About time for another update

I just realised I hadn't blogged since our Mexico trip, which was 2 months ago now! Not much has been going on, just general every day life!

Normally in winter we don't see blue sky except for a couple of days. This photo was in February on one of the rare sunny days - it was still about 0 degrees though! This is taken from downtown and looking over to the north shore. I love the view with the mountains in the background. If you look closely you can even see a float plane on the right hand side!


This is more a typical winters day - with the grey sky and the rain! The cables are for the electric buses that go around the city - there aren't many diesel ones around.

I was also lucky enough for Andrew to buy me a KitchenAid mixer in the boxing day sales! I've wanted a stand mixer ever since I left home - I grew up with Mum using hers a lot and always wanted one of my own. It was a crazy deal - $500 down to $200 - and has been getting good use!

Since I haven't been working, we haven't been going out quite as much for dinners as we used to. However we did go out for lunch one day, where Andrew ordered a burger.... and this is what arrived. It took a while for him to think about how to attack it!



We have also been lucky enough for our landlords to replace all our kitchen appliances - so we now have a stainless steel oven, dishwasher and fridge/freezer! Very nice.

I have picked up some temp work, which is good. Nice to get out and meet new people! And the money is nice of course.

It's not too long to go and we should be out of winter - coming up we're going to the Bon Jovi concert later this month, and last month I went to see Chelsea Handler, who I think is hilarious! She was so funny, I walked out with sore cheeks.

Mexican Honeymoon

Friday the 7th of January we had an early start to get to the airport - our alarm went off at 4am! We had plenty of time to kill in the airport as there were no line-ups at security, so it was time for a coffee and then waiting...... finally we got to board our flight to Cancun, Mexico! It's a five hour flight to Cancun, so we were there mid-afternoon, local time. We got our transfer to our resort, which was just over an hour south of the airport, in the Mayan Riviera.

The Mayan Riviera is a strip that runs south of Cancun, along the coast. Cancun and the Riviera are on the east coast of Mexico, on the Caribbean side. So the water is that gorgeous azure colour, and the sand is pale - lovely! The Riviera is all resorts along one side of the road. Driving along all you see are these huge gateways to them, all on one side of the road, and on the other side are just trees. Eventually we came to our resort, checked in and got to our room. A huge Junior Suite, with sitting area, balcony, jacuzzi bath, hydro-massage shower, king size beds, and towel animals! We also had a bottle of tequila and a bottle of champagne in our room since we were honeymooners. It's an all-inclusive resort, so all the food and drinks were all included in the price we'd already paid - so it made for a very cheap week away, I think we spent less than $100 while we were away!

The resort had a couple of pools, including one with a swim-up pool bar! It also had a "lazy river" (or "leasy river" according to the resort map. Awesome. It was a large resort, with the whole complex having around 1300 rooms or so. We did find the food to be quite greasy, with lots of oil and cheese and stuff. Apparently it's pretty typical of Mexican food, but who knows, really! Subsequently Andrew got sick on day 3, which involved getting the doctor in (it's not a vacation without an insurance claim for us, apparently). He quickly came right though but it did mean that we took it pretty easy all week and didn't actually leave the resort apart from one afternoon.

That afternoon we went to Playa Del Carmen, which is a town about half an hour north of our resort. We wanted to have a look around and do a bit of shopping. It's right by the beach (so was our resort), but whereas our resort is in a cove, Playa is on a long stretch of beach. As you can see, the weather wasn't the greatest that day! The rest of the week we had good weather, but this day was a good one to escape the resort since it was wet at times. Playa itself we found to be very touristy. A long strip of shops - mainly souvenir shops, cigar stores (Cuban ones - since Americans can't go to Cuba), money changers and pharmacies. As the drugs in Mexico aren't regulated, you can get all sorts of prescription only stuff over the counter (or in front of the counter). And it's cheap too! Lots of shopkeepers yelling at you to come into their shops. Cheap beers - 5 beers for $7. But our stomachs weren't up to it, and besides that, the alcohol was free back at the resort!

Speaking of food, each dish in the buffet restaurants had a sign above it so you knew what it was. These signs would be in Spanish, English, French and Italian. Well, the theory was that you were supposed to know what it was. When they translate it to "Tuna of a Mexican", or "Eggs of the vinaigrette", one begins to wonder...... My runner-up fave was "Gypsy arm of coconut" - very tasty - and the outstanding winner, "Popes with cracks and onions". Winner both in taste and translation. Anyone who knows me, knows I'm a big fan of Engrish, and this rung my bells. Every buffet I scanned the signs religiously, to see what other morsels could be found.

