Bundled up with nowhere to go...

Ooooie! We got home from Vancouver, BC last night and the house smelled a bit. Like oil. Needless to say, something has gone wrong and we had to shut off the furnace. Brrrrrrr.... We're getting it fixed today but until then, I freeze my tootsies off. I'm the only one whose cold. Our house guests are fine, I guess since they are from Ireland, this is normal. M is always warmer than me. I'm just sitting here looking at my breath (ok, in fairness, it's not quite THAT cold) and waiting for the brilliant man to fix things. Thank god he can!

So, yep, we went to BC overnight. It's about a 3 hour drive from here. Since I'm American, I've never had to stop at the border. Since I have a husband who's changing status and two Irish friends in the car, we had to get out. We thought for a minute that M wouldn't be able to get in. The Canadian immigration guy started out a little gruff. We figured out that he was just trying to make sure M could get back IN to the States. Since we hadn't used our Advanced Parole paperwork (the US calls it 'advanced parole' as if being in America was like being in prison) (ooh, Bush is going to read that and arrest me for not being a patriot!!!! lol) before, it was all a new experience. As nice as the Canadian guy ended up being, there was a line of about 12 people and only one person working. Well, originally there were two but the girl went back and finished working on something else while we all stood there waiting for her to finish. We felt sorry for the crowd behind us because our guy had to call US immigration for a few minutes and make sure we had everything. When he came back 10 minutes later, he was much friendlier and I even begged for a stamp in my passport which he gave me crap about and then did anyway. :) When we finally went on our way, he was still the only guy working and the other 12 people were still standing there waiting.

We got to Vancouver and found our hotel, headed out to an area called Gastown looking for an irish pub. We had a quick bite, then us two couples split up and agreed to meet for dinner. M and I walked through the drug/prostitute infested neighborhood surrounding the irish pub to arrive at a chinese garden. They were closing so we asked if we could go in for the remaining 3 minutes and have a look around. It was gorgeous - this temple in the middle of the city - but I don't know if I would've paid the CN$8.75 to spend some time there. We continued around Chinatown which unfortunately, we wanted to compare to Chinatown in SF, when there truly is no comparison. There were the odd things for sale and the little bits and bobs in every Chinatown. We enjoyed walking around but it wasn't as fun as SF. We continued walking - Vancouver is a lovely city (especially if you avoid the druggy area) - right on the water with the mountains to the north. It reminded us both of La Paz, Bolivia or Santiago, Chile - the way the city and tall apartment buildings are right up against the mountains...

For dinner, I took them to Kobe which is like Benihana. It's a Japanese style restaurant where they cook the food right in front of you, the guy does all sorts of fancy moves with the knives and stuff. It's a fun experience and they loved it. The food was gorgeous and aside from the two wet blankets who were seated with us, (they usually try to put 8 people together at a table so some are strangers) we loved it. We wandered around Robson which is the main shopping drag and looked into the shops. I was surprised at how much it is like a European city rather than a US city. It reminded me a lot of Auckland, NZ - with the british influence in the stores and the clothes etc.

Yesterday we spent the day wandering the seafront and then drove back home. The stop at the border was an hour long this time but Irish did manage to get back in. There was a lot of paperwork so we had plenty of time to watch and listen to the guy next to us, who was getting refused to allow coming into the US. Now I don't know if he *knew* he was getting refused but he was giving the immigration guy attitude. All I could think was if I was trying to get *in* somewhere, I certainly wouldn't be talking to the person who could let me in like this guy was talking to the other guy. Maybe they'd been waiting awhile and he was irritated. But it seemed like it certainly couldn't help the situation.

So, I better get up and make some coffee. Typing this hasn't warmed me up at all so I'm thinking I better move around, put some socks and gloves on, and get going. I wish I had some photos of Vancouver but for some strange reason (maybe because we knew the batteries wouldn't work), we didn't bother to bring the camera!