WHISTLER / VANCOUVER

After our harrowing drive to Whistler, we rested down to a relaxing night right in the heart of the village. We kept thinking how two years ago, Jon Montgomery walked down the Village Stroll drinking a pitcher of beer right after he won his gold medal. We kept thinking how many people must have been up here for those Olympics and what a party it must’ve been. We checked out the Olympic rings and the Olympic flame pedestal. Kinda sad to see it not lit. We could see all the ski hills up in the sky around us, but they weren’t ready for skiing yet and we had decided to leave our skis at home. ;) Go Vancouver Winter Olympics 2010!! 14 Golds was it? The new winter record for golds; lets see if we can top it in 2014!

The next morning, we drove down to Vancouver on the Sea-to-Sky highway. The drive was beautiful with a tinge of stress. We headed to Stanley Park where we strolled several kilometers along the sea wall. The Pacific Ocean! At last! Finally! I dipped my feet into the waters! What a view! The mountains on one side, the ocean the other. This was my first time in Vancouver, but Megan’s 2^nd.

For the next two nights, we stayed with our old coworker Kamala, her fiancé Roberto and her daughter Charm. Kamala and Roberto showed us around the city; we saw the infamous East Hastings and all its scenery of characters: a man opening a sewar lid and trying to remove something from the sewars, a woman hunched over in a doorway sniffing something off the ground, a couple of individuals shaking hands and exchanging products. A highlight. We saw Granville Island: its market and the general carnival feel. We saw the campus of UBC, which is the most beautiful campus I’ve seen. Maybe one day I’ll be a professor there? In the evenings, one night we played a ‘relationship’ board game called Telepaths in which Megan and I won, after a shaky start. The next night, we went out to the Yaletown Brew Pub for Halloween, we were all costume-less, but had fun watching all the costumed folks live it up. An interesting man there approached Roberto, informing him he was hot; he invited Roberto to join him and his girlfriend at their table because this man’s girlfriend’s friend needed a companion for the night. Roberto gracefully declined, telling the man that he was engaged; the man’s girlfriend’s friend ended up finding another man instead. All’s well that ends well.

We made it back home at 3 in the morning, having to get up at 6 to hit up the ferry to Vancouver Island. In the pub, we’d seen the Tsunami advisories and wondered what the situation on the water would be like. Kamala and Roberto assured us that all would be fine. We got into bed at 4 and set our alarm for 6; the alarm didn’t go off and we woke up at 645, didn’t shower, threw our stuff in the car and booked it to the ferry, which was leaving at 830!! Ah!!!! Megan was so tired while getting ready, she mistakenly wiped her deodorant stick on the armpit of her shirt. LOL. Ah! Would we make it to the ferry? Read the next entry to find out!