Post the Second - The Girl Who Travelled Back in Time

Hello loyal fan following (or Mom, as the case may be):

I have arrived safe and sound in Vancouver. And by “I” I mean “we” - myself and father Sexton have landed and are currently chillaxin’ in our hotel. But before I ramble on about V-dot, a word about my last week in Newfoundland:

I’m still pretty tired from the past week’s events. Between Kayla’s bachelorette party, last minute wedding prep, and the actual event, I am exhausted. For all that, though, Kayla and Gavin’s wedding was superb. The ceremony was beautiful and fairly short, which is always a plus. I didn’t cry as much as I thought I would, which is also a plus. However, I’ve discovered something that I’ve always known but never fully realized until the wedding day: once you start to cry, your nose starts to run. And once your nose starts to run, it becomes independent of your crying, and becomes and unstoppable force. This is a particular problem when you are holding two bouquets and glasses in your hands, and then must sign an official document, such as a marriage certificate.

In any case, the flow was finally stemmed and we carried on to pictures. I’ve yet to see any of them, but Kayla and Gav (newly christened “Gayla”) saw a few and said they were lovely. I am looking forward to seeing the final product. After the bridal party finished pictures, Gayla and their entourage (read: their photographer and their driver) went off for couple pics and the rest of us gathered in Venice Pizzeria for a slab of pizza, pre-reception. The girls hadn’t eaten much all day, thanks to Jana’s hair fiasco (the bowl look, we call it), which required a second trip to the salon and, subsequently, cut into our eating time.

The reception itself was lovely. Not only was the hall beautiful and the food good, but the MCs were fabulous (holla at cha, Wheels and Nubs!) and the dance was amazing. Now, the dance was partially so good because I absolutely loved the play list I created, but also because it was great to party it up on the dance floor with some good friends and family. I danced so much that my calve muscles are still sore. I quite literally couldn’t walk without wincing for two days following. That is definitely the sign of a good time.

Anyway, here we are, four days later, and I am 7000 kilometres away from the motherland. Our trip today was relatively uneventful, except that Dad and I didn’t eat for almost 12 hours. Well.. that’s not entirely true. When Kayla and I travelled to BC in June, we quite literally didn’t eat for the entire day because of the time difference; essentially, travelling to BC from Newfoundland means I travel back in time and gain 4.5 hours on my day. By the time we realized we were hungry, the flight attendants wouldn’t feed us. When we finally put food in our bellies, it was something like 14:30 Newfoundland time. (Side note: I’ve decided to write all my times in 24-hour clock, just to keep your brains from developing Alzheimer's.) This time I was determined not to get caught in the same unfortunate hunger conundrum. Dad and I decided to buy sandwiches on the flight attendants’ second sweep-through; however, by the time they got to us, all they had left were “Jet-Packs.” These are not as space-age as they sound. Essentially, my “lunch” consisted of four morsels of teriyaki Beef Jerky, roughly 13 pita chips, 6 knock-off Ritz crackers, a tube - yes, a TUBE - of hummus, and a fruit bar that claimed to contain no gluten, no soy, no tree or pine nuts, no sugar, no oats, no honey, and no artificial fruit of any kind, which lead Dad to exclaim in a perplexed manner “so what’s it made of?” No one knows, Dad. To top off our over-packaged and under-tasty dinner was a package of 6 dried apricots. Mmmm. There’s seriously nothing I find less desirable in a state of epic hunger than dried apricots.

After landing in Vancouver, and an hour’s wait at Hertz for our rental car, we made it to the hotel. It’s a pretty funky-shaped building, and the guy at the front desk was so formal, reservedly friendly and overly informative that I liked him instantly. We dined at the hotel’s restaurant, which is actually next door and not in the same building, and I wolfed my food down so fast that by the time our waiter came back to check how everything was going, I was using the last of my garlic bread to sweep every last morsel of rose sauce from the bowl. Then Dad and I decided to stretch our legs and explore a bitta Vancouver, as it was still only 16:00 and the setting afternoon was still sunny and warm. We inadvertently toured a bit of run-down industrial Vancouver (snooze alert!) before finding a coffee shop with take-out desserts and heading back to the hotel for internetz, a call back home, and the devouring of cake.

Tomorrow shall involve getting a new BC phone number, biking around Stanley Park, maybe a bit more walking, and a museum or two. Hopefully I will squeeze some shopping in, too, without Dad realizing what I’m doing. *shifty eyes*

I must go eat more cake before settling in for the evening. No one can tell you not to eat cake in bed in a hotel! Vancouver is the best city ever!

Jillz