, so I’ll just watch the evening recaps on TV like I always do, and life will go on.

Well. I may have been a little wrong.

As you’ve already read, even without a Swiss Bank account (just a Swiss Olympic executive!) we did manage to score tickets to the spectacle of all spectacles, the Opening Ceremonies, and the very next day the city simply burst at the seams. You would have to have been off your rocker to take a motorized vehicle downtown for the next three weeks. The streets were instantly packed with people from cold and pasty lands around the world, giant TVs were visible on every corner, everyone was dressed in the not-really-intended-for-apparel national colors of one country or another, pavilions, stores and events sprouted lineups several blocks long all around the city, and general chaos ensued.

Chris, having been a devout Olympic fan since he was a wee lad in Germany, finally got to be a real part of it. As previously blogged, he got a lot of goodies and toys, especially this:

Which we got to keep at HOME for a whole month!

Chris was kept pretty busy with his client, chauffeuring him and various other distinguished guests to one Olympic venue or another. Of course, once they got there Chris was often just free to sit and watch the games

Most of the skiing and sliding events were held in Whistler, which is an incredibly beautiful 2-hour drive from Vancouver.

The rings in Whistler.

Downhill skiing…

Also downhill “falling”…

Bobsleigh… also known as “how many linebackers can we fit into a torpedo?”

Cross-country skiing – Is it just me, or does it look as flamboyantly awkward as it feels?

There’s my linebacker!

On the one occasion that Chris had to spend the night up there, he was put in Olympic "staff accommodations", graciously lent to Whistler by the work camps in Fort McMurray.

Chris said there were people actually living in these little cells for the entire games. Some had come from far away countries, just to shovel snow on the mountainside. Chris bunked for one night with someone who thought it fit to leave banana peels sitting on the table. Needless to say, Chris was happy to return to the little bunkhouse run by yours truly.

Back in Vancouver, he enjoyed events at the Richmond Oval - where, you may remember I have also done my share of skating – but nothing like these guys.

All that exciting snowboarding action was happening at Cypress Mountain, just outside the city.

The snowboard cross…

“Whoa dude, the Olympics are so gnarly”
“Dude”

This is the view from Cypress Mountain down onto Vancouver. Do you see that girl in the window of that one office tower, looking like she’d rather be out there skiing? That’s me.

And last but not least, there was skating.

I think we all know who this girl is.

The medals...

Yes, these are real pictures that Chris actually took!

Chris at the little-known "Olympic amateur night": no skates required

Awaiting his score…

After the doubles performance…
P.S. This is not Harmony in case you were wondering, although they do look alike!

Posing for his fans.

P.S. This IS Scott Hamilton, none other than Chris’ Olympic figure skating hero of the 1980s.

I, of course, was watching the figure skating in the kitchen at home :P

I shouldn’t complain too loudly, though. I had a bit of surprise week off, so I managed to get in my share of partying as well. Don’t think my work gave me random time off, however, oh no (it’s not like I work at UBC or anything... ahem). Long story short, I started getting a sharp pain in my right wrist while typing at work. I went to the doctor in mortal fear of carpal tunnel syndrome, but she said, “No carpal tunnel, it’s just sprained due to some awkward movements (and the best part comes next), you should take a week off of work and let it rest. Here’s a note for your boss”.

“Woooo hoooo!" went the little Olympic fan inside my head.

Although I didn’t have any tickets to any of the games, there was plenty to see and do. There were a lot of pavilions set up by the different countries and provinces around the city. I saw some of them, but if you didn’t feel like waiting 3 hours in line for the good stuff, you could really just wander around and take in all the crowds and energy and stare at all the tall blonde Scandinavian men milling about. Haha, just kidding. Mostly.

You see these domes and structures? They're all temporary pavilions hosted by the provinces and countries.

And there's the great, bubbly BC Place.

At the end of it all, I’m sure everyone remembers THE hockey game.

My friend Julian put this graph up on Facebook. I thought it was great.

Also known as “The Toilet Can Wait”

That hockey game was one that even Chris couldn't get into. After watching it at home, though, we did get to head out into the chaos… because we had tickets to the closing ceremonies! So we diligently donned our quasi-Canada gear and headed out in the SUV one last time in the privileged lanes to the privileged parking area, and arrived at BC place just in time to take our privileged seats.

Huzzah Canada!

So I’m sure most of you also watched the gaudy exhibition on TV, so I won’t go into great detail. It was a blast, of course.

We enter to find the three-legged pillar as we left it:

One of the finest moments of the games occurs as the fourth pillar is raised…

… and Catorina LeMay Doan comes back and lights it!

And the crowd goes wild!

Ensue one final medal ceremony, a lot of speeches, music and talk about Russia…

Then.
Michael Buble comes out in a Mountie Uniform which subsequently gets ripped off by a group of leggy Mountie-stripper ladies to reveal a white tuxedo underneath, and the party gets started. I’m not even going to try and comment on these, so please just absorb the next stream of pictures for what they’re worth.

Pure, televised insanity. And we were a part of it!

At some point along the way, all four pillars of the Olympic cauldron descended once again into the depths of BC Place, and after all was said and done, The Cloth in all it’s great clothyness was all that remained.

Perhaps it had to oversee cleanup!

In one final display of his Olympic power, Chris used his access pass to get into the dignitaries booth – you know where Stephen Harper and all the First Nations Chiefs were sitting.

Nice to know they probably got just as much confetti in their hair as the rest of us.

So that’s that and life goes back to normal, I suppose.

That is, after we manage to pump everyone through the airport again.

There were, of course, the Paralympic Games, and the newspapers really tried to keep up the hype, but, you know, you can only buy so many newspapers… The city cleaned itself up pretty fast too. Now I just say bring on the summer.

The day after Chris returned the SUV, he fell into a slight depression and would not be bothered for 24 hours. But I suppose that’s to be expected, though, although he got to keep his snazzy uniform and a whole load of other souvenirs. Soon enough he was off on another adventure to Toronto and Orlando, anyway, but more about that later. My wrist started feeling a lot better, too (in case anyone was wondering) and I’m back at work, scheduled to be assessed with regard to the possibility of being approved to get a new keyboard sometime in the next 6 to 10 months. Hrm.

So adieu, Olympics, it was a blast.
Now, once again: bring on the summer!

Oh. And the Fort McMurray thing was a joke.

Le Blogue Olympique I

2010-03-31T17:54:00.001-07:00

Seeing as we reside in the approximate geographic centre of the city of Vancouver...

Yes. We were right there in the middle of the Olympic action.

I guess most people in Canada did see the torch run through their town. Wayne Gretzky and Arnold Schwarzenegger carried the torch through my town, how about yours? Hehe ;)

Now where do I start? Actually, the one who should really be writing about all this is Chris. He was the big star of the show out here. He was REALLY excited about the Olympics coming and he signed up as a volunteer as soon as he found the right position. He ended up working in the “International Client Services” department, which, in layman's terms, means "brand new Olympic SUV to keep at home for the whole month, brand new cell phone, a really awesome uniform, all kinds of free food and unlimited access too all the sporting venues and VIP areas."

And all he had to do is give up a month’s pay at work!

Worth it? Yes. He totally scored, and I very much took part in the scoring as well. In addition to getting a ride to work each day in a brand new Chevy Traverse with heated leather seats, I very graciously accepted Chris’ invitation to accompany him to see the opening and closing ceremonies… for free… in front row seats. I’m not kidding. It turns out that Chris was assigned to drive around one very important member of the International Olympic Committee, and this very kind, Swiss gentleman had set aside some tickets just for us!

In case you were wondering, here’s what happens at an opening ceremonies for the Olympics:

First, you stand in line with a bajillion other people to get your purse x-rayed.

Then, you and the rest shuffle en masse towards that billowing stadium in the distance and find your gate. At this point, if you have tickets like ours, you start moving “down” the ramp towards floor level, while all the other poor saps are moving “up” towards the balcony ;) Then, you enter the stadium and allow the crowd behind you to bottleneck for a moment while you stand in awe at the hugeness and snowy blue spectacle of it all before moving on and finding your seat.

Ack. You will take a terrible picture of yourself. But it's essential to show the world your “Quatchi” vest.

As you enter the stadium, you may wonder how many pounds of confetti are scattered about...

You may also see a lot of empty seats. Yes, your excitement may cause you to arrive ridiculously early, but just roll with it.

You'll continue to take awful pictures of yourself being way too excited.

What’s this? Your seat has a big octagonal box on it? You open it and find all kinds of goodies like flashlights and ponchos and flags! You look up to see a tiny dot on the stage that claims he is Ben Mulroney *small swoon* and he tells you how to use all the props but you don’t really listen because you are on the phone with your sister telling her how cool it all is. Then the Canadian Tenors *bigger swoon* take the stage - and the show hasn’t even started yet!

As everyone gets over themselves and dons their white ponchos, the Olympic camaraderie will really start to form.

The wait will be long, but it's alright because the pre-show is super, not to mention the overpriced hotdogs and sandwiches you got because you had to be there so darn early and didn’t eat dinner, but it’s ok because the hotdogs are real football game ones and they’re yummy.

THEN. The lights go down and the announcer starts the countdown and you pull out your octagonal box and jump up and yell number “TWO!!!” just like Ben Mulroney taught you! Then a snowboarder jumps out from behind the Olympic rings and slides down a ramp (just like you thought would happen when you saw that big ramp there…) and the show officially begins!

There are speeches, there anthems, there are Bryan Adams (wooooo!), there are hydraulic totem poles, there are Native dancers.

Here come the totem poles!

Aww isn't that nice, they're welcoming the world!

Yay Brian Adams (and Nelly Furtado... I guess).

