Our Vancouver holiday trip...aka "Our fruitless search for the sun"

We headed out of the house in the middle of the night, in heavy rain and made it to the airport around 4:30am for our flight to Vancouver...and we were so excited to be taking our first big trip together.

We landed in Vancouver around 9:30 in the morning and headed straight for our Greyhound bus up to Whistler. Nancy was a little nervous about hitting the slopes since she hadn't snowboarded in 7 years but I convinced her she'd be just fine..."come on, just because it's the home of the 2010 Olympics doesn't mean it's steep"




We got to Whistler and were greeted by amazing snow...and an even more amazing -8 degrees. Yup, -8. We seemed to have stumbled into Vancouver's worst winter in 60 years. But we were going to make the best of it, even if we froze along the way.





We were staying in Whistler Village right at the base of both Whistler mountain and Blackcomb. The next morning, it was time to brave the coldest weather either of us had ever experienced and head on up to the mountain.


That's me in there...

Interestingly enough, even though it was, oh about -14 on this crisp and refreshing morning, they hadn't had that much snowfall so only about 30% of the runs were open, but the snow was so perfect that it didn't really matter. Nancy quickly realized it was a much steeper mountain than we'd anticipated so we hit the ground running...well, for Nancy the key word in that sentence would be "hit." But she hung in there and definitely improved after a few runs.

That night we decided to wander around the village.
The village is a lot like a large promenade, there's a ton of restaurants and shops and you just wander around all day. The best part is there really isn't much of anything to do so after the slopes close at 3, you're pretty much forced to relax.






Nancy needed to cool off, so she got some ice cream. It took her about an hour to eat it and we were cracking up because it got more frozen as time passed.


On Wednesday, Nancy decided to hang around the town while I went skiing, and Thursday we went out for one more day on the slopes. Then she finally managed to convince me to go on the Ziptrek Ecotour zipline adventure! The funny thing is, I'm really not afraid of heights, but the idea of my life hanging on the line (literally) just didn't seem too enticing. Especially at these heights.


But once I took that first step, my legs trembling so much they were about to give out...I must admit it was a blast.








On Friday morning, we packed up and headed back down to Vancouver...another beautiful drive later



and we arrived...


Since it was a whole 5 degrees warmer, about -4, we headed over to Granville Island for a bite to eat.


Then we wandered around the Granville Island Market and everything looked amazing...so much good food.



We decided to take the Seabus back instead of a taxi, which made for some amazing views...




and wait a minute...is that the sun?! Oh my God, it's been so long!


The concierge told us about the Stanley Park Christmas decorations at night and once the sun set, we ventured over there to check it out. Though walking there wasn't the best idea...it was probably about 3 miles...and did I mention, it was really cold? But nevertheless, the trek was way worth it... (though the bus would have been worth it too)





The next day, we headed over to the Capilano Suspension Bridge which is a 450 foot suspension bridge sitting about 230 feet above the river.





Then we went out for a nice dinner at a place called the Boathouse and we could see boats with Christmas decorations sailing by. They're actually called the "Caroling Ships" because the people on them are supposedly singing Christmas carols...we wouldn't know because we opted to stay inside where it was warm.

But we did take the long way to the taxi stand so we could see these trees. The fire department decorates them every year...they look like one massive tree.

(btw, we didn't hear any carolers on the ships...then again, if it was -10 out, I wouldn't be singing either)

There was talk of a huge storm rolling in on Saturday night so we figured we'd be snowed in on Sunday...and considering Sunday is football day, Nancy was just fine with that.

This was the view from our room...we'd never seen snow flakes so huge!




We did manage to leave for a few hours and I must say it was actually warm out...a whopping 15 degrees, which trust me after -8 feels really warm. We went to the movie theater and watched Seven Pounds...great movie but take a box of kleenex with you.

Then came our last day...we wanted to see Stanley Park in the day time so we took a long walk around and after about 7 inches of snowfall, Monday turned out to be a beautiful clear day.









