Easter Sunday festivities

Despite my best efforts to corrupt others within the household, I am pleased (or not?) to report that all Easter Bunny chocolates were kept in tact and untouched until Sunday morning!

I think it's fair to say Easter Sunday was thoroughlly enjoyed by all involved!

The morning started off with waking to a feast of chocolate courtesy of the Easter Bunny (!). It made us a little nervous to know we slept soundly while Easter Bunny Dobson snuck around us, placing chocolate right near our heads!

Easter Goodies.

As you can see, we may have engaged in early egg eating activities prior to breakfast .... (that doesn't sound like me?!?!?)

After I dragged Steve along to church with me (we have a beautiful little church literally 50 metres walk from our house!) for the Easter Sunday service (he was happy, they gave him a chocolate egg as we left) we returned home to find Kristen & Alex already beginning lunch prep. Their friends Kimee & Hedge were coming for lunch so while the others cooked, we were responsible for cleaning up!

Tidy house & you can see the dining table - an Easter miracle.

Easter lunch was amazing to say the least. Entree consisted of a goats cheese & herb tart with a salad of arugula, pickled beets, walnuts and a lemon vinaigrette.

Started to eat and forgot to take a photo first!

For the main - tarragon roasted French chicken, sauteed English spinach, mushroom & thyme gravy on a bed of parmesan polenta.

The delicious main course

And for dessert? A parfait of strawberries with orange flower water, pink peppercorn meringue, balsamic reduction and basil cream (!!!!) YUM!

            

Are you hungry yet?

For those who did not have to work the next morning (i.e. Alex & Steven), plenty of drinks were consumed - culminating in a very early evening (following a depressing Canucks loss via sudden death overtime), of being passed out in front of the television.

Muha! Justice for Kristen & I.

As for me? I was content in my chocolate coma.

Easter Weekend

Well I survived my first two days of work! Pretty much everyone in the office is really lovely and I can't quite work out how busy the woman I am replacing ever actually is. There were a fair few hours of sitting around doing a whole lotta nothing on Thursday ... Of course now I've put it out there I will be bombarded with work over the next three weeks! We'll see what happens ...

We've been lucky enough to have a beautiful past 4 days - gorgeous sunshine - perfect running conditions - so we have tried to make the most of it (along with the rest of the city!).

Today I headed off early for a 7k run along the Seawall and Steve did a session on the wind trainer. Once exercise was complete we headed off to sort out bank accounts and rent bikes. We rode for about an hour through Stanley Park which was beautiful. There were heaps of people on the path though (which is only one way thank goodness) but in hindsight it was fine because it actually made us slow down and enjoy the scenery along the way. Felt weird riding a normal bike again though, completely different feeling to a road bike, so I had a couple of gumby moments here and there.




Biking in Stanley Park.

Steven Wehlow: Speed Demon.

 After riding we went and got some lunch from Safeway and walked back down through Stanley Park to the Lost Lagoon. I can't think of a much better view for a lazy Saturday lunch!

Lost Lagoon - Saturday Lunchtime Views.

On our wander back through the park to home I spotted a Raccoon which was very exciting as I've never seen one in real life before! It was funny seeing it in the water though; I never knew they were water loving animals. I Googled it though, and they are! Anyway, it was very cool and Steve managed to take a great photo of the little guy.  

Hello swimming Racoon!


We also walked past a chip & putt golf course which is on the cusp of the park so we've put that on our list of things to do. I'm sure this would not be surprising in the slightest but our list of things is huge! Not sure how we'll ever have enough money to do everything we'd like to (most things on the list are big trips of course ;-) but we thought it'd be a good idea to write everything down and cross it all off (mostly because of me and my list making obsession).

On our walk back home we walked via English Bay and this afternoon (due to prime weather + Easter weekend) it was absolutely packed! We ended up setting ourselves up on the grass and chilling out in the sun, listening to a little jazz band (complete with cute Pug). Kristen ended up coming down to join us for a bit and at about 5pm we headed home (via No Frills - for hot cross buns).

English Bay.

Jazz band w/ Pug (bottom right)

Chilling out.

Chilling out + Kristen joins the fun!