The athletes start coming in, you wait and wait for Canada to come because they are the home country and therefore last, your hands start to hurt from clapping so much, you figure this is when they play the TV commercials… but finally Team Canada comes out and the place erupts in the most deafening roar ever to be produced by human vocal cords.

RAAAHHH!

Up in the dignitaries box, you see Gordon Campbell is front and centre, red mitens and all, waving a huge Canada flag. You can almost see Stephen and Michaelle looking at each other going “what a dork”.

So far, so good! It's almost like you're right there with me, isn't it?

Now allow me to recount the Tale of the Cloth:

The Cloth hung from the ceiling of the stadium and had many personalities.

First, The Cloth became the northern lights, and we lowly audience members with our flashlights became the twinkling night sky.

Then, Sarah McLaughlan summoned The Cloth with her lilting voice and it transformed into a rainforest complete with ballet-dancing nymphs.

At one point the The Cloth gave birth to a full moon while Ashley MacIsaac and an army of punk-rocking fiddlers burned up the stage.

kd Lang then repelled The Cloth altogether as she emerged from beneath the stage singing Hallelujah so amazingly, that we all couldn’t help but light up our electric souvenir candles and sway.

It was ridiculously pretty.

Finally, in its full display of power, The Cloth became a huge snowy mountain with snowboarders and skiers all over it and blinking speed skaters racing around its base.

And now (after time for a few more TV commercials)… the moment we’ve all been waiting for! After a thousand towns and cities and tens of thousands of kilometers and who knows how many red mittens… The Torch is coming in!

Who will it be, who will it be who will it be?

Out of the smoky mist at the base of the stadium… rolls... the Difference Maker himself, Rick Hansen! With a handy torch-holder on his wheelchair, he makes his way into the stadium, inch by inch. Because, you see, they made him go uphill. The whole thing was a little anti-climactic, to tell the truth. Personally, I think they should have started him at the top of a ramp (maybe not the snowboard ramp, but you know, something fast), and had him really cruise down onto centre stage. I’m sure he would have driven the wheelchair awesomely. Alas, no ramp, but it was very cool to see him!

That's not all, though! After Mr. Handsome-Hansen, out comes Catorina LeMay Doan, then Steve Nash, all lighting their own torches along the way, then… none other than Wayne Gretzky emerges - and the crowd goes wild!

Huge music and fanfare ensues. Where’s the cauldron, we’re all wondering. Then the floor opens up and the totem poles come back, but they’re not totem poles anymore! They’re… icicles? Not quite sure, but they’re very cool. More music, more fanfare, and even some lasers and as they swing into position... the cauldron is lit!

Out from the dark recesses of BC Place.

Here comes the fire! (Apologies for the blurry picture)

Yes yes, I know there supposed to be four pillars. But the thing is, we didn’t know at the time! We didn’t have the TV announcers going “uh oh” in the background. It was all good from where we were sitting. For all we knew, LeMay Doan was just there to look good ;)

Wow. What fun! I couldn’t believe some people started leaving right then. Who cares about traffic! There was so much glory to bask in, to just stare at the huge flames, inside the stadium, causing so much of an updraft that The Cloth was waving all over the place too.

So we basked, hung around some more, slowly packed up our audience boxes, waited until the bathroom lines dissipated, then moseyed on towards home. Only we kind of stopped at a pub on the way. And kind of had some wings and beer. And I kind of got a little tipsy. And it got really late. And work the next day was brutal. But, once again, totally worth it!

Alright, the stage is set. Vancouver has shown it’s face to the world and what’s next?

You know, I was going to cover all the Olympics in one blog entry, but I’ve changed my mind because we are all feeling so happy and satisfied right now, aren’t we?

Yes. But do not worry, there is more to come.

Where No Giesbrecht Has Gone Before

2010-02-03T20:48:00.000-08:00

After a wintery mountaintop Christmas with friends, what better to continue the festivities but by spending New Year's Eve in Florida with family? Well, for most of New Year's Eve I was technically "on my way to" Florida, but I certainly made it there in time for the big countdown, and even some champagne!

I always kind of wonder why it's called "bright and early" when getting up early usually means it's still horrendously dark outside. So, I shall say that on December 31st, 2009 I got up very "dark" and early, did one last check of lights, heat and outlets, and called a taxi to take me to the airport.

I usually dislike flying. It's not the being 30,000 feet in the air thing that bothers me, it's more like the dipping and swooping and stomach-bothering that pilot finds occasionally is necessary, and on a lesser note, the sitting upright in a little chair with cold feet for such a terribly long time. But I'm learning to deal. Airport security also really gets on my nerves, as I'm sure 99% of travelers would also say. I knew, going in, that the USA's terrorist threat level had been escalated to "panic attack" over Christmas due to the Jockstrap Bomber, so I knew going in that I was now allowed not two, not one, but zero carry on bags, I would probably have to wait in 4-6 more lineups than usual, as well as get the full body pat down.

Do I have to?

I tried to mentally prepare myself for it all ahead of time, but you know what? I got through the whole gauntlet in about 20 minutes! Maybe it was the ungodly hour of the morning on New Year's Eve or the public's newly instilled fear of getting underwear-bombed, but there weren't really than many people around in the airport at all. Sure, I had to forego the carry ons, I had to wind around the extra barriers, got patted down, had my tampons pulled out of my purse and inspected and all that stuff, but there were never really huge lines of people anywhere and I got to my gate with time to spare. The longest line I saw the whole morning was at Tim Horton's (and of course I was a member of this line as well).

When you see one of these on the plane, you sort of wonder how old it really is.

And now we come to the flight! US Airways. Flown for no other reason than it was cheapest. Certainly not for their lack of any sort of entertainment system, their old and cranky flight attendants, or their watery-tasting ginger ale. But honestly I can't complain about the flight that much either. I had a whole three rows to myself (that's right everyone, stay away! I might have dynamite in my bra! (Well I DO, but that's another story :O) I got to lie down and nap, even snuck into the first class bathroom once. Hehehe.

Hello Phoenix!

In Phoenix I saw the sun. A rare sight in Vancouver this time of year, it was sweet.

I yearned to be outside and clambering around on those red rocks jutting out of the sand, but no can do. I had another plane to catch. Orlando, here we come!

On this flight, I still had an empty seat next to me. I read and slept again thanks to still no entertainment system (have we become that dependent?), drank the watery ginger ale again, and eventually landed in Orlando Florida, directly into the big bear hug of my little brother-in-law Kenny and, of course, my Schatz.

Homeland Security? Check.
Now it's time to take on the in-laws.

To tell you the truth, I was more nervous about staying at their house than I was about flying. It's just that they recently moved, the family isn't too comfortable out there and a little stressed out in general. Here I am thinking, oh dear, I know what the holidays can do to people who are stressed out to begin with, and here I am waltzing in and staying for a whole week just because it's New Year's and I'm Chris' "girlfriend" and I wanted to go to the Kennedy Space Center. (More - and I mean more - about that later!)

But you know what again? It was fantastic! Everyone seemed pretty relaxed. The house was beautifully decorated with Christmas stuff absolutely everywhere, Chris' parents were super nice to me, I got to cook a little, we did fun stuff with Chris' brother and sister all the time, even the dog was less hyperactive than he used to be.

After I arrived in the late afternoon on New Year's Eve we had dinner all together, played their new Wii Fit for a while, then watched the ball drop on TV, actually doing the countdown in "real New York time" which was pretty cool. The parents even popped open a bottle of champagne! Yes, please!

It was about 20 C when I arrived that afternoon. Good for January, anyway. I could get used to this, I thought. Unfortunately that was practically the last I'd see of double-digits for the rest of the week. OK, maybe we had an extra warm day somewhere, but it got seriously chilly starting on January 2nd and it did not let up until after we came back to Vancouver. For most of the time, it was actually WARMER in Vancouver that it was in Orlando. Some kind of snow bird I turned out to be!

So instead of going to the beach or waterslides or swimming in the beautiful pool they have in their backyard (!), we did a lot of hanging out around the house, watching movies and shopping. Shopping turned out to be pretty fun. Even for me. Being on vacation in a new place with new stores, having loads of time and a wad of designated American shopping cash in your wallet sort of makes it more fun than usual. Yeah in addition to the emergency pairs of extra long pants and warmer shoes that I ended purchasing, there were also the not-so-emergency pair of sunglasses, a handful of tops, flip flops, perfume, measuring cups, pizza pan, and various other "souvenirs".

Chris' little sister, being my personal shopping assistant.

Time on your hands? The week before I arrived, Chris had finally found his eternally desired missing Lego set on Ebay and I was granted the privilege of sorting the pieces while he built it.

Overall, we didn't have any desire to drop a week's salary at Disney World, but as a consolation we headed out one afternoon to one of Orlando's many large, elaborate mini-golf courses. This one was called Pirate's Cove. Due to the frigid temperatures, it was quite deserted and we had pretty much free reign of the place.

This was my ball. And palm trees. I liked seeing all the palm trees.

Are you cold, palm trees?

It's kind of funny how a lot of non-Disney-related places and buildings in Orlando are still sort of castle or theme park-esque. This is just some hotel, apparently.

Get in the hole!

A very pirate-y waterfall if I do say so.

Uh oh! Looks like these guys were caught playing extra holes!

AND THEN.

On one still chilly yet sunny day Chris and Kenny and I took our leave from the house and parents for a day, rented a little Volkswagen and ventured out to...

"Hello Jen, welcome to Kennedy Space Centre, we've been waiting for you for almost 15 years"

I KNOW!!