They also had shows on in the evening, and different things relating to the shows would be displayed in the lobby. Apart from, it would seem, New Zealand. Obviously, this puzzled us, but it was nothing that a cocktail couldn't make us feel better about. We did wonder if maybe there had been more earthquakes while we were gone, and maybe the country had sunk.

We also became obsessed with towel animals. When we first checked in we had one in our room - a peacock. Then every day after that we'd get a new one. The second day was a jedi-type person, then it was another peacock (different style), then a bunny, and a dog. The best part was that they stopped taking them away at one point, and just kept adding to our collection, so we had a towel animal farm. Needless to say, we couldn't help but put them in all sorts of sexual positions. It seemed appropriate at the time. As this could be a children's show, I'll keep the photo G rated.

All in all we had a great week, nice and relaxing, lots of lazing by the pool with cocktails! I love the fact that alcohol was included and you never had to think about money when ordering a drink. However, the food doesn't come close to the quality you get on a cruise. Also, the area is so touristy that you don't get any insight to what life might be like in Mexico, or even see anything of the "real" Mexico. But we still enjoyed it and came back nice and relaxed!

Las Vegas & our wedding

We managed to get a great deal to Las Vegas, so decided to pop down for a weekend. We flew down on Saturday morning - it's only a 2 1/2 hour flight - so we were there by lunchtime. Time for a spot of shopping before we checked in to our hotel, the Excalibur, on the strip. Not a flash hotel, but the price was right! The Excalibur is done up like a castle, with turrets and things. I hunted out the Mr Cashman slot machine and promptly lost $5.

A couple of our friends actually booked the same weekend in Vegas, and they arrived Saturday night. We had a few drinks in our room, thanks to the cheap American alcohol (I may have mentioned that before?!) - a bottle of Jim Beam for $11.99, thanks very much! They came and met us and we went out to a fantastic piano bar in New York New York. There were two grand pianos set up, facing each other, and they took written requests. These guys could play anything! They were fantastic. We stayed there for a while and then headed over to the Irish pub, also in NYNY, where they had a great Irish band playing, and even a woman doing a jig! Andrew and I called it a night about 12.30 or so, as we'd been up since 6am that morning, and the others stayed out.

Sunday morning Andrew and I got up to get ready to get married! We only decided the week before to do it, it was a good opportunity since we were going to Vegas anyway. We wanted something really low stress, and this was it! It was just the two of us, so it was really nice and personal - we picked our own music, we had Lionel Richie "You Are" (you are the sun, you are the rain.....) at the beginning, and then Marvin Gaye "How Sweet It Is" at the end.

Afterwards we went and picked up the girls and went to the Las Vegas sign for some more photos - the quintessential Vegas wedding photo! Then Andrew and Kerri wanted to go on the rides at the top of the Stratosphere tower, so we drove up there, and Lindsey and I decided to grab a drink while we waited. I hadn't even had any water since we left the hotel at 11am - and now it was about 1.30pm. Parched, we walked up to the bar, me still in my wedding dress, and ask for two glasses of water, and Lindsey ordered a beer. Next thing you know, the bartender is refusing me a glass of water (after pouring it, made a big show of taking it back and tipping it out), as I don't have any ID on me! I know he was doing his job, but he didn't have to be a bastard. He could've still been polite, but chose to take the other route - not nice. Needless to say, I wanted to get out of there, but had to wait for the others to finish their rides.

By the time they met up with us I wanted out of my dress, so we went to the hotel, got changed, and then out for lunch - to one of my fave places, The Cheesecake Factory! It's the third time I've been (San Francisco & Seattle) and it's always good, and they have such a huge menu that it's easy to please everyone! We all had a great meal, with cheesecake to take out, and then relaxed back at the hotel for a bit before going to Mandalay Bay for the Lion King. I've seen it twice on the stage before, but none of the others had - it's so good! So well done, the make-up and costumes are amazing. Timon, Pumba and Za-Zu are fantastic - they're my faves! Afterwards we had a quick flutter at the Luxor before heading to bed.

