Hurray for the long weekend!

If everything had gone according to plan, I would be in Whistler this morning, not at home on the computer typing this post. However, the plan to head up to Whistler was derailed (along with the actual railroad) by a massive rock slide on the Sea-to-Sky highway. If you've ever been to Vancouver and made the trip to Whistler, you'd know that there's one highway connecting the two and that highway is built along a rocky cliff. The rock slide happened on Tuesday night and probably won't be cleared until Monday. The alternative is a seven hour car drive (going to Whistler normally takes 90 minutes), to which we obviously said "no". So I'm staying in Vancouver instead.

There's been a lot of speculation and fear mongering about the slide. What if this was to happen during the Olympics? Could it have been triggered by the construction being done in the area (to expand the highway to two lanes each way)? Could the fact that 40,000 people (in addition to a whole lot of heavy equipment) made the trip to and from last weekend for the Pemberton music festival? Who knows. But hopefully the chance of this repeating itself is slim. When boulders the size of small houses come crashing down, the damage is immense.

Last night, I went out for dinner with Sarah. We headed out to Denman street at Café de Paris, a little French restaurant neither of us had tried. It was a delicious meal, we had terrine de lapin as a starter, then I had osso bucco and Sarah ordered the duck. Yum. After dinner, we took a cab to Granville, as the evening was still young and it wasn't cold or raining outside. We ended up at Republic. Fortunately, we arrived early enough to avoid the lineups and cover charge, and we were allowed to keep our jackets ('cause paying $5 each for coat check seems silly). We sat upstairs and ordered a couple of drinks: one martini and one gin&tonic... $17! Wow. Really expensive, it's not as if we were ordering premium brands. The music in the early part of the evening was good, mainly house. We stepped out around 10:30 to get some fresh air before going back in to dance. Unfortunately, by the time we made it to the dance floor, there was a new DJ spinning and both his choice of music and mixing abilities were terrible. There was no dancing to this crap, most people seemed pretty happy just to bob along ('cause I can't call what they were doing "dancing"), but c'mon. Give me something to work with. We gave the new DJ a chance to improve and headed to the bar for a couple of shots of vodka and RedBull. $20! What?? This wasn't Grey Goose and nectar of some exotic fruit, it was cheap vodka and a sugar/caffeine drink. The music never improved, so we left.

Bar in Vancouver are a hit and miss. I don't go out often, so I guess it's hard for me to know where's the good place to go on a Friday evening. Republic is clearly NOT the place. At least, if the music was awesome, I would have forgiven them for the price of drinks. I'll head back to Ginger 62 before going to Republic again. At Ginger, I remember getting a gin&tonic for $5.50, maybe $6. And the music is typically decent enough for dancing.

More weekends please!

Especially when the weekend lasts three days and I spend it away from home and from the computer. Bliss.

After the heavy-duty week we just had at work, a weekend away was needed. Not a heavy-workload week, but a heavy-emotional-load week as the company laid-off half of our R&D department in Vancouver. Last Friday was the last day at the office for many, including my boss, my boss' boss, several of my colleagues and others we will probably hear about later. What a mess.

When I was invited to spend a few days away in a rented cabin in Yale (just East of Hope), I jumped on the occasion to experience a chance in scenery. The long weekend was looking to be warm and sunny all across BC and the getaway was really needed.

Although Yale is only a few hours East of Vancouver, it is far enough from the coast to offer +35 degree weather in the summer. It's a dry heat, so it's tolerable, but boy is it hot! That's pretty much the weather we had the entire weekend, very sunny, very warm. Fortunately, the cabin was well insulated and we were able to sleep well at night, even though it did get a bit warm inside in the afternoon.

The cabin was right next to the Fraser River. We had a boat launch access across the street from us and a nice sandy beach where we could lie down and read. The river was too cold for swimming, but the beach was quiet and, most of the day, would have some shaded areas. You've guessed that the shade was my preference, unlike Sarah and Candice who made conscious efforts to return to Vancouver sporting a tan (or a sunburn).

On Saturday, we all had great plans of getting up early to go for a hike and visit the area, but we were all so exhausted from the week that most of the day was spent lounging around the cabin or lying on a beach towel. Everyone needed to recover from something. With a three-day weekend, no problem. You can take a day to bum around and not feel bad about it.

On Sunday, we headed to a nearby lake for a swim. It was a 10-minute drive, not ideal, and the lake was a very popular spot. There was only one small beach access to the water (at least on the public side of the lake) and it was crammed with people. We looked around the lake and noticed a small beach on the other side of the lake. We had two small inflatable boats with us and decided to pack our belongings in the boats and swim across. Sarah and Candice were rowing the boats while Katrina, Robert and I went for a leisurely swim. It was approximately half a kilometer across, not a very long distance, but it made for a good workout. Especially since we had to swim back to the car! Everyone built up a nice appetite for dinner that night!

Monday was our last day in Yale and we decided to go for a hike. One of our hiking books mentioned a trail called Spirit Cave Trail, a moderate hike that was a three-hour round trip. We wanted to hike in the morning, while it was still cool, so we woke up at 7 and were on the trail by 9. The hike was challenging at times, mostly on the way down because it zigzags along a really steep hill and some parts are slippery, with little gravel washouts. The view from the top was spectacular (photos to come) and we did find some caves. Whether or not these were the "spirit caves" is not clear, we might have missed some of the bigger cave entrances (the caves we saw were really small).

What a weekend. We had time for rest, time for physical activity, time for reading, time for games (I learned how to play poker and ended up cleaning everyone out, woot!), time for good food and wine (for Saturday's dinner, I made tandori chicken with basmati rice and a salad, served with a crisp Gewurtz).