That's right, I finally made it to NASA. Anyone who's known me since Junior High will know that this is a bit of a big deal. Over the years there have been a few contributing factors to my little affinity for space travel: the star charts we made in school as kids, the nights spent camping out on clear nights, the telescope I got for Christmas, the Sci Fi books I read in university, and of course, there were Star Trek, Star Wars, Apollo 13... heck I even liked Total Recall because Arnold Schwarzenneger went to Mars.

And now I finally get to see where the real rocket ships and spacemen come from.

They made the entrance from the parking lot look like the International Space Station with solar panels and such. There was even an astronaut up there to welcome us.

After buying admission, we came into a sort of theme park-ish courtyard with food stands and gift shops and things. Deciding to take the Disney portion of it in later on, we headed straight for the bus tour of the real stuff. You can see a map of our adventures here.

You may recognize this as the Vehicle Assembly Building. The VAB is 160 meters (525 ft) tall, 218 meters (716 ft) long and 158 meters (518 ft) wide. The flag on it is 64 x 33.5 meters (209 x 110 ft) and used 6,000 gallons of paint. Basically, it's huge.

When my parents were there in the '70s (okay, okay, so Giesbrechts have been here before...) they actually got to go inside of it. But those were the days where you could smoke and take water on airplanes, so I don't know. Things are different now. Our bus didn't stop there, anyway.

When we drove by, though, one of the doors was open and we got to peer into the darkness and imagine what space ships were hiding inside.

Our first actual stop on the bus tour was to the LC-39 Observation Gantry. It's a 60-foot tall complex that you can climb and get a view of launch pads 39A and 39B which were used for the Apollo rockets and later for the space shuttles. Unfortunately, we were about a month too early to see the space shuttle up there.

Alright, let's get back on the bus! Time to see rockets!

Oh, hello again, giant awesome building which I'm not allowed to enter...

Although we did passed the giant VAB by once again, we did get a glimpse of the other side of it this time, as well as the Orbiter Processing Facilities, also known as the garage for the space shuttles. At one point, this thing joined us on our journey:

Why NASA needs a train is beyond me. It's on an island of all things. But when you think of how many nerdy guys probably work there, and how much nerdy guys like trains... it only makes sense.

Which brings us to our next stop on the bus tour, the Saturn V Center. This place is a giant tribute to the Apollo missions. You go in through these big Star Trek doors, you watch a tear-jerking movie, then you go into this room that has the actual old firing room computers on display, and in there they play another movie hosted by Jim Lovell himself(!) AND a radio re-enactment of a launch where they lit up all the buttons and screens and even made the windows rattle!

Oh what I wouldn't give to be down there with a slide rule and a pair of horn-rimmed glasses!

As we exited the firing room, we were smacked right in the face with the almighty Saturn V! The most enormous rocket ever built, think 7x what the space shuttle can do. And here one of them was hanging right above our heads! Allow me to walk you through the launch sequence:

This is stage one, also known as S-IC. It was filled with 5 million pounds of rocket fuel and liquid oxygen. It's the the reason for the countdown. After liftoff, it burned for 2.5 minutes, propelling the whole rocket 68 miles up in the air and then it was dropped back down into the ocean.

Goodbye S-IC! You'll have to imagine a sort of ring enclosure around the engines called an interstage also falling away, all dramatic-like and burning orange, like this:

Stage two is called S-II, it has five MORE rockets in it, and it burns for 6 more minutes, getting the ship up to more than 15,000 miles an hour so it could get it's orbit on.

Stage three over here, the S-IVB. This one is "only" 51 feet tall and "only" has one giant rocket engine. They burned this one to actually establish an orbit and also the trajectory to the moon, then it got dropped too.

Alrighty! And this gives access to the best part, the Lunar Excursion Module, or LEM, aka the thing that lands on the moon. It's in there at the top, you can't see it in the picture. Above that is the Service Module with all the life-supporting goodies inside, then on top of that is the little triangular thing called the Command Module where the three itty bitty astronauts hang out. At the very very top is a mini-rocket actually called the Launch Escape System. It was meant to blast off if there was an emergency during launch and yank the human being-containing Command Module right off the whole rocket. They fling this little piece off into space after stage two.

This is what the LEM actually looks like, but you probably know that. Go Neil!

And this is an actual used-up Command Module. I'm in! Room for 2 more!

Just to continue with the summary, then, after the moon trajectory is good, the pilot will detach the Command and Service Module, swing it around and dock it with the LEM, extract it from its section of the rocket, and then fly the whole contraption to the moon. Once there, Neil and Buzz (or whoever it may be) will fly down to the surface in the LEM, get out, bounce around for a while, get back in, take a nap, then use the LEM's little rocket to blast off from the moon and back to meet the CSM and the pilot in orbit. Then, they all high-five each other, eject the LEM and burn the Service Module engine to direct themselves back to Earth. Once there, they get rid of the Service Module as well, and the three of them strap in to the Command Module for a speeding-bullet return into the ocean.

Yay!

We actually had lunch in this giant Saturn V Center with this giant rocket looming over our heads. It was pretty much overpriced amusement park food. I had the "moon burger". Apparently they don't use lettuce or tomato on the moon. Or pickles or onions or sauce or anything. Just meat and cheese. You know, maybe it was just because I was incredibly hungry (or because was eating a moon burger at NASA) but I actually quite enjoyed it!

In the Saturn V Center there were various other things on display, and it was pretty much all beyond cool.

The 1970's astronaut car of choice, a corvette. You will notice the corvette making two appearances in the movie Apollo 13, a red one driven my Jim Lovell in Houston and a "war bonnet yellow" corvette in the shot where Ken Mattingly watches the rocket launch.

"Are the flowers blooming in Houston?"

This is just one link in the track of the enormous crawler-transporter that transports the shuttles from the Vehicle Assembly Building to the launch pad. See Chris' feet on the side? Have you ever seen them look so small?

So small indeed!

Here's an old flight plan. I don't remember if it was for a moon landing or not (I can't read "astronaut") but if you zoom in you can see it was written in 1968.

Apparently they made casts of the Apollo 11 crew's hands so they could make their spacesuit gloves the right size. Chris and Kenny thought Neil Armstrong's hands were really small. But guys care about those kinds of things, I guess ;)

They had a bunch of prototype pressure suit designs there, too. This one was my favorite. There was even some kind of crank on the front to adjust the bicycle seat on the inside so that the wearer could properly look through the helmet.

Having spent a huge amount of time in the Saturn V complex, the guys finally convinced me that there was more to see and we made our way back onto the bus, leaving the '70s behind and entering the present day once again.

Next stop: The International Space Station Center.
So this is what they've been doing recently instead of bouncing around on the moon!

I think this was an actual real component of the space station that they brought back. It was entirely behind glass.

Well, how aboout that, eh?

In the area below, they had big mock-ups of the Space Station pieces that we could check out. The instruments and compartments were all behind glass, unfortunately.

Everyone's favorite: the space toilet!

The space shower. How much fun would THAT be?

The space bed. (I had this crazy dream that I was, like, flying...)

The space microwave. Also known to many as a regular microwave.

I don't know what it was about us three, maybe our peak physical condition or our obvious intellectual prowess, but all of a sudden one of the top NASA recruiters came up to us, told us we were perfect astronaut material and asked us if we wanted to take a test flight up to the space station for the next couple of hours.

T-minus 30 seconds to launch - get in there!

Let's do this!

Thank you for your support, America.

Kenny ended up studying the effects of microgravity on automatic doors.

Chris gave some much-needed upgrades to the space toilet.

And I introduced a new weightless cardio workout.
Fly-bo anyone?

Since we had to be back before closing and the shuttle wasn't scheduled to come back for another couple of months, they just stuck us into some old re-entry capsules they found.

Kenny was lucky got his own. Nice landing!

I was stuck burning through the atmosphere with this guy.

Spashdown! Another successful mission.

As you can see, we made such an incredible contribution to space flight we were immediately inducted into the Astronaut Hall of Fame.

After returning from our flight, we managed to rejoin the tour, and got to see some of our colleagues working on more space station components back on earth.

These fine rocket scientists here were holding a light bulb. How many rocket scientists does it take to... oh never mind.

After the ISS Center, the tour bus whisked us back to the Visitor Complex where our journey had begun. Time to get into theme park mode! After being jettisoned from the bus, we made a beeline for the Shuttle Launch Experience simulator. I didn't know how this was going to compare to our actual trip into space earlier that afternoon, but I figured we should still make our admission tickets worthwhile.

So we threw our bags, jackets, cameras and loose change, as instructed, into the lockers provided, and then proceeded up an extremely long ramp dotted with television screens providing information about what it felt like to get launched in a shuttle. Wow, I thought, this must normally be a really long wait. Lucky for us, once again it was freezing cold outside and Space Center visitors were sparse. We made it directly to the top and only waited for about 5 minutes before being escorted into what looked like a Star Trek transporter room. In there, a digital Charlie Bolden (former space shuttle commander) told us the story of the space shuttle and prepared us for the simulation. Then, our group was herded into the ready-room where we would prepare to enter the simulator, each person standing on their own special dot in the floor. A very non-astronaut-looking lady reminded us once again of the importance of keeping our loose change securely stowed, then our doors slid open and we filed neatly into our cockpit seats. Seatbelts, check! We tilt backwards! Scratchy radio voice confirms all systems are go! T-minus 5,4,3,2,1! We have liftoff! We shake like crazy! The backs of our seats push back at us and we pretend they're G forces! Things get smoother and we tilt forward and pretend we're weightless! The ceiling opens up and we see the earth and stars far below! Anthemic music plays! Exeunt.

Thank you for the experience, Shuttle Launch Experience.

The day was moving along at Kennedy Space Centre, but we weren't done yet! Seeing as we had a little time before we were due at the IMAX for a Tom Cruise-narrated special feature, we decided to pay a visit to the Early Space Exploration Museum. In there, we saw all sorts of great things from Russia, stuff from the Gemini and Mercury programs, even another old reconstructed mission control room.