Monday morning and it was time for a bit more shopping and then some people watching along the Strip - Vegas has the best people watching in the world I think! There are so many different types of people, it's fascinating. We met up with the others for an early dinner before heading to the airport - we went to T.I. for their buffet - it was pretty average and we didn't feel it was worth the money. There are much better buffets to be had in Vegas, so we'll remember that for next time! By the time we landed in Vancouver it was midnight, and we were welcomed by - you guessed it - rain. Ah, home again!

Whistler weekend

I'm having a bit of a change of pace - I finished up at my job on November 30th. It was definitely time for a change and to do something different. I don't have another job lined up, I'm just taking a break for a bit, and will start looking for something new and exciting early next year.

This means that I now have every weekend free! One of the reasons I quit was that I needed some balance in my life - Andrew and I were both sick of not having enough time together. And the first weekend in December we took off up to Whistler for the night. There was actually about 12 or so of us that went up. Saturday morning we stopped in Vancouver to rent snowshoes - it was a GORGEOUS day - perfect blue sky, and Vancouver was looking amazing with the snowy mountain backdrop. Then it was up the highway to the mountain. It's about a 2 hour drive from Vancouver, so it's not far.

We got up there and met up with some others for lunch, and then three of us went snowshoeing. It was our first time, so we stuck to groomed trails and it wasn't too bad! We ended up going right around Lost Lake, about 3km in total, not bad for a first effort. You have to lift your feet up higher than normal, so it's a good workout - imagine even more so if you're walking in more ungroomed trails. We had pretty crappy snowshoes, so it would be interesting to see how it would be if we had decent ones. We'll be giving it another go I'd say!

We checked into our hotel and relaxed for a bit - we were staying at the Fairmont Whistler Chateau - a real alpine style hotel right at the base of Blackcomb. We got upgraded to a slopeview room, which overlooked Blackcomb slopes and the pools and hot tubs - pretty cool! We'd bought some wine, and had complimentary chocolates waiting for us, so we were set for a while. You can see the view from our hotel room on the right here.

Our other friends had rented a couple of apartments, so we walked over there and hung out and had some drinks. Everyone was pretty tired, a lot of people had been boarding that day, but we had plenty of laughs. One of the Aussie girls leaves on Wednesday, so it was the last time we'll see her for a while, so it was nice to be all together.

The next morning was pretty leisurely, we checked out at 11am and wandered down to the Village in search of food, and then headed back home. The Vancouver Santa parade was on, so we got stuck in the street in our car not being able to get to our building! 20 minutes later it was OK though and we finally made it inside!

FIrst snowfall of Winter

This winter is supposed to be the worst in 55 years! Sounds like we're going to get the winter this year, that we could've done with last year when we had the Winter Olympics! So we're in for a cold one - it's not even offcially winter, and we got the first snowfall that stayed on the ground on November 25th!

We woke up to this view in the morning - we even had snow on our balcony! Last winter we only had a few snow flurries downtown, and then snow never settled on the ground, so for it to snow this early, this much - I think we're in for a cold one!

Walking to work, it was quite pretty - a lot of people didn't go to work that day if they had far to travel. I did feel that it must have been blatantly obvious that I was a foreigner though, as I clearly didn't have my snow legs - I was walking every gingerly! Getting home was interesting though, I took the bus, and half way up the hill the driver had to ask us all to move to the back half of the bus as he couldn't get enough traction to get up the hill! We got there in the end though!

We did have some cold temperatures over those few days, it was down to around -9 C at times, bbbbrrrrrrrrrrrr.......... and when we woke up the next day, the snow was pretty much all gone. Until the next time......

Disneyland & LA

Over Thanksgiving weekend in October I went down to Los Angeles with a couple of friends. We had 5 days in the sun - gorgeous weather, abnormally warm, it got up to about 34 degrees! Perfect. Being Thanksgiving weekend, the airport was crazy busy, and I managed to almost miss my flight, thanks to being singled out for a thorough check at security. Luckily I made it and we were on our way! A quick 2 1/2 hour flight had us arriving into LA and on our way to stay at Anaheim.

We got to the hotel a little before check-in, so dumped our bags and went off for lunch. The original plan was to spend the afternoon at Disneyland, but we decided to hold off and spend the day at the pool instead. It was so hot and we'd all had an early start, so what better way to spend the day! For dinner we went to a Mongolian grill place, which was nice, we sat outside on the patio and had drinks - lovely!

