Vancouver BC - September 2007 Trip - Day 1
Before I begin I must apologize yet again for my lack of blogs. For those who may be slightly more astute, you have probably noticed that I did in fact post some new pictures in the photo gallery -- go to the left of this post and click on My Photos. I hope to blog more at least this weekend as we are in Vancouver, BC for a short time.
I'm still working 12-14 hour days but we decided a long time ago that we were going to take a long weekend around my birthday and here finally is the long weekend. We woke up this morning roughly 8am, which felt SO good. Got washed up, packed up and cashed up (the Canadian Dollar is at an all time high right now, not zesty). Chris found out that my surprise birthday present was delivered rather early to my work so we swung by work to pick up my brand new iTouch. Very snazzy indeed. By now it is almost 1130am and we are starving. A quick stop at my normal Starbucks for some delicious Pumpkin Spice Lattes and off we were. Early on we decided to stop at the O'Brien Turkey House. The O'Brien Turkey House is great -- it is this little Mom and Pop place off of exit 208 (Arlington exit) from I5. My Dad started taking Jody and I there when we were little kids and for me at least, it is still a favorite place to go it's just how often do I find myself that far north on I5? Anywho, I had my usual turkey pot pie, Chris enjoyed his hot turkey sandwich and we topped it off with a shared piece of homemade custard pie. Yum...my stomach hurts thinking about it now, but it was delicious.
We pack up again and by now it is 130 give or take. I drive another 40 minutes or so and decided I need to fuel up the car, so I see a sign indicating gas station. I take the exit and the gas station is like 5 miles off in the middle of nowhere next to this huge brand new casino, hotel and spa. Go figure. We end up driving all over Ferndale trying to get back onto I5. Back on I5 we now are and 20 minutes later we use our beloved NEXUS cards for the first time. NEXUS is this program that basically prescreens people so that you don't have to wait for an hour or two at the US-Canadian International Border. OMG--we are now in love with NEXUS. I was afraid that I was going to hit a pedestrian while we were driving up to the special gate, I'm just not used to going so fast near the Peace Arch entrance. We flash our NEXUS cards, the guard waves us into Canada -- and it was then we realized outloud that the $58 dollars or whatever it was we spent to get the cards were worth it. GO GET A NEXUS CARD NOW, DO IT, YOU WILL THANK ME LATER.
After entering Canada like it was old news, we finally get to our hotel. We are staying in a lovely room at the Pan Pacific. I played with my new iTouch for a while and we went off to dinner. Dinner tonight was at C Restaurant -- to die for. We had the Wine Pairing dinner -- 6 courses of OMG I can't believe how good the food is type of goodness. It started with a smoked salmon, then we moved onto seared albacore tuna with chick peas, next was the most wonderful crab risotto ever. After using bread to wipe up the risotto we feasted on crispy halibut, some beef tenderloin, and finally dessert with a super chocolate sorbet and raspberries. I definitely will go back to C Restaurant. As me more about the dinner some other time because right now my head is kind of dizzy from all of the wine and I wanted to write this particular paragraph so that I could get all of this out of my brain for now.
So that was today, Thursday September 20th -- Day 1 of our long anticipated long weekend. Tomorrow I think we're going to Stanley Park and the Vancouver Aquarium!
Side note-- I think I need a new laptop, my old one is too slow. I used Chris's new Thinkpad to type this bad boy up and it is quite nice. Quite nice indeed.
I'm still working 12-14 hour days but we decided a long time ago that we were going to take a long weekend around my birthday and here finally is the long weekend. We woke up this morning roughly 8am, which felt SO good. Got washed up, packed up and cashed up (the Canadian Dollar is at an all time high right now, not zesty). Chris found out that my surprise birthday present was delivered rather early to my work so we swung by work to pick up my brand new iTouch. Very snazzy indeed. By now it is almost 1130am and we are starving. A quick stop at my normal Starbucks for some delicious Pumpkin Spice Lattes and off we were. Early on we decided to stop at the O'Brien Turkey House. The O'Brien Turkey House is great -- it is this little Mom and Pop place off of exit 208 (Arlington exit) from I5. My Dad started taking Jody and I there when we were little kids and for me at least, it is still a favorite place to go it's just how often do I find myself that far north on I5? Anywho, I had my usual turkey pot pie, Chris enjoyed his hot turkey sandwich and we topped it off with a shared piece of homemade custard pie. Yum...my stomach hurts thinking about it now, but it was delicious.
We pack up again and by now it is 130 give or take. I drive another 40 minutes or so and decided I need to fuel up the car, so I see a sign indicating gas station. I take the exit and the gas station is like 5 miles off in the middle of nowhere next to this huge brand new casino, hotel and spa. Go figure. We end up driving all over Ferndale trying to get back onto I5. Back on I5 we now are and 20 minutes later we use our beloved NEXUS cards for the first time. NEXUS is this program that basically prescreens people so that you don't have to wait for an hour or two at the US-Canadian International Border. OMG--we are now in love with NEXUS. I was afraid that I was going to hit a pedestrian while we were driving up to the special gate, I'm just not used to going so fast near the Peace Arch entrance. We flash our NEXUS cards, the guard waves us into Canada -- and it was then we realized outloud that the $58 dollars or whatever it was we spent to get the cards were worth it. GO GET A NEXUS CARD NOW, DO IT, YOU WILL THANK ME LATER.
After entering Canada like it was old news, we finally get to our hotel. We are staying in a lovely room at the Pan Pacific. I played with my new iTouch for a while and we went off to dinner. Dinner tonight was at C Restaurant -- to die for. We had the Wine Pairing dinner -- 6 courses of OMG I can't believe how good the food is type of goodness. It started with a smoked salmon, then we moved onto seared albacore tuna with chick peas, next was the most wonderful crab risotto ever. After using bread to wipe up the risotto we feasted on crispy halibut, some beef tenderloin, and finally dessert with a super chocolate sorbet and raspberries. I definitely will go back to C Restaurant. As me more about the dinner some other time because right now my head is kind of dizzy from all of the wine and I wanted to write this particular paragraph so that I could get all of this out of my brain for now.
So that was today, Thursday September 20th -- Day 1 of our long anticipated long weekend. Tomorrow I think we're going to Stanley Park and the Vancouver Aquarium!
Side note-- I think I need a new laptop, my old one is too slow. I used Chris's new Thinkpad to type this bad boy up and it is quite nice. Quite nice indeed.
Labels: vacation
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