Looking forward to celebrating Easter tomorrow and perhaps if we've been good enough the Easter Bunny might surprise us with some chocolate?! Not that I haven't had my fair share lately, but still, it's Easter. Kristen & Alex are having a couple of friends over and they're in charge of a gourmet Easter lunch. Can't wait!

Happy Easter :-) xx

The employed ... and the unemployed

Happy to report I found myself a job last week and I started today. I'm working on a temp assignment at the moment for 4 weeks with a company called SNC Lavalin. They're a big engineering company and I'm working as an executive assistant in the Ports & Marine division. So far, so good. The woman I am replacing is going on holidays for 3 weeks to Hawaii. Very jealous (even though we're going in October it seems like ages away!). We'll see how we go but there are a lot of little details to remember so I'm going to have to get used to asking lots of questions of the other admin staff. Luckily they all seem to be really friendly and willing to help so I'm not overly concerned. I also had an interview with another recruitment agency yesterday and the woman was really friendly and didn't seem at all concerned about being able to get me pretty regular work. Again, we'll see how we go but for the moment I think I would be happy picking up temp assignments. I can then dictate when I work and manage the work/life balance. There will also be no issues when I want to go on a holiday!

My unemployed fiance (okay, that's the last dig I will have!) walked me to work this morning and came back to have lunch with me too. Very nice of him. It's all good though, giving him a chance to focus on some proper training in preparation for Escape from Alcatraz - the triathlon he'll be doing in San Francisco on June 5. I'll probably put a little more info up closer to the date!

This afternoon we went for a run and although it was nice to get outside and run along the beach it was absolutely freezing! Wind chill factor -4 000 000 degrees! I do not exaggerate.

Today was also "420" day (April 20) which we found hilarious (!) and a little hard to believe. To summarise (thanks Wikipedia!),

420, 4:20 or 4/20 (pronounced four-twenty) refers to consumption of cannabis and, by extension, a way to identify oneself with cannabis subculture.

We only realised when Steve was walking to lunch with me and walked past the Art Gallery where a distinct 'Big Day Out' smell was evident! So we did some investigating and apparently its a pretty big 'counterculture' holiday, where people gather and consume cannabis. According to my trusty Wikipedia facts, 10,000 people gathered at the Vancouver Art Gallery to celebrate 420 in 2009 (so probably a few thousand more today) and the police didn't attempt to make arrests. In fact, the event has apparently taken place for many years in Vancouver and the police are always tolerant of marijuana use on April 20 "and most other days". Fancy that! Due to the gale that was blowing when we were on our run this afternoon, you couldn't help but smell the distinct odour in the air! Yuck!

One last thing - yesterday I discovered what I thought was the most impressive thing ever...

VOSS water in Vancouver! How awesome! I was so impressed I had to buy a bottle (just for show!). I even shared the pic on facebook and then was promptly informed that Voss water exists in Brisbane too :-( Needless to say I was shattered. Oh well. Go Vossy! Go Lions!! I am not a fairweather supporter!

Embracing the sunshine!

Going on three days in a row of beautiful sunshine! Safe to say we're pretty happy about this! It has taken moving to the other side of the world and living in an extremely rainy city for us to truly appreciate how amazing the weather in Brisbane has always been. We are certainly now embracing every ounce of sunshine that comes this way and we're soaking it up!

Still unemployed, we spent pretty much the entire Friday walking around the perimeter of Stanley Park. Steven had a great time taking photos with his new fancy camera and I had a great time walking off the thousand dounts I have consumed since we've been here (just kidding mum, we're eating mostly healthy - I promise!).

Taking photos.

The Lions Gate Bridge.

A beautiful day at English Bay.

The photographer in action.

It was such a nice afternoon we decided to walk through the city and made our way to Sears who were having a big sale so we bought some new linen and pillows for a bargain and headed home. We ended up walking 15km on Friday. Safe to say we were fairly sore on Saturday after walking for about 6 or 7 hours.

Saturday we were up early again to enjoy the great weather and went for a run along the sea wall. We spent about an hour running and walking sometimes (as I'm still recovering from the KCFC) and threw in a couple of stair climb reps for good measure. We raced each other three times up the steps which meant I was almost sick. I was impressed. Steve beat me twice. I was not impressed.