After our long walk, we had to say goodbye to beautiful Vancouver.

Because of the severe storm, we knew all the flights had been canceled on Sunday so we figured we should get to the airport really early just in case. Well we got there about 3 and a half hours before our flight and there were about 500 people in line for Air Canada and only 2 people working there. I'm actually not exaggerating when I say there were 500 people in line. Because of the storms all throughout both Canada and the US, a lot of flights were either delayed or canceled...so this was what we were looking at...


Amazingly, our flight wasn't canceled or delayed...we really were in better shape than 90% of the people there...most of them had been there for 2 days trying to get on other flights...but the fact that ours was the only on time flight became quite a concern considering we'd been standing in line for about 3 hours and our flight was leaving in 30 minutes...and we were nowhere near the front of the line. So Nancy managed to get to the front of the line in order to ask ONE OF THE TWO PEOPLE WORKING what we needed to do...they brought us to the front and let us check in...phew!

We finally make it to our gate and realize the plane isn't even there yet! All that stress, and there's no plane. Then the plane arrives but the doors don't open...why you ask? Well because Air Canada didn't have an available agent. So by the time the available agent rolled around the pilot and crew were about to go into OT...well if that happens, they get sent home. So all of us panicked passengers, knowing that if we miss this flight, we're spending Christmas in the airport, hussled our asses onto that plane in about 20 minutes. Well...then there was nobody to taxi the plane out to the runway so we sat there for another 2 hours...what happened to the OT you ask? No clue.

We finally took off...the entire time I was praying for all those poor people who weren't as lucky as we were to have a flight that somehow managed to not get canceled and not get delayed more than a few hours.

When we landed, the flight attendant welcomed us to Los Angeles and said "the temperature in Los Angeles is negative...oh, I mean 52 degrees"...NO MORE NEGATIVES!!! Woohoo...
We had an amazing time, but it's nice to be able to take off the beanie and let my head breathe.

Travel Blog: Seattle

It took us a little while to take our first trip together but Nancy and I finally did and it was amazing. In July, we decided to plan a trip to Seattle to visit her bro and because Nancy is a huge Philadelphia Eagles fan, we planned our trip around their NFL schedule. So we figured, as long as we're going to Seattle, we might as well go when the Seattle Seahawks are playing the Eagles and see the game while we're there. So we planned our trip 4 months in advance but it did work in our benefit because we were able to get an early discount on the hotel and get an upgrade for a pretty decent price. (It's important to note that we couldn't buy game tickets before we got to Seattle because it was sold out and the prices were ridiculous)

So we landed in Seattle at 10am on Friday (Halloween) and her brother and his wife picked us up. We decided to stop at the hotel and drop off our stuff then go for a bite to eat.

So you never know when you book a hotel, if you're gonna be happy with it. Imagine our surprise when we saw our room...and the view:

Bedroom:


Bathroom:


The room was insane, it was a corner room with a massive window with a view of downtown. We were so excited. But it was time to leave the room and go check out the city. The first stop was Capital Hill, the gay part of town, where her bro took us to get some great pizza at Pagliacci. So we stuffed ourselves then we headed to Volunteer Park to check out the water tower, Japanese garden, and the arboretum



and her brother showed me a feature on my camera that entertained me for hours


I couldn't get over the colors of the trees and how beautiful everything was. No wonder people are always saying we don't have seasons in LA...



We then took a ride on the Ducks. What are the Ducks you ask? Well, it's an Amphibious World War II vehicles that looks like this



And after the land tour, you go into the water



And in true Seattle spirit, once we got in the water, the weather had cleared up and we were able to get an amazing view of the skyline



The tour guide was insane but a blast. He was playing loud music and we were singing along. Since it was Halloween we had a group of 7 witches on the tour with us who were all drunk and hilarious. It's definitely the most fun tour I've ever been on.