Mhmmm! Just give me a cigarette and let me at that rotary phone!

In Soviet space, satellite orbits YOU.

We meet again, Saturn V! And you've brought your little friends!

Outside the museum, we were able to take a nice stroll through the rocket garden. I wonder if they sell rocket seeds at the gift store...

Gift store!!

Yes, we also had time from the gift store. In a valiant display of self control, I managed to pull myself away with only a few necessary souvenirs. An astronaut fridge magnet, a space shuttle rubber ducky (for my collection) a postcard for my parents, and my favorite of all, a travel mug that has the NASA symbol on it and says "Rocket Scientist". It is the new love of my life. (Sorry Schatz!) It sits proudly on my desk at work and I wash it carefully by hand every day before I go home.

Did I mention the self control? It was very difficult to leave this there.

And this.

*sigh*

OK, time's up at the gift shop, everybody. We gotta get good seats!

Our final destination was the IMAX, always a must-do, especially when it involves space documentaries. We picked the show about the International Space Station, saw how it was built, saw the astronauts' experiments, their space walks, how they eat popcorn in space, etc. etc. The best part was when they started throwing fruit and M&Ms at the camera and in 3D it was like they were floating right at us. It was great, and not least of all because it was narrated by Tom Cruise (whose voice always seems to sound slightly irritated to me, but ever so sexy).

Speaking of sexy...!

Filled to the brim with space information, experiences, souvenir goodies and moon burgers, we slowly made our way back to the parking lot at closing time, feeling rather out of this world.

However, we were quite quickly reminded of where we came from.

Hmmmm. I thought I smelled farmer's sausage on the tour bus!

Oh just kidding.

The rest of the time in Orlando, we really didn't do much. I remember watching a lot of fun movies at home, reading Chris' Mom's cookbooks, blogging about skiing and wishing that it was warm enough to go in here:

One day, beautiful pool... one day.

The Stockmans don't like it Orlando much and they're hoping to move a little further north sometime soon. Their house is quite nice, though, and in the short time they'd been in it, they'd made it pretty comfortable as far as I thought.

This is the front entrance and sitting/dining room area. Nobody uses it much but it's got a ridiculously high ceiling and a great ledge for Chris' mom's Christmas decorations.

In the back is the kitchen and family room (leading out to the backyard and pool!)

And this is a huge loft area upstairs, where we played Wii and had other such fun.

On the day before we left, all four of us "kids" had one last big date at the Cheesecake Factory. Dear America, you have such fabulous ideas sometimes.

The dear Stockman children. Perfect angels.

And me, the creepy in-law, spreading disobedience and corruption, one martini at a time! Mwa hahaha!

Oh boy.

Anyway, we have now reached the end of this blog post and our departure from Orlando. (Honestly, let me know if you read this far because I will give you some sort of medal.) There's really not much more to say, I guess, lucky for you. We woke up at some ungodly hour again, were whisked off to the airport by Mom and Dad where we waited and extra half hour because of ice (yes, ICE - in Florida. Ice in Vancouver? Nooo, why would there be?). Due, once again, to the cheap-ness of our airline choice, we had to sit apart from each other on the first entertainment-less flight to Phoenix, although the guy next to me was chatty enough and plenty entertaining. He was coming back from a few months in Puerto Rico, he showed me a bunch of butch jewelry he'd bought for his biker sister. Apparently he is the son of the man who played Tin Man in The Wizard of Oz. And he's seen a lot of aliens. I quite enjoyed our chat. On the second flight Chris and I managed to shuffle seats with some people and sit together, this provided me someone to sleep on, and sleep I did.

Arriving in Vancouver at some random hour in the afternoon, we claimed our bags and headed directly to the food court where we filled our faces with the first actual meal we'd had time for since before dawn (that is, Eastern Time dawn).

I guess I could say it was good to be home again, but I'm not so sure. Of course the very next week it shot right back up to the high 20s in Florida while Vancouver remained at an incessant 5 degrees plus rain. And of course only a month later a space shuttle was actually supposed to LAUNCH...

Plus I had to go back to work. That's a hard thing to do after almost 3 weeks of vacation. I guess I'll just have to find little things to make me happy again, you know, things like TV shows, weekends, cookies... After all, you gotta go back to contributing to society at some point. Even if you'd rather be in orbit.

Just Wrap Me in Spandex Already

2010-01-15T21:04:00.000-08:00

Hello blog readers. I hope everyone had a very merry Christmas. I spent my holiday season this year in yet another out-of-the-ordinary way, but it was altogether quite awesome. For me, an “ordinary” Christmas is to fly home, visit family, grandparents and old friends and basically spend lots of time eating and sitting around on the living room floor doing puzzles.

Although, since I haven’t really done Christmas that way in the past 5 or 6 years, am I still allowed to call it ordinary? Anyway, once again this year due to work (and my failure to snap up the Christmas holidays when they were offered in JULY) I couldn’t get any time off in the coveted week between Xmas and New Year’s. So, as Chris had plans to take off to Orlando to see his family the minute his school days were complete, I was to be left by my lonesome once again in Vancouver.

Just as I was coming to terms with this arrangement, our friend Harmony stops by and casually mentions that she’s on her own for the holidays too, she plans on going downhill skiing in Revelstoke where her brother lives, and was wondering if I might… “YES” I blurted out before she even finished the sentence.

The cold, dark days dragged on and on, but the 24th finally arrived and we were off to the mountains! The drive was clear, extremely beautiful and thankfully uneventful!

Even pictures taken through the windshield came out ok.

And as seems to be our custom when Harmony and I venture out, we stop for some reason in some tiny one-horse town, this time in Merritt, BC for a tire checkup.

After being on the go for approximately 8 hours, we arrived in Revelstoke, BC with its 360° of giant, snowy mountains.

Our tiny Christmas home away from home.

The neighbors’ enjoyable snow phenomenon.

Their house was incredibly cozy. Even wood heated! But don’t worry little Charlie Brown tree, we won’t use you for the fire!

We discovered a few other family members when we arrived. This is Chester and Leeroy. (Yes, spelled with two “e”s. What of it?)

Leeroy was the life of the party, a kitten that they’d adopted only about a week before we got there.

And this was our cozy pull out bed, shared by Harmony and me, and more often that not, an energetic Leeroy as well.

Upon our arrival, we just whipped up some dinner and spend the rest of Christmas Eve with our hosts and their friends who kept stopping in. I literally fell asleep on the living room couch in mid-conversation at some point, only to be gently wakened as everyone was leaving. Mmmmm I love falling asleep.

The next day, being Christmas and all, first things first, I called my family in Manitoba before even getting out of bed, (not least of all because the wood-fire hadn’t been stoked yet!). Happily all family members were thrilled with their gifts, but unfortunately a giant snowstorm was preventing any and all travel in Southern Manitoba, and so the big family gathering was postponed. I voted to make it for July so I could come too, but no luck. Apparently they did it the following weekend.

Back in BC, Christmas day was clear and sunny, the heater had been started, and things were already underway in the living room. As I joined the festivities, Harmony suddenly pulled out this big, adorable, snowman-themed stocking overflowing with goodies, and it was for me! There were socks, fancy hand lotion, Italian soda, even tomato paste. Haha! All the good stocking stuff. I didn’t even have anything for her! What a sweetie.

Our next holiday stop was to… uhh… Harmony’s brother’s friend’s parents’ place. Basically, to me, they were random strangers. But they were incredibly welcoming and they served us a fabulous Christmas brunch from their living room with a fantastic lake and mountain view! It turns out most (all?) of the people there were actually from Ontario, so there was plenty to talk about and we stayed there well into the afternoon.

Coming back to our little house, we showered, changed and headed right out again for Christmas dinner! A little background: Harmony’s brother is a chef at a very popular little restaurant and bar in Revelstoke called “The Village Idiot”. A lot of the people who work there and around the area are also from (you guessed it... ) Ontario and were staying here for the holidays as well. It was giant, perfect Christmas turkey dinner with all the fixins and BYOB. I ended up with a glass of some kind of locally made “white merlot” which I quite enjoyed. Walking home that night on the quiet, frozen, small-town streets was also lovely and very nostalgic.

Bring it on, Boxing Day!
We were up relatively early the next morning, scarfed down some serious bagels and headed straight to the ski hill. After picking up rentals and lift tickets (guilt-free, thanks to Christmas money from Mommy and Daddy!) we were off! Or I should say, “up!”

Here we are in the gondola, my dashing and daring hosts, Chris and Cathy. Oh, and the one in the middle with the small head, that’s Harmony.

And me. In the gondola of death.

Well, here I am at the top of the mountain. It’s like the trees have snow magnets in them or something. I thought they looked so cool.

And the view in the other direction. That is, down. Very. Far. Down.

Apparently we were really lucky with the weather that day. The temperature was “inverted”, which means although it was cold and cloudy down in the town and in the valley, the air at the top of the mountain was warm and it was bright and sunny too! Let’s stay up here all day!

Oh right, we came here here to ski.

Let’s start by putting these on…

And the goggles…

Wait for me, I’m coming!

Now some of my friends will tell you that when skiing I tend to be a very slow moving vehicle. So what if I’m careful, I like to take my time, make completely sure I don’t fall and break my neck, enjoy the view, things like that? Well, at Revelstoke… there’s really no going slow. Once you’re at the top, the only path is down and the only speed is fast.

They say they took me on the “easiest” black diamond run. But I made it! After 15 minutes of pure leg-burning, brain-screaming, sound barrier-breaking skiing, I made it to the base of a chairlift (which was only halfway down the mountain). I was so sweaty, exhausted and proud of myself! Go black diamond! My companions were like, right on, she survived, let’s go back up! (See, for them it was like a walk in the park) I was like, seriously? Without eating or drinking or taking a nap?

