A Very Vancouver Thanksgiving

Thursday:
I woke up at 3:30am to catch my 6am flight. That's what happens when you let your mom book your plane reservations. Good thing I was beating the holiday rush! I was even there before Starbucks opened, though it still had a line waiting for their necessary morning coffee.
I arrived in Seattle and met my parents and sister, who flew in from Oakland. We drove in a rental car to our Thanksgiving lunch at the Barking Frog restaurant. It was at a nice hotel, and the food was OK. My mom left feeling very unsatisfied because her turkey dinner lacked the canned cranberry sauce. I drove the car from the restaurant to Vancouver. We hit rush hour for working Canadians, so what should have been 30 min from the border, took an extra 2 hours.
Finally at our hotel, we sat down to a 2nd dinner, and my mom and sister were pleased to see that they were offering a more traditional American dinner, cranberry sauce and all. We finished off the night with a movie, The Devil Wears Prada.

Friday:
We scheduled massages for our first morning in the hotel. A relaxing way to start the vacation. Our hotel was in downtown Vancouver, so we were able to walk everywhere in less than 10 blocks. We walked to an art museum, then while my sister got a haircut, my parents and I went down to Canada Place, which is really just a posh hotel on the water with big sail-like architecture (think: Denver Airport). We headed up to a tower where we could see the whole city, then back to our hotel for cocktails. We decided to eat Chinese for dinner, and I tried Abalone for the first time. It was very rubbery and didn't taste like anything.

Saturday:
We decided that the weather was good enough to head to Victoria, but we didn't want to spend the whole day traveling there by ferry, so we took a float plane (those planes that land on the water). It was really fun to fly over Vancouver and the landing was surprisingly smooth. We went to Butchart Gardens, which we loved. They were decorating for Christmas, so they had set up the 12 days of Christmas (a partridge in a pear tree, seven swans a swimming, etc), so it was fun to seek out each one. We headed back to Victoria to have high tea at the Empress Hotel, but didn't have enough time before our plane was scheduled to take us back to Vancouver. So, we had tea in Vancouver instead. Then we went shopping for the rest of the afternoon. We went to dinner at a nice restaurant near our hotel. It had started to snow, which made my mom pleased (she loves a white Christmas), but all of the locals told us that it doesn't usually snow much, nor would it stick to the ground...

Sunday:
We woke up to snow on the ground, and white, lacy trees. Beautiful. We decided to head back to Seattle, so my sister could see a friend and possibly sightsee or shop. When we got to the highway, it was snowing pretty hard, and there were vehicles strewn all over the road, from spinning off into piles of snow. The traffic slowed as the roads got icier and whiter. Trying to keep things light, I reminisced about a fallen tree, and just then, ahead of us, a couple of trees fell under the weight of the snow, into the road, blocking one of the two lanes. I'm sure it caused quite a backup later. At 4pm, we reached the Canadian border. When we crossed a couple days earlier, there was a beautiful green park next to the ocean.. This time, the only thing we could see was white, blizzard, tons of snow, as if that's the way it had always been.
Across the border, the roads got worse, we stopped being able to see the tracks from the cars in front of us, only white, packed snow, not quite the type of terrain for our meek Hyundai. It was starting to get dark, as we kept our eyes glued to the small piece of windshield that was not iced over. It was then that I realized we would go off the road; it was just a matter of time. My sister began to complain loudly about her tiny bladder, which had already waited 4 hours. So as it got dark, and the snow seemed to be worse than we'd ever imagined, we tried to exit the freeway. I suggested we find a place to spend the night, but instead we took a quick bathroom break at a grocery store, and bought lunchables for the unknown length of time left to go. Halfway to Seattle, we realized I would not make my 7:40 flight, so we canceled it, with no end to the snow in sight. All traffic reports told people to stay off the roads, especially I-5 (the road we were on). Closer to Seattle, the roads got a little better, but traffic was still slow, so the rest of my family changed their flights to 9:55pm (the last flight to Oakland). Snow turned to rain, and the snow melted from our car as we passed Seattle. We got to the airport just in time for our flight, and arrived in Oakland after midnight. Now, mapquest, says that it only takes a little over 2 hours to get from Vancouver to Seattle. We made it in a grueling 9 hours.

Favorite Quotes of the Weekend:
Ginny (my sister), in a particularly sappy moment at our first Thanksgiving dinner: "God, I'm glad I was too hung-over to put on mascara this morning." Classic Ginny.
Mom, reminiscing fondly: "You guys don't remember when I used to treat you like the dog, do you?!" Thanks, mom.

Preview for an upcoming entry: For the 3rd year in a row, my mom did not consult me on the Christmas tree. Unfortunately, this one lasts.

I recently placed pins in a world map to display all the places I've been. I thought that as a person who has been to more places than the average person, I was a traveler who'd seen most of the world. A cosmopolitan in the truest definition. I've seen Stonehenge, Yosemite, Buddhist Temples, the Berlin Wall (or where it used to be), Aztec pyramids, etc, etc.

But when I stood back from my map, I realized with a few pins in the back countries of Europe, and a couple pins in Hong Kong and Japan, I haven't really been anywhere! In actuality, I have only been to half of the traversable continents. And I haven't even been south of the equator for goodness sake!!

It is humbling to say the least. But also inspiring, as my life goals still stand: To travel to all continents (excluding Antarctica), to see the Seven Wonders of the Ancient/Modern/Medieval/Natural World, to travel into Space.... What can I say? I'm a Sagittarius, a traveler at heart, always looking for the next big adventure.

So, my map continues to sit in my room, challenging me to place more pins!