Sun, Snow and Serenity

Let me first say that I am having quite a difficult time at the moment, sitting here and writing in this blog. You see, it’s 11am, it’s sunny, 23 degrees and rising, it’s my day off and there are 3 different beaches within an hour’s bus ride that are calling my name. Oh, summertime how I love you.

But I promised my mommy that I would write a few stories in here and put up a few pictures so I’m going to do what I can before noon….

Firstly, let us welcome summer in Vancouver! To kick off the occasion, my old buddy Erin came up from the depths of the Lower Mainland to spend the long-weekend Sunday with us, hiking the afternoon away on the very-warm-yet-somehow-very-snow-covered north shore, then replenishing all those calories by settling in for some massive Korean barbecue, and to top it off, going down to the beach with our desserts and watching the sunset.

Erin was the one with the camera that day, so all the good pictures of the valley, the food and the beach ended up on her blog, so check it out.

I managed to capture a few moments on my cell phone, though:


Let’s take the “experienced hikers only” route! Or maybe not…


A “cool” experience, hiking on mountain snow when it’s 20+ degrees out.


Remnants of the old growth forests. Do you think the people were giant back then too?


Oh, I think I see one!

After the long weekend, we all begrudgingly returned to work and school, but there was another little bit of fun stored up for us, because Chris’ brother was coming up from Florida for a visit! He’d actually been in the country for a couple of weeks already, staying with friends and such, but now it was our turn to have him :) And of course Chris was more excited than anyone. I was mostly working but got to hang out with them in the evenings, watching movies, shopping, going out to eat and all sorts of things. Oh man, and when those two get together – watch out! I mean, Chris is normally a pretty subdued guy, but I don’t think he used his “inside voice” for the entire 4 days ;)

Then, of course, to add to the excitement, the very day Kenny left town, my birthday snuck up with no warning at all! Upon this realization I quickly went and booked the afternoon off, took myself out for lunch, went shopping and hung out at the beach until dinnertime.


The birthday babe!


The tide was out so far that afternoon that people were playing football way out into the bay.


Say hello to my 27-year-old feet. Yikes.

And seeing as I have the best Schatz that ever lived and breathed, of course there was a mountain of carefully wrapped presents on the table and when I got home that night.


Including but not limited to a Roots bag and the Firefly DVD set,


A hilarious card…


… that he claims he did *not* steal,


and a bouquet of lilies, my favoritest-ever flowers.

Oh! And how could I forget? He took me here for dinner. This place is so popular and amazing but it doesn’t take reservations, so it ended up being a whole-evening affair and altogether great fun.
So aside from the fact that I’m now one step higher on the dreaded staircase to the big 3-0, it was as nice a birthday as I could ask for!

More summertime stories to follow, but for now I'm heading out!

Just 'Cuz

Today is a very special girl's birthday, someone I literally grew up with and made a fool of myself with all along the way (and continue to do so, occasionally!) I just couldn't find the right e-card for her, so she gets her very own blog entry instead!



HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

Journey to the Land of Red, White and Cheesecake

Just to bring you up to speed, Chris left for Europe on Sept 9th, 2008 for Europe to do a series of internships, and came home on March 7th, 2009. It was a long six months, and both of us have done plenty of exciting things in the meantime that could probably have been blogged about. I had a roommate, I got a new job, and as for Europe… well, it’s just full of adventures, but I’m going to have to save those details for another time.

Upon Chris’ return, I took a week off work, got a rental car and we went on a little vacation down south to do some major relaxing in Seattle and Portland! Neither of us had been down there before and Portland came highly recommended.


Here we go! This is on the highway to Seattle. Despite being March already, it decided to snow AGAIN that morning here on the west coast. Luckily it stopped by the time we left and the roads were clear.


America, here we come!


Here we are in Seattle.


Our hotel was really cool, an old place that’s been redone in art deco style. I especially liked the super-deep bathtub.

That evening we strolled around Seattle downtown trying to figure out dinner, when we stumbled across none other than the Cheesecake Factory! Now, for some of you who may not know of a certain favorite TV show of ours, this may not be significant, but anyway we were excited and it was a really cool place.




Guess what they serve here?


Little do you know, Cheesecake Factory, we’ll see you again soon...

And moving right along, since Portland was actually our goal, we jumped into our little Ford Focus once again the next morning and headed out. Not before taking advantage of the sunny morning to visit the space needle and surroundings.