Again please :-)

Taste of summer

Until recently, the weather hadn't really given us a decent taste of spring with mornings usually in the single digits, and afternoon temperatures not going much beyond 12. However, last Thursday, someone flicked on the summer switch and wham! Sunny and warm weather for the next few days. I had forgotten how hot 30-degree weather can be. Nice.

This is a long weekend in BC, even better to fully enjoy the beautiful weather. On Saturday, I did a bit of shopping in the afternoon. I hit Main street which has a combination of thrift and second-hand stores, in addition to being home for several local designers. If you are looking for some unique frocks, this is the place to shop. I walked up and down Main from Broadway to about 23rd. I stopped by a few designer shops, including twigg&hottie and Narcissist. twigg&hottie have beautiful asymmetric clothes which fit perfectly if you are a small size, but don't necessarily translate well to a size 9-10. Narcissist has wonderful dresses and I tried a few, but somehow wasn't sold on any. I then visited Devil May Wear on 21st. There, I fell in love. Not only does Devil May Wear have wearable designs, but the clothes are also made of eco-friendly fabrics: organic cotton, bamboo, even some bamboo from Canada (as opposed to grown in China, as is most bamboo used in fabric). I had a chance to chat with the designer, Steph Ostler, who is such a lovely woman. You can tell she's really excited about what she does and the clothes she designs. She picked a few items from the rack for me to try, as she was describing where the fabric was from, how she came up with the ideas for the design. I settled on two items: a brown tank top with a seafoam lace trim and straps, and a black tube-top summer dress in soft bamboo. I also picked up a few pairs of earrings, not from Steph but from other designers she showcases at her boutique. If you have never visited the store, not only are the clothes affordable and carefully sourced, but they also look fantastic. I'm a fan!

Saturday night was dinner at Monk McQueens. This restaurant has one of the best patios in town and a decent selection of seafood. I won't say great seafood because their menu doesn't seem to follow the Ocean Wise guidelines. I should have asked questions about where the seafood was caught and how, but I forgot. I need to build that into my dining etiquette. It's true that not being part of the Ocean Wise program doesn't mean you don't serve sustainable seafood. However, Ocean Wise is a great promotional tool so I would wonder why a restaurant wouldn't sign up if they qualified. I had dinner with Scott, Sherri and Brian. We ordered some mussels in a spicy tomato broth to share, and I had grilled sablefish with a ratatouille side and mixed-seafood cake. The food was delicious, the sun was coming down over False Creek and the temperature was still warm at 9 p.m. Simply dreamy. After dinner, the gang came back to my place for a drink or two. We intended on going out, but my midnight, everyone was ready for bed.

Sunday morning started fairly early, as I wanted to eat a decent breakfast before my spinning class at 10:45. I went to class, then rushed back home to shower and grab a bite, because Sarah was picking me up around 1. We had plans to go for a hike, along with Sarah's friend Candice. Around 2, we picked up Candice and Charlie, her Pug-Boston Terrier mix dog. Charlie is quite the adorable little creature. He's a small dog but he has a lot of personality and always greets everyone he meets with a wagging tail and so much enthusiasm.

We drove to the North Shore, to Deep Cove as we were going to hike the Baden Powell trail between Deep Cove and Lynn Canyon. One way, it's approximately 13 kilometers on well-marked, fairly-easy terrain. The first part of the trail gains a bit of elevation until you reach the lookout, so it's a good workout, but the rest of the trail is very walkable. We set out around 2:45. Unfortunately, we never made it to Lynn Canyon as we took an unfortunate detour which added almost an hour to our trip. By the time we backtracked onto the Baden Powell and reached the crossing in the residential area, we realized that we still had over an hour of hiking to do and it was getting late. I uploaded a few pictures from the hike on Flickr.

Needless to say that I slept quite well last night. Today, the weather is cooler and it's raining, so I'm going to take it easy. I was going to take the level 2 climbing movement class tonight, but my legs and knees are a bit sore, so I decided to pass. The class is all about using your legs when you climb, and right now, my legs don't want to be used!

Sore

I love long weekends, especially when I had completely forgotten about the extra day off. On Tuesday, I watched the hockey game (Vancouver-Calgary? "watch" is a very strong word, more like "glanced at") and had dinner with friends. Stephanie asked if I had any plans for the long weekend. My answer was "long weekend, what long weekend?" I knew Easter was coming up, but I didn't add it up to getting Friday off. Sometimes, I think that's a bit sad ;)

Friday was beautiful. Warm and sunny, almost 20 degrees outside. I went for a long run before lunch, well, long for my poor legs that hadn't hit the pavement in a little while. Breathing was fine, knees and calf muscles not as much. It also didn't help that I went for a long walk on West 4th in the afternoon. Boy do I feel sore. But I did find what I was looking for: a fabulous pair of jeans. Shopping for jeans is just as hard as shopping for shoes. It takes a while to find a perfect pair that fits AND looks good.

So, what are my long-weekend plans? Well, I originally planned to have Lara, Gerri and Charles over for dinner tonight, but Lara is too busy studying herbs and has a big exam on Tuesday. OK, I can understand the crunch of the end of the semester. Instead, Gerri and I (and maybe Charles, once the Montreal-Toronto game is over) are eating out, hopefully at Vij's (I say hopefully because the place is always busy and doesn't take reservations). Then, we'll pretty much go with the flow, maybe head over to Yaletown somewhere for drinks. Scott and a few friends also said they would give me a shout if they head out, we'll go meet them somewhere.

Sunday will be a day to catch up with some work (yeah, yeah, spare me the lecture) so I can avoid 10-hour days next week. Sunday night, I'm meeting Rafael for a live show downtown. Can't remember the venue, but it sounded promising.