But we did it. We went straight back up, and did the run two or three more times before skiing all the way down to the bottom for lunch. Only at one point did I seriously fall down, or “bailed” I should say, in ski-lingo. It was at the steepest point of all, damn near 90 degrees as far as I could tell. I have no idea what happened but all of a sudden one ski and both my poles were gone and I was sliding on my back, head first down the mountain, trying not to develop into a giant snowball. Not fun. Somehow I came to a stop, though, and my companions were all there, gently looking down at little old me, asking if I was all right. I commanded my brain to wiggle all my limbs. They all responded. Thumbs up. But I’m definitely ready for lunch now.

Here we are, happy to eat. Most of the people that made us our lunch (and rented our skis, and helped us aboard the gondola etc.) by the way, were none other than the friendly Ontarians we’d partied with the night before. Oh yeah, we know all the right people.

The cafeteria itself was not too shabby, either.

After lunch, I was ready to go again. To the top! I exclaimed.
Harmony was very proud of my positive attitude, but it was getting close to closing time, and it didn’t look like it was going to be possible for me to take the slow, windy way all the way down on this final run and still have my skis returned by 4pm, we took the gondola to the ½ way mark and really made the most of the snow, the view and the sunset.

Thank you, pretty mountain!

I’ll miss you frosty trees.

Till next time, snowy peaks.

Adios, mountaintop sunset.

What an awesome day! Such and adventure and so gorgeous. Apparently that ski hill just opened a couple of years ago, and one of my hosts, Harmony’s brother Chris actually worked on the crew that built the gondola on the side of the mountain. Wow! The resort isn’t even completely finished yet, but you can tell that place is going to be really popular.

I don’t really remember much else after skiing. I think we made risotto that night at home, watched a movie. What I do remember is my leg and arm muscles slowly starting to feel like they were melting off my bones, and every time I closed my eyes, feeling like I was hurtling over a cliff. Good times.

The next day, to the joy of my skiing muscles, was hot springs. I had never been to a hot springs before! Yay for being half naked outside in the winter. After sleeping in somewhat and hanging around the house in the morning, we grabbed our bikinis, jumped in the car again and wound our way back into the mountains, on roads lined with puffy snow banks and icing-sugar coated trees. We even saw two moose! They were cool. Sorry, no pictures.

Our road came to an end at this big body of water and we drove right onto a ferry with a Christmas tree on top of it.

Apparently some time ago the province built this dam and flooded a big portion of this important mountain road. So they put a ferry there instead and made it free. Whatever works!

Down at the hotsprings on the other side of the lake, we came in, told them we were from Revelstoke and paid the “local” admission fee (oh yeah), and proceeded to get naked in this locker room. Not Japanese-naked, mind you. On a side note, this whole experience made me quite regret being cheapos and never going skiing and/or to an onsen while in Japan. Maybe Audrey’s Kyoto 2012 reunion will actually happen and we’ll get to do it then.

Ok well back to Canada-naked. With only bikinis and flip-flops to shield us from the sub zero BC air, we proceeded towards the heavenly 38-degree water pool.

That’s the one on the far right.

It’s the mid-temperature pool. It’s where Harmony and Cathy stayed the whole time. But not me. After hanging out in there for a decent amount of time, I decided I wanted to turn up the heat and paid a visit to the middle pool – the hot one. Ok so far so good, like a hot tub without the jets. Now what’s that other little pool on the left, you’re asking? You mean the one that if you zoom in on the picture of it you can see a think crust of ice forming around the ledge? That pool? Well I’m glad you asked. That’s the cold pool. It’s about as cold as you can make water without freezing it. Colder, for all I know, since there’s minerals dissolved in it and all. It’s for doing that Scandinavian cold-water dip thing that’s supposed to be so good for your body. I must have had some black diamond adrenaline left over in me because I got my body temperature nice and high in the hot pool and then I went for it. Walked right in, dipped down to my shoulders, hyperventilated for about ¾ of a second and walked right out again. It was incredible! Such a good feeling on your skin, too, going back into the warm water. Like pins and needles. Provided you don’t pass out on the way there. Which I didn’t. Before we left, I actually did the cold dip one more time. I felt so European.

Boy, does hot springing really work up an appetite! The girls were savvy to this, however, being experienced and all. In the car on the ferry they whipped out some major cheese and crackers and dip. It was excellent. Back in Revelstoke, we treated our hosts to a fine dinner at a local restaurant, Chris’ restaurant being too popular and busy to get a table that night even though it was my first choice! Oh well, I guess that means I’ll have to go back to The Village Idiot some other day.

The next morning we were off again. Weather was looking good although a little less clear and gorgeous as it was on the way there. We made good time even with a little double back to pick up a forgotten cell phone (I know what you’re thinking, but it wasn’t mine) and a nice stop for sit-down lunch at Boston Pizza. Or “Il Bostonio Pizzeria” as a certain friend has enjoyably named it. I ordered a whole medium pizza for myself so that I would have some food to eat that night. I am just so smart.

Back home in warm, snowless Vancouver as I reveled in the memories of an awesome, adventurous Christmas, I unpacked my suitcase but left it out and open on the bed. I had to leave it ready to get filled as I would be packing for my next journey – to Florida – in two days! Unfortunately, this meant two random, slow days of work in between, and sleeping on the couch as my partially packed suitcase inhabited the bed. Oh well. More holidays, here we come!

East Meets West... And All the Rest

2009-10-26T10:59:00.000-07:00

After almost two years of casually bringing it up in conversation (and occasionally not-so-casually begging and pleading), we finally convinced Steph and Trevor to visit us in Vancouver!

The whole week before their arrival was spent tidying, laundering, booking, reserving and confirming. By Saturday we were ready! The funny thing is, I couldn’t even meet them at the airport because I was working that afternoon. Chris got to be the one who got to actually go to the airport and pick them up, and it was my job to scoot on down to the rental car place after work and pick up our wheels!

Yup, this beautiful Toyota Camry Hybrid was going to be ours for one whole week

Let the Vancouver vacation begin!

… by going to the Chinese mall. Oh, the spontaneity. Our plan was actually to just go home from the airport and have a fabulous BBQ dinner, but since we were sooo close already (and we had a CAR) we just had to swing by the Yaohan and T&T Supermarket. It was fun and a good welcome to Vancouver. In the words of Steph “Jen, I’m really questioning right now as to whether I’m still in Canada”.

Well, lucky for Steph, we eventually made it back to Canada safe and sound and did have a fabulous grilled salmon dinner courtesy of me, Chris and R2BQ II.

And thus begins our Vancouver vacation! I probably shouldn’t go into minute details about every part of our week-long adventure (however tempting that may be), so I’ll try to let the pictures do the talking… except for the first day… when Chris or I didn’t take any pictures.

So long story short, we took our two bikes, plus a couple of borrowed bikes, loaded all of it into the new Skytrain and headed out to Stanley Park for an excellent bike ride. Sound familiar? I did the same thing with Mom and Dad last December. http://chrisjenny.blogspot.com/2008_12_01_archive.html The scenery will be about the same, only it was summer so a heck of a lot warmer and more crowded. Maybe I can put up a few of Steph’s pictures later. That night we had Korean BBQ, which, again, we did not take pictures of but it would have looked pretty much exactly like it did the last time we were there:

Day 2 found us back in the car, bright and early, on our way to Whistler. Now, getting to Whistler entails driving up the Sea-to-Sky highway which is perhaps one of the most beautiful, frightening and car-sickness-inducing things that one can do. I think only Steph’s camera got pictures of the highway, but it’s hard to take pictures from the moving car anyway. You just have to imagine: mountain-cliff-highway-cliff-water… and on the other side of the water, more mountains.

I stole the front seat. How are you guys doing back there?

One very attractive pit-stop on this highway is Shannon Falls.

Steph was quite impressed

But how could you not be? Now let's play “Find the brother-in-law who snuck past the barrier and climbed up onto the actual waterfall”

Here Jen, this waterfall must be making you thirsty

Next, stop Whistler! This was our bed and breakfast. It was so cozy, tucked away in the woods with its pine beds, big comfy couches and a hot tub out on the patio. I can seriously imagine spending a wintery ski-weekend there, but having a summer getaway was pretty nice too.

After dropping off our bags, we headed straight for the mountain.

Up we go! And this is only gondola #1

Are we there yet? It was basically a long, hot ride in a scratched-up plastic bubble

Goodbye Whistler Village, see you later!

We made it! Welcome to Whistler Mountain

So pretty, and so high up!

But not high enough. We’ve got one more lift to go – then we hit the peak!

This was the best chairlift of all. No plastic bubble, riding up at an extremely steep angle, over top of real, actual glaciers to the peak of Whistler. Ask Chris how he felt when I started swinging my feet.

Hello, glacier!

At the peak of Whistler Mountain is where it starts to get really cool.

From up there, you can see for miles and miles around. We wandered for quite some time, and eventually found a little place to have our high-altitude picnic.

Greatest part of our picnic, the air-pressurized chip bag

We all found something to do up there. Trevor constructed rock-people…

While Steph and I played “mountain goats”. Yes, we are that cool.

And now, from Whistler to Blackcomb!

Blackcomb is the next giant mountain over, also part of the ski area, and just this summer they completed the “Peak 2 Peak”, a state-of-the-art enormous gondola that carries you from one mountain peak to the other.
You can see a live webcam of the mountain peaks here.
And also see its record-breaking technical stuff here.

Jump in everybody!

Here we go! Across a gigantic valley on tiny little wires…

It was such a gorgeous ride

Here we are on Blackcomb mountain!

