I am writing this as the maintenance guy has wandered out of our apartment saying “don’t touch anything...it’s live and violent”. Great. So...we finally have internet back after a month without. Hooray! I’m not going to use this blog to go into great detail about our housing situation, but in a nutshell I shall fill you in. New Year’s Day arrives and hungover we reluctantly pack up our apartment to move downstairs. BANG – the bed we bought has bed bugs. Decided that we don’t want to sleep in the apartment we go to a hotel for the night which is so bad that it almost makes us want to return to the bugs. However, after 2 serious bug sprays by the pest man, thousands of loads of laundry and frantic cleaning (plus a couple of meltdowns on the way)...we finally have the apartment pest-free (fingers crossed – although the size of the spider I had to kill for Ash yesterday would almost qualify as a pet).
Thanks to my parents’ patience at spending their visit in Vancouver’s IKEA, we also now have furniture and we’ve painted the place so it looks almost like home. The fun we had carving out lesbian relationship stereotypes in putting the furniture together was a bonus (if you’re wondering, Ash is obviously the femme...and I am not quite butch enough for flat-pack furniture). The fact that we now have to live with a mattress that has been double wrapped is a mere trifle of annoyance in comparison.
Also, a note about the bitch subletter who stole our $600 (as she is now referred to)...well, she stole our $600 and we’re trying to get it back.
Phew. Now we can move on to the fun stuff.
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| Multiple Pong |
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| Bright Lights |
Ashlee has discussed Christmas on her blog so I can take it from there...although I will just reiterate how good our Christmas dinner was, particularly the pigs-in-blankets. Anyway, we had a really fun New Year’s Eve being introduced to Beer and Champagne Pong which I was good at until I got drunk. We also managed to get to Bright Lights at Stanley Park which is super cute and included a little train ride.
Then Mum and Dad arrived on the 3rd and we had a great week showing them the sights of Vancouver, mainly in the rain. They spent all week trying to see the mountains through the mist and mainly failed. However the day after they left, the views were champion. (I’ve been watching too much Sarah Millican).
Highlights of the week were the sun finally coming out when we did Stanley Park, amazing food at Bin 941 and the Vancouver Canucks hockey game. We introduced them to the bars of Vancouver and we had a great time doing beer tasting at Alibi bar, followed by an even better meal at Bao Bei. I also nearly killed Mum at Meat and Bread with the porchetta...and had an embarrassing moment when the staff asked how long Mum and Dad had been there and they answered, “ less than 24 hours”, revealing me to be the weirdo Meat and Bread obsessive I truly am.
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| This is my favourite photo EVER |
Me and Ash had some time off together last week and finally made it to Grouse Mountain. It was minus 7 in Vancouver, and about as cold up there, but the views were amazing. It was perfect snow everywhere and, after a beer for courage...and a really disappointing burger, Ash convinced me to go snow shoeing. Apparently going up the mountain and just doing the 3 minute sleigh ride wasn’t enough adventure. However, I’m so glad I did because it was really fun. Especially seeing Ash fall over twice. There was only one tricky moment where I got a bit panicky on a really steep slope, and in fact the only times I nearly fell was when I kept trying to kick snow at Ash’s arse. I’m also pretty convinced that we found Narnia.
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| Snow-shoeing Ash |
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| View from Grouse Mountain |
On the food and drink front, we found a beer that tastes almost like Harvest Pale with Mum and Dad. Ash’s hot tip of ‘Revolver’ gains the prize as the best coffee I have ever drunk, and I have spent several rainy afternoons buried in a booth there with Lord of the Rings while they play 1940s music and I get all chest fluttery from the caffeine. As a sideline, I’m still having a hard time with LOTR and in fact I fell asleep at the Council of Elrond in Starbucks (thanks to Ash for pointing that out to me).
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| Rival for favourite photo EVER |
Me and Ash went for some really disappointing Southern Barbecue, but did find a really cute Japanese restaurant where you get tucked into little booths in the floor and get cracking on the Gyoza. I wanted to order the octopus balls but chickened out. The steamed pork buns have made a reappearance and were even better than the first, and we’re starting to become regulars at the place that does the Chorizo Eggs Benedict. I’m worried this is not a good thing. We don’t even need to have the menu any more.
We’ve discovered that they only do salted popcorn here. When I asked if they had sweet they said, “It’s coming. We haven’t caught on yet”. Oh, and we got drunk and had a SkittlesBomb and some form of banana liqueur which, on reflection, was unnecessary.
We’re in the process of planning a trip to Seattle for February, and have Vancouver Island on the backburner for when it gets a bit warmer (our plans were foiled by the aforementioned minus 7 weather). The original Josephine Dirtos has booked her flights so we have confirmed visitors for May, which is really exciting.
Work is about the same, a bit quiet this time of year, but I’ve been creating lots of fun camera games so it’s not all bad (it is).
Hope to be able to blog lots more now we’re back online.
A belated Happy New Year to all!
Stella x
PS. Congratulations Katie and Johnny...another rat engaged!