Saturday night we wandered over to Kitsilano (very trendy) where Alex's bar is. It's called Abigael's Party. It's a very cute funky little place and they have a great cocktail selection (courtesy of Alex himself!). We had a few cocktails accompanied by our first ever serving of poutine! For those of you who have not seen my facebook update, poutine originated in Quebec and more or less consists of hot chips, gravy and cheese curd. It sounds disgusting but it's pretty tasty. Poutine looks like this ....

Mmmm.. poutine.

Today is Sunday and as I mentioned, yet another fine day. Steve was off training this morning so I wandered down to the beach to sit in the sun and give my skin some much needed vitamin d. As I made my way to the beach I started to see these swarms of people and remembered today was the Vancouver Sun Run. The Vancouver Sun is the paper here. Anyway, there were millions of people running and walking so I took a few photos.

A very festive car!

Participants in the Vancouver Sun Run.

Seeing the Sun Run today also inspired me to enter the Vancouver Marathon 8km run which is on May 1. As some of you know I was trying to train to take on the half marathon this year but with being sick and hurting my leg at Mooloolaba I have decided to ease myself back into training. Plus its $100 to enter so I'd rather make that investment when I'm fully fit. The 8km will be fine for now.


We've now just come back home from a game of afternoon bocce. There's a great little park one block up from where we live and there's a dog park there too. There's also a community garden which I think is so cute and I love the idea. I also took a few photos of another community garden I found the other day which is right in the heart of the city. Another reason I love Vancouver. Photos here  -



                                      

                                                  Community garden #1.




Community garden #2.

So we played 5 rounds of bocce and I was unfortunately the loser today. Steven is the champion and I completely choked every round except one where I had a magnificent comeback. Steve won, 4 games to 1. A photo of the champion ...

Steven: Bocce Champion.

Just for good measure I'll throw in a photo of our apartment. I'm loving it more now as I am appreciating just how great it is being close to so many things.


Our building.

 Bye for now! x

4 days in Seattle

So less than a week after we'd arrived in Vancouver, we decided to head off to Seattle for a mini holiday before knuckling down to find some work. Kristen (our gracious Vancouver host) had organised two-for-one train tickets for us so on Tuesday 5 April we headed off to the train station to catch our 6am train to Seattle.

Apart from the US immigration officers treating us like we'd committed a crime and grilling us on what our intentions for our stay in the US were (oh, and making us feel extremely guilty about being unemployed), the entire train travel process was fairly smooth. The views along the way were fantastic too.

We arrived in Seattle at 10am that morning and immediately realised how incredibly freezing cold the next 4 days would be. Seattle weather was pretty much Vancouver weather (10 degrees, rain) with the addition of gale force ice winds (okay, so perhaps a little dramatic) - it was freezing!!

Overall Seattle was a really nice city. Once we got over the gale force ice winds and rain at times, I found it to be a really "cool" city. Perhaps it helped a bit that Kurt Cobain and Jimi Hendrix were both from Seattle - probably added to the "cool" factor. The people were super friendly and the shopping was pretty great. Not New York or London "great" but it was pretty great.

Me checking out the Valentino selection at Nordstrom (upmarket DJ's).

To elaborate on the shopping, we ended up spending a fair bit of time in stores because they sheltered us from the rain and cold and everything was so cheap! Steve managed to buy three pairs of Nike shoes for the price of a little more than only one pair would cost in Australia. I had a ball in Sephora (makeup store) and we went nuts on the final day in Abercrombie & Fitch (cheap jeans, great hoodies, tops etc).

Of course the entire time I was battling the Killer Canadian Flu-Cold (KCFC) which got worse as the week wore on and came to a head on our last night when we went to the baseball. Again, like the true tourists we are, we managed to buy 2 tickets to the Seattle Mariners' home game against the Cleveland Indians and bought some merchandise to wear to the game. As luck would have it we ended up sitting next to Grant from the Gold Coast! He was a Geelong supporter so we ended up having a bit of an AFL chat when the baseball got boring. It got boring when the Indians scored 10 runs in one inning and the score was 12 - 0. Unfortunately the Mariners aren't so great, but they have this one player Ichiro - pretty much the Brownie of the team. He's pretty awesome and the crowd absolutely loves him. He looks like a Japanese rock star. Anyway, we had fun cheering for him. The crowd chants "ICHI-RO" "ICHI-RO" "ICHI-RO" when he steps up to the plate. Lots of fun!

