Vancouver getaway


So this weekend Erica and I "surprised" Tim and Brian and whisked them away for a couple of fun days in Vancouver. "Surprise" in quotes because time after time Erica's and my big mouths ruined yet another little nugget we had carefully planned and vowed to keep it a secret.

First, Erica told the boys to reserve the weekend of the 5th, because we were going to surprise them. Now excuse my ignorance, but doesn't that totally defeat the point of surprising somebody? I can't say much, because a couple of days later I was on the phone with a friend trying to figure out when we could meet. When she mentioned last weekend, I told her I was going to Vancouver with Tim, not realizing that Tim, who was sitting next to me, was rather confused by hearing about plans he was apparently included in, but not aware that he was participating in.

And as if these two big mouth incidents weren't enough to make this a less-than-surprise weekend, I found out that Tim had told Brian that we were going to Vancouver--something I SPECIFICALLYL told him NOT to tell Brian. But who am I to talk anyway?

Anyhow, so we took the train to Vancouver. We passed the time (it is a 4-hour train ride!) drinking mimosas, eating, reading and sleeping. But we foudn out Brian was doing more than that. He was, in fact, eavesdropping on a conversation that two teenage girls who were sitting behind us were having. Apparently, one of them was talking about how she dreamed about losing heir virginity to the sound of "What is love, baby don't hurt me, no more." Under different circumstances, good ol' BJ would have fullfilled this teenage girl's fantasy by giving her a lap dance while singing "what is love" (out of tune, of course). Instead, however, he apparently was quite disconcerted by the racy talk these two high-schoolers were having, even though he recalled the details of this conversation quite vividly and retold them with great excitement.

It was a cool trip because we walked around areas we don't usually go to. We visited several Chinese pharmacies in Chinatown full of displays of flying lizards, shrivelled seahorses, slimy sea cucumbers, etc. Contrary to what you may think, none of this made us lose our appetite and we grabbed lunch in Chinatown, running the risk of having any one of these obscure ingredients added to our meal. Afterwards we walked along Robson street and then went back to the hotel for a quick rest before we got dinner. Erica had brought an extra suitcase which she stuffed with parts of her fondue set, fruit and chocolate. Only thing, she forgot to look up a recipe for making fondue. It turned out quite alright, and we pigged out again.

We went to a tapas place for dinner and ended up at an Irish bar by our hotel.

The next day was nicer, but we were lazier, so we got a late brunch and walked for at least 5 miles to go to MEC, which is a Canadian version of REI. All that walking was worth it because I got me a cheap pair of long underwear!

We had to take the bus back, and when going through customs, Erica, loaded with her plastic supermarket bags, was stopped by customs. The sweet girl tried to tell them that she'd really like to keep the grapes because they were organic and she was really going to eat them. She got away with that, but no way the customs guy was letting her keep her sweep peas.