Saturday morning we headed off to Disneyland! All three of us had all been to Disneyland as young kids, so we remembered bits of it, so we were looking forward to seeing it as adults. We'd been lucky enough to get a free 3 day pass each thanks to great travel agent deals - they're normally over $200 each! We picked them up and headed into the park, walked along Main St and then saw the castle! All of us commented that we remembered it being a lot bigger, but then I guess we were a lot smaller back then too! The park was all done up for Halloween, lots of pumpkins and orange everywhere. Now, I'm not one for big rides, and Disneyland wasn't the main reason for me going on this trip, but the others went on lots of rides. I went on a couple, shat my pants at the fast ones (which weren't even fast by normal standards), and hit the shops while the others continued. They raved about a lot of the rides, there are plenty to please the adults as well as the kids! The line ups for a lot of them were long, but you can get fast passes, which means you get to come back at a certain time and skip the line, so you can work it out.

Then it was back to the hotel pool before dinner, we went back towards Disney for dinner, to Downtown Disney (just outside the park). We went to a fantastic place, with New Orleans style cuisine. It was a big typical Southern style building, with a big veranda, you really feel like you could be in the South! Our waitress was amazing - and we tipped heftily. The food was really good - great steak & jambalaya. The whole thing was a real experience. We had a few too many drinks and then went to another bar, where Lindsey finished off her bottle of wine she'd smuggled in from the other place...... we're classy girls.

Sunday morning was a slightly slow start with slightly sore heads, and then we went to the California Adventure Park, which is still part of Disney - the neighbouring park. It has a lot more of the bigger rides - including a big big rollercoaster than Nat went on. We did a few things around there, went for more swims at the hotel, and then in the evening we went for another good dinner at the Rainforest cafe, and then back to the Park again. We were going to see the World of Colour - it's a show they have on twice every evening. They have fountains going in time to music, which they colour. They'll also show pictures from Disney movies in the fountains - very impressive! They're like the Bellagio fountains in Las Vegas, but with colour.






The next morning we picked up our swanky black Dodge Charger and headed up towards Malibu. It took us a while to get up there, as LA traffic isn't the best! Most of the beaches there are private, so we couldn't do much, so turned around and drove back to Santa Monica for a nice lunch on a patio on 3rd St Promenade, and then a spot of shopping. Nat & Lindsey went down to the pier and the beach, but as I'd been there just in July last year I chose to shop instead! Next stop was Venice Beach, where we saw lots of great street performers, eccentric people, it's such a great spot for people watching! Also Muscle Beach, with the outdoor gym, and outdoor basketball courts a la White Men Can't Jump. Late afternoon we drove down to Newport Beach and Huntington Beach, in Orange County. By the time we got there it was getting dark, but we found a great place for dinner - a packed little bar with the BEST Mexican food I've ever had - and it was super cheap! It's definitely on my re-visit list for next time. I was proud of myself for driving everywhere - I drove more in LA than I ever have in Vancouver!

Tuesday was our last day - Hollywood, including lunch at the Hard Rock Cafe, then a drive around Beverly Hills. I love driving around Beverly Hills, all the flash houses and palm trees, it's like the intro to 90210 back in the day. We had a quick stop at the Beverly Center for a last minute shop, then it was time to drop the car off and head to the airport.

Everyone knows security at LA Airport is supposed to be top notch, so I was surprised to find 310ml bottle of sunblock in my handbag halfway through the flight home. Turns out security is pretty shit and you could probably get any old thing through! Comforting.

August & September catch up

In August I went to see Michael Buble in concert. I'd never been that big of a fan, but I actually like his take on old songs, and his new stuff too now. I think maybe it's partly to do with the fact that he is rammed down our throats on regular basis on the radio, as they try and get their Canadian music quota in. That, and I think he's quite good looking.

Anyhow, he put on a great show - he's quite the entertainer.

They're quite relaxed with smoking pot over here, and sure enough, there were people lighting up behind us - in an indoor arena!! Ridiculous - I'm not a fan.

I also went to see Crowded House with Nic, awesome concert - made us think of home lots! I think most of the crowd was from NZ or Oz! They performed so well and Neil Finn was quite the comedian and really interacted with the audience. They're SO good!

September brought what is fast becoming my favourite time of year here, autumn/fall. The colours are gorgeous! I love the leaves - and there is such a distinction between the seasons here that is lacking at home.

The leaves are beautiful on the trees, and when they fall it's just as spectacular. You have to relish it as it doesn't last long!