Look at these two, seriously representing Altona

After sufficiently hiking around the peak of Blackcomb, did we go down? Oh no! We took the Peak 2 Peak back across to Whistler, then back again to Blackcomb. Why not? We had day passes :D Finally, as the mountain was threatening to close, we took a series of chairlifts back down the Blackcomb side. While riding down I was lucky enough at one point to see a ski jumper practicing by sliding down this big construction and landing in a big pool. Let us also take a moment to remember Steph’s yellow Loewen Insurance hat (as pictured above), which, while riding down, was carried away by a gust of mountain wind, never to be seen again.

Our mountain adventure was followed by dinner in Whistler Village, a comfy night in our B&B, then a superb gourmet breakfast.

Day 3 took us back down the Sea to Sky highway into Vancouver. I seem to recall that we made a spontaneous trip to White Rock that evening, and although we were planning on having Indian food in Vancouver, we ended up staying at White Rock for one of their always-beautiful sunsets and Greek dinner at Pelagos.

This was the view from our table

Steph and Trevor, digging in

This is the view from the beach afterwards, where we had coffee. Cellphone-wallpaper worthy if I do say so.

Steph liked it too

Day 4 and we’re back on the road. This time to Vancouver Island. We had to delay our departure by a few hours thanks to a very ill timed employment skills test I had to write, but we shall not speak of that again.

It’s ferry time!

I always like the ferry. I mean, I’ve never been on a cruise ship like these other two but it feels pretty big, and it’s so cool that there’s shops and a restaurant inside. Of course, you can always tell who’s a tourist and not a commuter because they’re outside hanging over the railings, no matter what the weather.

I’m always a tourist

Not quite Mexico, but having fun!

Oh so windy! Steph is making fun of me because I can't keep my eyes open.

Pretty little islands and things

Before long, we were in Victoria, checking in to our hotel, tying (unsuccessfully) to get ahold of my friend Jessica for dinner, and eventually just googling fish and chips places in the harbour and coming across this:

Upon first glance, it may look like just another shipping container, but don’t be deceived! It’s a totally amazing fish and chips shop!

In our further wanderings around the inner harbour, we came across the usual pretty Victoria sights.

May I present her royal fancyness, The Empress

Her majestic cousin, the BC Parliament Buildings

A fancy old building

And another fancy old building. Teehee! I feel so fancy and old!

After getting back to our hotel that night, we finally got a hold of Jessica. She’d not been having a very good day and had been out of touch, so Chris and I left the young ones to go swimming at the hotel, while we went and visited Jessica in her new house. We helped her with her internet and chatted with her and her roommate for a bit. We were itching to get back to the pool, though, so before long we were back at the hotel, splashing away. Jessica came by a little later and hung out some more.

We finished swimming but the fun wasn’t over! There were bathrobes and face masks and chips and beer to be had!

Oh! Look whose eyes are shut now!

Day 5 found us waking up in our fancy hotel room to complimentary coffee and tea.

Me, just enjoying a spot of tea in Victoria, reflecting on the fun had thus far

That morning, I forced everyone to eat at my favorite fancy organic breakfast place. Seeing as it was mid-morning on a weekday, we got the best table in the house. I’m also pretty sure everyone enjoyed their food. I remember Steph taking a picture of her plate, and I do recall Trevor agreeing that the “Costa Rican Rocket Fuel” coffee was excellent.

All fueled up, we were ready for the rest of the day! We returned to the hotel, picked up the car and headed north to Cathedral Grove. You will recall that Chris and I had been here before during last year’s camping trip to Tofino. This time, we got to spend a little more time in the old growth coastal rainforest, really taking it, learning about the trees and exploring.

What’s it like, waaay up there?

Steph was really looking forward to coming here.
… I think she ended up quite enjoying herself.

My highlight was the aqua-blue glacial lake that we stumbled upon. This was part of the park that we didn’t see last time.

Returning to the Camry, we realized that we had two choices: a) we take an easy drive into Nanaimo, find someplace to eat dinner and catch the ferry at 7pm or so. Or b) we drive like absolute maniacs directly to the ferry terminal to catch the 5pm ferry and eat dinner in West Vancouver.

Which one did we choose (and I use the term “we” very loosely)?

Let’s just say Chris was very proud of himself as he parked the car outside his favorite pizza place in West Van.

I'll admit, it was nice to be on that ferry because we got to ride in the sunset.

Now there's a real cruise ship

Day 6 already??

Where did the time go?
Well, this was another Vancouver day. I seem to recall breakfast at home and then, keeping in the spirit of old fancyness, a little visit to Queen Elizabeth Park.

How delightful!

Next was one meal that I’d really been waiting for – sushi! No trip to Vancouver is complete without a little taste of the Japanese goodness. Did you know that I never actually ate the “raw” sushi when we lived in Japan? There was just so much other crazy stuff to try, plus I could never make heads or tails of the traditional Japanese menus. But in Vancouver, my friend, the menus are in English and the sushi is top-notch.

Unfortunately, the Janzes were not very impressed, or perhaps we can just assume that their taste for raw tuna and seaweed will take a bit longer than one afternoon to develop. For the record, they both did actually try the raw fish, and I believe Trevor even tackled more than one kind! You guys get “A” for affort.

Next, in keeping with our fish theme, but yet nowhere to be found on our little vacation itinerary, is our spontaneous and awesome trip to the Vancouver Aquarium! I’d actually been here once before, back in 1995 while on the music trip with school (and a little part of me dies inside when I think of how that was almost 15 years ago!)

Good times at the Aquarium.

We caught the dolphin show

Saw a parrot

We visited their new baby beluga whale

Here’s the baby playing with its mother and/or half sister. I don’t quite remember exactly how the mating went on, but it was a little wonky.

That’s right, it’s Nemo! How could you not make a movie out of this little guy?

Later that evening we finally ended up having Indian food, another Vancouver must-do. Bringing back memories of Ajanta as it always does (but never quite measuring up, of course) we had a delightful dinner scarfing down curry and naan, tandoori chicken and lassis. Steph and Trevor enjoyed this infinitely more than the sushi lunch.

That evening, with our bellies stuffed, we finally cruised down to our favorite beach for a little stroll as the sun went down. Oh, how I would love to do that every day. If only the houses in this part of the city weren’t gazillions of dollars.

Day 7 and our last day together. Must we part so soon?

Since they had a late afternoon flight, we managed to squeeze in one more Vancouver adventure before they left. IKEA! It came highly recommended by Mom and Dad, and seeing as Steph and Trevor had just purchased an adorable little house in adorable little Rosenfeld, we just had to go! Unfortunately there wasn’t much room in their luggage for furniture and shelving and things, but they picked up a few handy souvenirs, plus we were able to have a fantastically cheap and yummy lunch before they left.

And then… the time came. We piled into the car one last time and drove down to the airport. We topped off our Vancouver experience with some lattes from Starbucks and off Steph and Trevor went back to Winnipeg for what is sure to be a delightful winter ;)

Bye bye, we’ll miss you!

Next time we see each other, it might just be in Rosenfeld!

When It Rains...

2009-10-18T14:58:00.000-07:00

... you get to play in the mud!

It was August long weekend, a huge heat wave had settled upon Vancouver and all the beautiful air-conditioning-less Vancouverites were flocking to the natural, sandy Pacific beaches. What did I do? Jump on a plane to flat, beach-less Winnipeg where it was 10 degrees, of course! To go camping… in a tent…

It was a great trip, actually. Reason for going was that that my cousin Aaron was getting married, and to the benefit of all of us sacrificing our long weekend for this wedding, he decided to have it at the lake! Yay! Can’t really blame him that it was freezing cold.

So I left straight away after work on the Thursday. Chris picked me up in a zipcar and chauffeured me directly to the airport. When I got to the gate, I squeezed into a chair in the midst of this big Filipino family with kids crawling all over the place. A few minutes later this guy in a nice suit comes in and squeezes into the spot next to me. I managed a sideways glance and briefly thought to myself, “hmmm this guy looks like a dark-skinned Gary Doer”, then went back to studying my boarding pass. A little later, a couple more important-acting-yet-Manitoba-type people roll their suitcases through the children and start chatting with my bench-mate about “premier’s meetings” and things and I realize that it must be Gary Doer after all! I guess he’d just got a lot of sun... (although I have my doubts that it was in Winnipeg!) Later on auntie Ev told me I should have said “Hey Doerksen!” but I didn’t ;)

The flight was quite nice, I watched X-men Origins on Air Canada’s luxurious seat-back entertainment system, and before I knew it, I was riding those little escalators down to the baggage claim to meet my sister and brother-in-law in the Winnipeg airport. They took me home (and little did I know that would be the last time I saw their apartment!) and we pretty much went straight to bed since it was midnight in Manitoba. The next day we loaded the car and headed out in the rain for Riding Mountain National Park!

Allow me to take my place in the back seat amongst the suitcases.

Hey Steph!

This is Trevor, demonstrating the skill required to navigate southern Manitoba with a GPS. See, he’s so good he can do it with his eyes closed!

Arriving at the lake, we found the family’s cluster of campsites and proceeded to set up our own little tent in the drizzle. Oh! Was it was cold! I even had to pull out my stinky old fleece-lined raincoat that I stuffed in the bottom of my backpack “just in case”.

The big plan was to have the wedding that evening on the shore of the lake, and then go back to the lodge and have drinks and snacks. It was a good plan! Unfortunately, the weather didn’t get the memo. And so, since it was raining and cold, we had a sort of makeshift ceremony in the reception room of the lodge, waited an hour or so, then the drinks and music got started.

This is the only shot I got of the wedding. The handsome one is the Giesbrecht, of course.