Go Mariners!

Our view of the game.

During our trip we also spent time walking around the Pike Place Markets (heaps of fresh seafood, fruit & vegies and general market things), visited the first ever Starbucks store, ate the famous mac & cheese at Beecher's, devoured clam chowder at The Crab Pot restaurant, walked underneath the city during the "Underground Tour" (you literally go down steps and walk around underneath the new city - which was built on top of existing parts of the city established much earlier) and went to the Seattle Space Needle - great views!

Seattle Space Needle.

Mmm.. Beecher's mac & cheese.

Due to the KCFC, we spent a some time inside the warmth of the hotel which marked the beginning of our obsession with my new favourite tv show - Man v. Food. I think it's on Foxtel at home on the food channel. Great show! Basically it involves this guy going to all these famous restaurants/take out places across the US and taking on their greatest food challenges (mostly eat some enormous amount of food within a limited timeframe). It was actually a struggle to watch one night when we returned to our room after dining at the Cheesecake Factory and eating pretty much double our own body weights in nachos and chicken tacos (for me) and nachos and steak and chicken (for Steven). I was so disappointed we were too full to eat dessert that night that we went back the next day for a more conservative lunch followed by my favourite - lunch dessert - brownie!

The Cheesecake Factory slogan should be 'Portion control knows no bounds!'

All systems go!

Massive fail!

Hello lunch-dessert brownie!!

Believe it or not we've both managed to lose a couple of kilos during our first weeks here but I'm pretty sure its muscle loss. As soon as I'm feeling better it's back to running and Steve is getting back into his training sessions more regularly now. No rest for the wicked!

These two posts should keep you all occupied for a little while!

x

Coming to Vancouver

Where to start? Although as I write this post we're already a couple of weeks in, I think it's best to go back to the beginning!

I'll admit there were a few tears as we took off from Brisbane (domestic - ugh!) and a few more when we left Sydney International Airport but after the flight took off I was fine. It was really nice to have our families there to say goodbye and so nice to have Andy and Kate there too (thanks guys!). Steven also surprised me with business class seats to Sydney which was awesome but initially lost on me, being overwhelmed with everything else!



Business class to Sydney. Woohoo!

We arrived in Vancouver on March 30 at 7.30am (back in time - woohoo!) and after a 14 hour flight we couldn't wait to get off the plane. I thought I would be physically ill if the trip was any longer! Getting our working holiday visas approved was much easier than anticipated and the immigration officers never even looked at any of our documentation apart from the confirmation letter that was emailed to us. Nevermind. Better to be overprepared!

We spent our first three days at the Coal Coast Harbour Hotel in downtown Vancouver which was a great hotel and very close to the Pacific Centre (great shopping - bonus for me) so we spent those first few days organising mobiles and social insurance numbers (similar to a tax file number). We've yet to sort out bank accounts which is something for tomorrow I'm sure.

Kristen and Alex have been doing a fantastic job looking after us and making us feel very welcome even though the weather has not! For the first couple of days we harrassed Kristen at her work, asking her questions about which mobile plans to sign up to, where to go for this and that. She has been exceptionally patient with us! Her workmate Sarah even invited us to her place for dinner on our first Sunday night. They made us feel very 'at home' serving lamb roast. Numerous bottles of red wine may or may not have also been consumed (it was cold!).

Sibling reunion at Wings (the restaurant).

Unfortunately this great night marked the end of my good health and the start of what I like to call the 'Killer Canadian Flu-Cold' which I've been battling now for the last two weeks. It started off as an awful day of flu symptoms and has been followed by my nose running like a tap and my coughing like I am suffering from emphysema. Thankfully I am now starting to feel better. Steven, as per usual, is a superb 'carrier' and has not suffered an ounce of anything since we've been here. He keeps telling me its because his mum licked the spoon when he was a kid, but I'm sure my mum did that too!

Like true bandwagon hoper-oner-ers we've also fast become #1 Canucks fans. I can't believe how much I really enjoy hockey already (note: 'hockey' not 'ice-hockey'). It makes it alot easier to jump on the bandwagon when the first game we watched resulted in the Canucks securing the Presidents Trophy (minor premiers). The playoffs have just started and we're up 1-0 against Chicago with another 6 games to go. Go Canucks!!

