I am currently in Vancouver. I arrived Monday last week, and the first four days I basically just worked and hung around in the hotel room, which is actually a suite. Bigger than my apartment *lol*. The jetlag is usually not that big of a problem, but the time difference of nine hours is definately murder. I had dinner with the CEO of the Canadian office on Wednesday night, but that was an early dinner at 7pm and finished by 9.00pm I think, at which point I crashed on the couch.
All in all, this has been a great trip. Friday night, I hooked up with Elisha and Sammy, two old co-workers, and their friends watching the second Canucks-Ducks (Vancouver-Anaheim) in the first game in the Stanley Cup play-offs them in between. They won and it was fun watching it with approx 10 other people in an apartment, drinking beer and stuff. Went home, crashed around 11.30pm.
Mark, a colleague, and his friend Jack, picked me up in a cab at 6am on Saturday morning to go skiing in Whistler. Or actually, in Black Comb, just next to Whistler. I had chased down a pair of ski-pants for $340 (Canadian) from Peak Performance (Swedish made brand from Åre!) which looked really great. When getting to the bus terminal, the fair was $42.50 to go up there and back. Not bad. The first bus we were taking was broken. The second made it out of the bus terminal, but turned back after 15 minutes. The third we got on, worked. So we got to Black Comb about 40 min late. Rented some skis, ski-boots and poles for $50 and bought a cute brownish beanie for $20. I actually tried several on me in the store, but then a complete stranger (man) said ”brown, you should definitely go with the brown”. That was nice… So I got the brown one! And it looks really good on me. Then we got ski-passes from someone outside of the ticket booth who wanted to get rid of some he had bought, cost us only $40. So all in all, the ski-pants were the expensive thing this day. Had a wonderful day in the slopes, gorgeous weather, eating loads of snow (falling a lot), but of course, what can you do when there are freestyle pros from the Ottawa team going with us and saying ”you must do this so you can say you skied powder in Whistler!”. Hmm. I wasn’t too thrilled about it when lying face down in it 
. We had lunch, I got chili from the food court (good one!), and then back up. Ended the day with a cold Kilkenny down in the village which, for me, strangely enough does not have any snow. People are walking around in shorts and t-shirts. So surreal. Back home I crashed and got up at 8am Sunday to get ready for Capilano Suspension Bridge.
What a sighting! A suspension bridge over to the rain forest, and Mark tagged along. Met some Canuck fans whom I ran into later that night also. After the bridge, we went to Black Tuna for sushi, but they were closed, so we got it to go and went down to the beach and had it. Lovely! Then we walked to Mark’s favorite bar and had a good Guinness before I left for the game in GM Place. It was great seeing a live NHL hockey game, but they unfortunately lost. But I am totally a Canucks fan now, there is no going back!