We then headed up to the Space Needle just in time for the sunset


It was then time to say good night to Scott and Tatiana and head to dinner at a place called Icon, which is known for having some of the best comfort food in the city. We started with an artichoke gruyere dip and then I had the meatloaf and mashed potatoes and Nancy had the 5 cheese mac and cheese. After that, on my boss's suggestion, we went over to a restaurant called Flying Fish for dessert. She recommended the banana split platter, which is seriously a platter. Fortunately the short walk there helped us make a little room. I ate a little bit of it but Nancy who is not at all into banana splits was the one licking the plate.

Then it was time to call it a night and head back to our hotel. Spent a little time online trying find tickets to the game to no avail.
Enjoyed the view a little more



The next morning, we woke up and walked over to another one of my boss's suggestions, a bakery called Macrina. After about an hour wait (well worth it), we sat down for breakfast. I got the brioche french toast and Nancy got the fried egg sandwich. Oh. My. God. So good.

We decided to spend the rest of the day walking around the city. First we headed to Pike's Market where there's the famous fish market where they throw the fish. We stood next to about 35 people who were all just waiting for someone to order fish so they could see it get thrown.



It started to get rainy so after walking around, we thought it would be a good time to go on the underground tour. Seattle, because of its steep hills, (and I'm sure I'm butchering history here) had a lot of issues with flooding every time the tide came in. So in the 1800s, the city was constantly flooded. They had a major fire in 1889 and the city decided it would be the perfect time to rebuild the city properly so that it didn't flood anymore. But the store owners didn't want to wait for the city to get its act together. So while the city built the sidewalks and some new buildings 10-12 feet above sea level, the store owners decided to just rebuild at sea level. So they just had ladders to get them from the lower stores to the higher sidewalks. Well that became a mess, mostly because drunk people would fall off the sidewalks or trucks would hit potholes and cause barrels to plummet down and injure and kill people. So the store owners finally agreed to let the city finish the job...and so the Seattle underground was born.





Then we grabbed a quick bite to eat...I finally introduced Nancy to Pho! So now we wanted to go see the mother ship...that's right, REI's flagship store with the tallest free standing rock wall in the west at 65 feet tall. We headed over there thinking we could just walk right up and be able to climb but apparently they get booked up so we had to make an appointment for the next morning.

Scott and Tatianna had invited us over for dinner so a short walk up the hill and we were at their place. She made a great beet salad, some awesome pea soup, and a beet quiche was was amazing. And then we had some pear tart for dessert.
Nancy was getting stressed out that we still didn't have tickets to the game so we spent a lot of time hitting refresh on craiglist and ebay to see if we could find some decent tickets. Uh oh.
We played Cranium Turbo which was so hard that after 1 hour, we had moved two spaces and Scott and Tatianna had moved 3. So we gave up.

We took a late stroll back to the hotel, spent some more time on the internet looking for tickets and still couldn't find any. I was hoping by the morning, desperate sellers would lower their prices and we'd be good to go.

We woke up early for our rock climb, thanks to the extra hour of sleep from day light savings and I found a couple promising posts on craigslist for tickets. I emailed them and sat by the phone waiting for a call. Finally, someone called me back, he had 2 50 yard line tickets on the visitors side for $50 each...which was a great deal. So I went on paypal and transferred the money and was all set. Well, that sounded too easy...because of my address change, the transfer wouldn't clear so we were back to square one.

We headed to the rock wall and figured it would all somehow work out. When Nancy remembered her bro could do the paypal transfer. Yay!!! We finally had the tickets!!! Scott also decided to get tickets on the Seahawks side, which was great because we were exactly across from each other.

And we could enjoy our relaxing 65 foot rock climb. Ahhhh!



But we both made it to the top!



It was finally time to head to the game, so after a quick bite at Whole Foods, we got to the game where it started raining...we had covered seats! The first quarter was looking bad, with the Seahawks having a 7 to 0 lead. But after that the Eagles came back with a vengeance and won the game 26 to 7 and Nancy couldn't have been more excited.

Well it was time to say goodbye to Seattle so we went and got our bags and headed to the airport for our flight out.

It was an amazing trip and we had a blast, I can't wait to go back!