Watching the Canucks.

To summarise, some things I have learned in my first two weeks -

Things I love about Vancouver

• Location, location, location! We're living in West End (Downtown Vancouver) and we're close to English Bay, Stanley Park, Granville Island and plenty of shops and restaurants - it's a great area for running too! Oh, and cupcakes!

Running along Broughton Street (our street).



Delicious cupcake post run.

• Vancouver Dogs. People love dogs here, therefore I love them. It makes me really miss Ruby though (so I'll include a pic just because I miss her). Dogs here are so stylish - they even have raincoats with hoods! There are heaps of dog friendly places and shops with water bowls outside for them. People even bring them into shops and stores!



The gorgeous Ruby.


• Vancouver-ites. So far, so good. The people here are so friendly. I have only seen one 'heated exchange of words' thus far where this homeless looking man was almost run over by an older man turning right around a corner, so I guess the exchange was warranted. The other thing I find completely hilarious is that people are SO friendly, they even stop in the middle of a road to give way to pedestrians ... and IN THE MIDDLE OF ROUND-ABOUTS - to give way! It's really great but I find it funny at the same time. As a pedestrian you kind of just walk out across streets and know that cars will automatically stop for you (except perhaps if you look like a homeless person? see above!)
• Wings! What's better than a tasty little deep fried chicken wing dipped in blue cheese sauce?



Delicious wings.

• Strawberries are so cheap! ($3 for a huuuuge punnet) and I love strawberries!

Things I need to learn to love about Vancouver

• The weather (average temperatures of 9/10 degrees, it was 4 degrees today and it's 'Spring'). It has also rained a fair bit (yes, yes we knew that) but I managed to find a great umbrella shop, called ... wait for it ... The Umbrella Shop... and I bought a cute hot pink umbrella. The lady in the store even showed me how to correctly fold it so it fits nicely back into its case and I have never, in the history of the universe, been able to put an umbrella back in its case. I am extremely excited about this and I now do it regularly.




Me with said pink umbrella.


• The number of homeless people - there are heaps of homeless people here. Not that we didn't know that before (we noticed it in 2008) but when you're walking around and every homeless person asks you for money (and as you know I never have money!) it kinda makes you feel bad. But then you can't give money to every person you see. So ... I'm going to have to accept and deal with it.
• Paying $3 to travel for 2 minutes on a ferry from the Aquatic Centre (just near us) to Granville Island on the ferry. Granville Island is awesome - great fresh food/indoor market type set up - but the ferry service is a rip job. The alternative is trekking for half an hour over a massive, busy, highway like bridge.
• Tipping. And tax in general. Canada has this HST thing which I think is a combination of sales tax and gst .. or something like that. Anyway, it's approximately 12.5% so every time you buy anything, 12.5% is added. It's so frustrating when you think you've got a good deal or the right change and then ... uh oh. TAX... As for tipping, as most would know I'm not one for mathematics in general, so having to work out anything tipping related is just annoying ... and awkward.

Things I am undecided on

• Living in a basement apartment. It has its benefits. It's cheap and warm and we have great company (until they depart in May!) but sometimes it's weird when you see people walking along the street and you catch them peering in through the windows as they pass. Not meaning to be weird, but it is.. kinda.
• Walking on the right hand side of everything, as you do over here. It's just wrong. But then I've found sometimes people walk in the middle and then that completely throws me off!

Things I don't like about Vancouver

• Being unemployed - it's fun for a week but now I'm over it. I need something to do. We're both working on that situation though and should have at least some temp work sorted within the next week. The recruitment agent actually offered me a job working for them, so I'll have a think about it and see what happens. Pay is terrible here though, but we all knew that!
• Having to remember when I want lemonade that I need to ask for 'Sprite' .. or else I get actual freshly squeezed lemonade. How bizarre - on our part probably, in hindsight.
• No one offers good oats here. I need my Uncle Toby's. I bought these Quaker oats that were supposed to be the same but they taste like dirt. Like crunchy dirt. Although I live in hope that I will get the liquid/oats/microwave timing ratio right one day. I keep trying. 

Enough for now! Clearly I have too much time on my hands being unemployed!

x