All in all, I just had fun sitting around with my family, catching up, drinking lemon water from the bar and playing with my ipod because the lodge had wi-fi. That’s one think I didn’t expect on my Manitoba camping trip!

Moving on to the rest of the weekend, we did a lot of cooking and eating – possibly the most important part of any camping trip.

Dad is very proud of his “camping kitchen”

Me and Dad in a tag team crepe-making venture

Steph, really enjoying my crepes

Of course, Grandma can’t help but take part in the cooking.

It It was so nice to see her again!

Camping’s a little different now than when we were kids, but just as fun :)
(This one’s for you, Harmony! Long live Oscar!)

Since it was too cold to swim or hang out by the lake, the between-meals activities for Steph and Trevor and Dad and I consisted of mountain biking all over the place! Clear Lake is pretty huge and over the course of the weekend, we biked quite far in either direction around the lake, found a lot of beautiful spots, and got sufficiently and wonderfully muddy in the process.

Hey, is that my hat!?

At one point, the bike trail narrowed into this little sandbar with water on both sides, and I just had to put my feet in! It was a highly technical process. Step 1: lay mom’s crappy bike down in the sand as close to the water as possible. Step 2: carefully take off shoes and socks and place them on the bike. Step 3: roll up pants and disturb some fishies!

Occasionally, we even got to bike and eat at the same time. Yay for saskatoons!

On one evening, Dad and I got to do some biking of the motorized variety. Thanks uncle Ken!

There weren't enough bikes for everyone so some of us simply hung out.

The chilly long weekend coming to a close, I had one more day before my flight back to Vancouver so I decided to squish myself into my parents’ truck and ride along home to Altona with them. It was nice to visit. I managed to find some books in my closet that I’d been searching for, play with my old telescope a bit, have lunch with my other Grandma, help Mom and Dad unpack the camping gear and go for a little bike ride around town to see what’s new.

“Helping” my ingenious dad unload his homemade camper from the truck

What’s new indeed! Turns out they’d built a new fountain and sculpture garden next to the park where the dilapidated mini-golf used to be. Yup, this place gets Jen’s stamp of approval.

Jen + sculptures = friends

And finally, some scenes you just don’t see in Vancouver:

I returned to Vancouver on Tuesday night and the heat wave was pretty much over. No time for the beach anyway, since I was back to work bright and early on Wednesday. I smell some more holidays coming up, though! Yup, soon I’m going to get to pick my sister up from the airport! Can’t wait!

I Will Have My Day Trip

2009-08-26T19:41:00.000-07:00

Moving right along with summer, let’s take a trip to White Rock.

It happened a little later than expected, actually. You see, Chris had this big plan to pick a day that we both had off, (preferably the solstice) rent a little car and make a trip down to White Rock where we would spend the day cruising around, shopping, drinking coffee, and most importantly spending the exceptionally long summer evening strolling down the beach and watching the sunset.

Unfortunately on the solstice it rained, and it was cloudy and retardedly chilly for the next couple of weeks, and we worked a lot, and well, it was just starting to get annoying in general. So at one point we just picked a day off and said rain or shine, we’re having our day trip!

It wasn’t the greatest weather in the world, but fine for driving and shopping and drinking coffee. In the evening when we got to the pier for our little walk, the sun was starting to peek out in the west!

Hello pier!

Hello sky!

Aside: I don't know if anyone remembers, but this is the very same pier that we happened to see in a Bollywood movie that time we were having dinner at our favorite Indian resturant, in none other than Kyoto, Japan!

By far the most fantastic part of our day was dinner. After our bit of pier-walking and train-viewing at White Rock Beach, we hopped into our little Pontiac and drove along to Crescent Beach, most notably to Pelagos, which we have officially named “Greek Restaurant with Best Real Estate Ever”.

Probably due to the drippy weather, and it being a weekday, the outdoor, beachside patio at Pelagos was virtually empty. The thing is, it never quite rained at all, the furniture was totally dry, and they even had those patio-heating lampstands between each table. Fine by us, let’s get a seat with a view!

Yes, and this was the view from our table.

Allow me to point out that there isn’t even a road between the restaurant and the beach. Just an unpaved walkway. Oh so peaceful.

Seeing as it was apparently still raining somewhere in the sky, but the sun was setting a healthy orange and red in the west, we were also treated to a rainbow in the east! What a treat!

And last but not least, let’s put up a picture of my attractive date.

We would have taken a picture of the massive platter of Greek food that we’d ordered, but it was gone before the cameras even had a chance – sorry!

After dinner, taking advantage of the still-relatively-long day, we took one more stroll, watching every bit of the sunset as we walked from one end of the beach and back again.

Pretty handy with a cell phone camera, huh?

Grill, Feast and be Merry

2009-08-10T19:37:00.000-07:00

Long live summer! Oh, how I wish I were still a school kid and had the whole summer off! … but not be quite as bored… and maybe have more money… and a car…

Hmmm. Become a teacher, you say? Well, my career path is still a work in progress, but we won’t get into that right now.
At present, let's just like to continue with summertime stories. So, beginning where the last blog entry left off, with May long weekend just being over and my mid-week birthday passing quickly by, we come to the weekend yet again, this one we’ll refer to as May long weekend II: the first camping trip of the season.

In our attempt to relive the fabulous May long weekend of 2008, Harmony and I thought we return to the ever so quaint and rustic Cat Lake. And seeing as Chris happened not to be in Europe this year, he came along too! Well…. actually, since I had to work Saturday morning, we pretty much just cajoled him into going with Harmony on Friday so she could get a site without being alone with the bears. I took the Greyhound after work (and arrived fully intact) to join them for the remainder of the fantastically hot lake-floating, dock-sitting, steak-grilling, smore-devouring weekend. Don’t think we got any pictures this time, sorry. But Cat Lake still looks the same.

OK, now let’s just skip over June which involved a lot of work and crappy weather... which takes us to Canada Day!
This Canada day was sweet, right up there with the time we actually went to Ottawa and hung out on Parliament Hill. The first order of the day (or any holiday or weekend at our place for that matter) was, of course, sleeping in followed by a large and absurdly good breakfast. Then to the bus, and we were off to the far reaches of Richmond BC, more specifically to Steveston Village, for their annual Salmon Festival. I won’t get into the obvious chaos of trying to travel that far - to such a large event - on buses - on a stat holiday - but suffice it to say at some point between lunch and dinner we found ourselves at the charming fishing village of Steveston, and waiting in line for salmon grilled on a jynormous barbecue.

Ok here we are! Excuse me, has anyone seen a huge salmon barbecue? Anyone?

Smile, Schatz! Happy Canada Day… wait.. What’s that behind you? I think it might be…

The salmon barbecue! Yay!

I guess they were just using wood to cook the salmon. These guys just kept throwing logs on the fire.

As we were waiting in line we got to watch these handsome guys doing the cooking.

And finally, after getting our plates and picking out a sunny spot on the grass, it was time to enjoy.

After lunch we wandered around the festival some more.

I had a candy apple in front of a large inflatable native-art-fish.

I also tried to break into a Bank of Canada safe in an old post office. Good times.

As we were wandering near the belt-sander races, I believe, Chris got a call from one of our friends who happens to work for Vancouver’s annual Bard on the Beach Shakespeare festival. She had free tickets for us for tonight’s show! Right on! And yes, even if you’re in Steveston and the show is in Vanier Park and it’s a holiday and you have to take the bus and you have to stop at the mall and buy new pants on the way there because the show is outdoors at night and you have no time to stop at home and when you get there you have to send your Schatz to wait in the rush seating line while you go and pick up hamburgers for dinner and scarf them down in the 10 minutes before the show starts, you don’t turn down free tickets :)

Lights out in the courtyard of the Bard tents after the show.

The show was great. I ended up seeing one of the comedies again this year, Comedy of Errors, and of course it was oh so funny. After the show and it being Canada Day, we were hoping to catch some fireworks in the bay, but without luck. Turns out this year they were doing the Canada Day fireworks on the other side of downtown, that is, on the other side of all those tall buildings we were looking at. We couldn’t see a thing. We heard the fireworks, anyway, but it’s not quite the same. Chris was a little disappointed. You’d think you could shoot fireworks a little higher than an office building, but who knows?
Moving right along now with our beach theme, only a couple of days later Chris and I managed to arrange a little get together with my lifelong best cousin Rachel and her charming husband Grant, who live oh so close yet so far away in Abbotsford. The deal was that that they would drive their car all the way up here to the city and Chris and I would prepare a delicious little beach barbecue dinner for them in return. A little bit of Frisbee, wading in the water, some hummus, a couple of shishkebabs and to top it off, gelato at a completely different but just as gorgeous beach; these are the ingredients of an awesome evening.

And this is where I would paste the adorable picture of Rachel wearing her lawn char-with-backpack-straps. It was the only picture I managed to take that evening, but alas it seems to have been the victim of one of my recent cell phone memory clearing parties.

But do not fear. I have plenty of other summer pictures and stories just waiting for their turn on the blog, so check back soon!

Sun, Snow and Serenity

2009-06-04T11:58:00.000-07:00

Let me first say that I am having quite a difficult time at the moment, sitting here and writing in this blog. You see, it’s 11am, it’s sunny, 23 degrees and rising, it’s my day off and there are 3 different beaches within an hour’s bus ride that are calling my name. Oh, summertime how I love you.

But I promised my mommy that I would write a few stories in here and put up a few pictures so I’m going to do what I can before noon….

Firstly, let us welcome summer in Vancouver! To kick off the occasion, my old buddy Erin came up from the depths of the Lower Mainland to spend the long-weekend Sunday with us, hiking the afternoon away on the very-warm-yet-somehow-very-snow-covered north shore, then replenishing all those calories by settling in for some massive Korean barbecue, and to top it off, going down to the beach with our desserts and watching the sunset.

