O Canada....

So after our time with George and Laura wrapped up, we were jetted back to the West Coast for our last 2 weeks of the Fall portion of our tour. And our last stop was Washington State! Since we were in Washington and I had a couple of days off, I took some free time to head NORTH to Canada...Vancouver, to be precise...to check the city out, hang out with my friend Darren, AND prepare myself for the 2010 Winter Games that will be held in Vancouver. (You can NEVER be TOO prepared for something like that....) I had heard a lot of great things about Vancouver, but it really takes a trip there to realize how great a city it is! And aside from the crazy money, the flashing green lights (I mean, WHAT is up with that?), and very few people ending sentences with the phrase, 'EH?', it was exactly like I thought it was going to be.

With both days I spent in Vancouver, I was able to just take in the highlights...in a mad dash around the city to see it all! I got to eat some amazing food...i.e. Vancouver has some crazy good Korean food...and check out the city and it's buildings and areas...and see where they are building the Olympic Village (hoping I'll be there with the 2010 US Curling Team....) and a ton of other things that make Vancouver worth visiting. (Do NOT miss the penny press machine at the IMAX Theater! Amazing.) It was also very fun to see Vancouver put on it's holiday best...and see the city full of holiday spirit.

In the end, it was a great couple of days away from the group...and to hang out with Darren. A HUGE thanks to him for being the tour guide while I was there. (I like to call him Tour Guide to the Children's Theater Star....but I don't think anyone besides me found it funny.) A huge thanks to Canada...for being up there and letting me back and forth across the border so easily. And finally, thanks to the gelatto store in Vancouver with 218 flavors...yes, 218! I didn't NEED to know what pear gorgonzola bleu cheese gelatto tastes like...but because of you, I do and always will.

I'll be seeing you again, True North...strong and free....

G

A couple of shots of the mountains around Vancouver. Pretty, eh?

After MUCH talk about the Mounties, and wondering if I'd ever see one, and being told probably not, I turned the corner and THERE he stood! Right in front of the Mountie Store!

This is a really cool statue I saw downtown Vancouver. It's in front of the train station...commemorating the people who built the Canadian railroad system. I think it's a beautiful statue...and I loved just standing, staring at the details of it.

I'm pretty sure Darren had never seen the statue...

Some of the sights of the city: Top L: The Steam Clock in the Gas Lamp Disctrict. (Gas Light? Hmmm...can't remember...) Top R: Just a cool building. Bottom: The peaks on the Cruise Ship Terminal in Vancouver.

Vancouver City Hall. To 2 flags on the ground, with no wind to show them, are Olympic flags! The one on the left was the Vancouver Games flag...and the one on the right was the flag with the Olympic Rings. Maybe the most excited i got the whole trip.

The magical Gelatto Shop with 218 flavors! I enjoyed a scoop of Pumpkin and a scoop of Praline. Darren enjoyed...um....something I don't remember.

This one is for Katie McManus. We went to a place in Vancouver called Death By Chocolate and they had a dessert that made me think of Katie called 'The Dessert Formerly Known As Prince." Pretty funny right? I didn't order the dessert...but I did get one of the chocolate Prince symbols they put on the dessert...to take these pictures for Katie. And then Mike, our sound guy, ate the symbol. Meanwhile, Darren happily approved of his chocolate dessert...that i don't remember what it was.

I, on the other hand, went to Death By Chocolate and got cheesecake that had NOTHING to do with chocolate. I got a piece of Maui-Wowee Cheesecake...and it was pretty delicious. There was a shortbread crust, a layer of cheesecake, a layer of coconut, pineapple and whipped cream and it all worked together pretty well. I would end up giving it a high 7 on the MASE. My only real problem was that it was the end of the day, and it kind of had that 'been out all day' dryness to it. But I ate it anyway. HA.

I walked by a bakery that gave me an idea for Eric's birthday cake...so i had to snap a quick picture.

OK...not that we ate the ENTIRE time I was in Vancouver...but...close. This was a little cupcake shop somewhere in Vancouver called CUPCAKE - and they have 16 kinds of amazing cupcakes. So i bought a dozen and brought them back South of the Border for the cast and crew! And they were a HUGE hit.

So. check out this little car I saw parked on the street.

So yeah...check out the lights on a hospital right downtown Vancouver. And the pictures don't even tell the FULL story of it all. I mean LOTS of lights.

THE FOLLOWING SECTION MAY BE INAPPROPRIATE FOR SOME READERS....

So PEOPLE...riddle me THIS! What do THESE 3 window box displays have to do with an OPTOMETRISTS OFFICE? Yeah - you heard me right....walking by an Optometrists Office, I glance to my right, and what do I see but these 3 'WINDOW STORIES'. And the ONLY way you'd know it was an optometrists office at first is the RANDOM pairs of glasses in the individual scenes. I mean....WOW. and double WOW!

And now, back to our regularly scheduled programming....

So one night, Darren decided to bust out his tree and get it up - and I sat and watched TV and coached on the placing of various ornaments and lights. I'm best when I'm supervising, or as I like to call it, 'coaching.'

The finished product...albeit blurry. But finished....

Various ART SHOTS of 'The Tree'.

My B&W Panoramic of Vancouver.