Erin was the one with the camera that day, so all the good pictures of the valley, the food and the beach ended up on her blog, so check it out.

I managed to capture a few moments on my cell phone, though:

Let’s take the “experienced hikers only” route! Or maybe not…

A “cool” experience, hiking on mountain snow when it’s 20+ degrees out.

Remnants of the old growth forests. Do you think the people were giant back then too?

Oh, I think I see one!

After the long weekend, we all begrudgingly returned to work and school, but there was another little bit of fun stored up for us, because Chris’ brother was coming up from Florida for a visit! He’d actually been in the country for a couple of weeks already, staying with friends and such, but now it was our turn to have him :) And of course Chris was more excited than anyone. I was mostly working but got to hang out with them in the evenings, watching movies, shopping, going out to eat and all sorts of things. Oh man, and when those two get together – watch out! I mean, Chris is normally a pretty subdued guy, but I don’t think he used his “inside voice” for the entire 4 days ;)

Then, of course, to add to the excitement, the very day Kenny left town, my birthday snuck up with no warning at all! Upon this realization I quickly went and booked the afternoon off, took myself out for lunch, went shopping and hung out at the beach until dinnertime.

The birthday babe!

The tide was out so far that afternoon that people were playing football way out into the bay.

Say hello to my 27-year-old feet. Yikes.

And seeing as I have the best Schatz that ever lived and breathed, of course there was a mountain of carefully wrapped presents on the table and when I got home that night.

Including but not limited to a Roots bag and the Firefly DVD set,

A hilarious card…

… that he claims he did *not* steal,

and a bouquet of lilies, my favoritest-ever flowers.

Oh! And how could I forget? He took me here for dinner. This place is so popular and amazing but it doesn’t take reservations, so it ended up being a whole-evening affair and altogether great fun.
So aside from the fact that I’m now one step higher on the dreaded staircase to the big 3-0, it was as nice a birthday as I could ask for!

More summertime stories to follow, but for now I'm heading out!

Just 'Cuz

2009-04-11T18:36:00.000-07:00

Today is a very special girl's birthday, someone I literally grew up with and made a fool of myself with all along the way (and continue to do so, occasionally!) I just couldn't find the right e-card for her, so she gets her very own blog entry instead!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

Journey to the Land of Red, White and Cheesecake

2009-03-16T20:20:00.000-07:00

Just to bring you up to speed, Chris left for Europe on Sept 9th, 2008 for Europe to do a series of internships, and came home on March 7th, 2009. It was a long six months, and both of us have done plenty of exciting things in the meantime that could probably have been blogged about. I had a roommate, I got a new job, and as for Europe… well, it’s just full of adventures, but I’m going to have to save those details for another time.

Upon Chris’ return, I took a week off work, got a rental car and we went on a little vacation down south to do some major relaxing in Seattle and Portland! Neither of us had been down there before and Portland came highly recommended.

Here we go! This is on the highway to Seattle. Despite being March already, it decided to snow AGAIN that morning here on the west coast. Luckily it stopped by the time we left and the roads were clear.

America, here we come!

Here we are in Seattle.

Our hotel was really cool, an old place that’s been redone in art deco style. I especially liked the super-deep bathtub.

That evening we strolled around Seattle downtown trying to figure out dinner, when we stumbled across none other than the Cheesecake Factory! Now, for some of you who may not know of a certain favorite TV show of ours, this may not be significant, but anyway we were excited and it was a really cool place.

Guess what they serve here?

Little do you know, Cheesecake Factory, we’ll see you again soon...

And moving right along, since Portland was actually our goal, we jumped into our little Ford Focus once again the next morning and headed out. Not before taking advantage of the sunny morning to visit the space needle and surroundings.

Who’s that old man next to my car?

The space needle is surrounded by all these massive modern pieces of art.

Find Jen!

There are also a Science Fiction museum AND a History of Rock and Roll museum down there, which I was sooo tempted to go to, but we had a driving schedule to adhere to. Next time, Seattle!

We arrived in Portland with daylight to spare and firstly checked into the most interesting hotel ever.

What? A school? ...Yes, a school!

It’s actually an old elementary school that has been renovated into a hotel. The classrooms are hotel rooms, the cafeteria is a restaurant, the offices are bars, the auditorium is a movie theatre and the teacher’s lounge is one giant hot tub!

Plus, there’s weird artwork everywhere, and a lot of pictures of how the school used to be. This is in the main entrance, next to the front desk. Gong!

Our room was just down here, in one of the classrooms that overlooked the ‘girls playcourt’.

Each room has huge windows and original heating vents, hanging lamps and ceiling fans, hardwood floors, and even a chalkboards that you can write on :)

Another cool hallway with skylights, this one led to the parking lot.

The cafeteria/restaurant where I had the best steak sandwich and salad with blue cheese dressing of my life. Apparently Oregon is big on micro brewed beer as well, and our little school/hotel was no exception either, they brewed their own somewhere on site, a whole bunch of different kinds too, and we tried most of them ;)

Most of our time in Portland was just spent exploring the downtown. And everyone was right, it’s a really cool city! The next full day (after sleeping in and having giant omelets for breakfast, of course) we simply drove downtown, parked and strolled around the entire day. A big chunk of our time was spent at Powell’s Books, the largest independent bookstore in the world. The place is just full of new and used books in every category under the sun. I must have bought 4 or 5 books there, it was really fun. Sorry, I didn’t take any pictures. I have no idea what time it was when we were done strolling and shopping gallivanting around Portland, but it was certainly past dinner time and we were pooped, so we just grabbed some food at the "cafeteria" (which is open until 1am!) and returned to our classroom for the night.

Oregon day 2 consisted of another ridiculously awesome breakfast at this French bakery near our hotel, and from there we took the 90-minute drive to the coast to visit the town of Seaside.

*Yay!* I’m on the beach in the middle of March! So what if I need my jacket and scarf, it’s SUNNY!

The town of Seaside is basically just this little collection of resorts and cottages interspersed with seafood restaurants, souvenir stands and ice-cream shops, all along this amazingly huge beach on the wide-open Pacific.

It was a really great, sunny day. We were only wearing sweaters and light jackets, and even took our jackets off in the afternoon. We just walked along the beach for who-knows-how-long picking up sand dollars and watching the huge waves, then we walked back again and had some world-famous clam chowder and fish and chips, and then massive ice-cream cones at this shop with a cow bench.

Yes! A cow bench!

The drive back to Portland was nice, and we even accomplished our goal of being here:

… by 8pm when they closed. Yes, despite being full of fish and chips and famous clam chowder, we simply had to eat here. We just didn’t believe it when we saw this place advertized in a local magazine and so we had to see for ourselves. The Döners were quite authentic, to be sure, although a little light on the yogurt sauce and overpriced. But we actually got to chat with the owner in German! So worth it.

Then, after our last night at the Kennedy School, it was time to hit the road again and go home. On the way, though, we made sure to pay a visit to the Mount St. Helens visitor’s center. It’s quite far from the actual mountain, but there’s a great view of it from the balcony. We could have driven another 1.5 hours to the outlook that gives you a view of the crater and everything but that would have been a little far out of the way. Inside there was a short movie and a nice little museum. We learned a lot!

A nice couple from Texas offered to take our picture with the mountain (well, it ended up being a nice picture of “us” anyway)

Here’s a shot of the snow-covered mountain.

Continuing on our way home, we had great views of the rest of Washington as well. This is Mount Rainer, which was staring at me through the passenger window most of the afternoon.

Passing through Seattle once again, it was time for dinner and we decided to stop in another section of the city called Bellevue, went to this really nice shopping center in search of food, and what did we find but another Cheesecake Factory! Well, why not? Let’s go for the real American experience while we’re here :)

Since we took our time on the trip home, we ended up arriving pretty late, and of course, having to unpack the car in the rain. Oh well, it just made sleeping in my own bed again all the better.

The next day we had to say farewell to the car *sniff sniff*, but Vancouver has plenty to offer, if not sunny weather, and we made the most of our last few days off before heading back to work again and normal, boring life. On the bright side, my Schatz is home again, and I'm still super happy about that :)

While I'm At It

2009-01-01T15:16:00.000-08:00

Hey again!
Christmas being over, I went back to work for a whole three days but then New Year's just snuck up on me! Now I'm home again and a little bored, just playing on the computer, and I thought, why not write another special holiday blog entry?

I really just want to share with you where I went and what I did on Tuesday:

Yay the new Olympic speed skating oval!

Now, I was already there for the grand opening way back on December 13th, at which time I got to skate for a whole 10 minutes before they kicked us off the ice. But my camera wasn't working that day anyway, so I took the 45 minute bus ride after work on Tuesday and went back there (and paid the $8 admission!) to skate for a good two hours.

Apparently you can fit 3 hockey rinks inside the ice track, so just to give you an idea of how huge this place is, I thought I would tape myself skating just one lap so you can see how long it takes. And I'm not going slowly! (I even think it only ended up being 3/4 of a lap...)

Weeee!! I feel like such an Olympian!

This is a much less blurry shot of the building. The roof is some kind of fancy wood pattern and the one wall is totally glass. It's very cool.

And last but not least, this is the women's bathroom. That's all rubber skate-friendly flooring. Also check out the fancy modern sinks!

Getting there from downtown was easy, but getting home on the bus (at night in the freezing rain) was a little tiresome and complicated, so I don't know how often I'll be making the trip across the river to play on the frozen Olympic goodness, however it's pretty awesome so I don't think it would take too much convincing.

Now... I wonder when they'll be opening the new Olympic bobsled track? ;)