Who’s that old man next to my car?


The space needle is surrounded by all these massive modern pieces of art.


Find Jen!


There are also a Science Fiction museum AND a History of Rock and Roll museum down there, which I was sooo tempted to go to, but we had a driving schedule to adhere to. Next time, Seattle!

We arrived in Portland with daylight to spare and firstly checked into the most interesting hotel ever.


What? A school? ...Yes, a school!

It’s actually an old elementary school that has been renovated into a hotel. The classrooms are hotel rooms, the cafeteria is a restaurant, the offices are bars, the auditorium is a movie theatre and the teacher’s lounge is one giant hot tub!


Plus, there’s weird artwork everywhere, and a lot of pictures of how the school used to be. This is in the main entrance, next to the front desk. Gong!


Our room was just down here, in one of the classrooms that overlooked the ‘girls playcourt’.

Each room has huge windows and original heating vents, hanging lamps and ceiling fans, hardwood floors, and even a chalkboards that you can write on :)


Another cool hallway with skylights, this one led to the parking lot.


The cafeteria/restaurant where I had the best steak sandwich and salad with blue cheese dressing of my life. Apparently Oregon is big on micro brewed beer as well, and our little school/hotel was no exception either, they brewed their own somewhere on site, a whole bunch of different kinds too, and we tried most of them ;)

Most of our time in Portland was just spent exploring the downtown. And everyone was right, it’s a really cool city! The next full day (after sleeping in and having giant omelets for breakfast, of course) we simply drove downtown, parked and strolled around the entire day. A big chunk of our time was spent at Powell’s Books, the largest independent bookstore in the world. The place is just full of new and used books in every category under the sun. I must have bought 4 or 5 books there, it was really fun. Sorry, I didn’t take any pictures. I have no idea what time it was when we were done strolling and shopping gallivanting around Portland, but it was certainly past dinner time and we were pooped, so we just grabbed some food at the "cafeteria" (which is open until 1am!) and returned to our classroom for the night.

Oregon day 2 consisted of another ridiculously awesome breakfast at this French bakery near our hotel, and from there we took the 90-minute drive to the coast to visit the town of Seaside.


*Yay!* I’m on the beach in the middle of March! So what if I need my jacket and scarf, it’s SUNNY!

The town of Seaside is basically just this little collection of resorts and cottages interspersed with seafood restaurants, souvenir stands and ice-cream shops, all along this amazingly huge beach on the wide-open Pacific.









It was a really great, sunny day. We were only wearing sweaters and light jackets, and even took our jackets off in the afternoon. We just walked along the beach for who-knows-how-long picking up sand dollars and watching the huge waves, then we walked back again and had some world-famous clam chowder and fish and chips, and then massive ice-cream cones at this shop with a cow bench.


Yes! A cow bench!

The drive back to Portland was nice, and we even accomplished our goal of being here:


… by 8pm when they closed. Yes, despite being full of fish and chips and famous clam chowder, we simply had to eat here. We just didn’t believe it when we saw this place advertized in a local magazine and so we had to see for ourselves. The Döners were quite authentic, to be sure, although a little light on the yogurt sauce and overpriced. But we actually got to chat with the owner in German! So worth it.

Then, after our last night at the Kennedy School, it was time to hit the road again and go home. On the way, though, we made sure to pay a visit to the Mount St. Helens visitor’s center. It’s quite far from the actual mountain, but there’s a great view of it from the balcony. We could have driven another 1.5 hours to the outlook that gives you a view of the crater and everything but that would have been a little far out of the way. Inside there was a short movie and a nice little museum. We learned a lot!


A nice couple from Texas offered to take our picture with the mountain (well, it ended up being a nice picture of “us” anyway)


Here’s a shot of the snow-covered mountain.

Continuing on our way home, we had great views of the rest of Washington as well. This is Mount Rainer, which was staring at me through the passenger window most of the afternoon.



Passing through Seattle once again, it was time for dinner and we decided to stop in another section of the city called Bellevue, went to this really nice shopping center in search of food, and what did we find but another Cheesecake Factory! Well, why not? Let’s go for the real American experience while we’re here :)

Since we took our time on the trip home, we ended up arriving pretty late, and of course, having to unpack the car in the rain. Oh well, it just made sleeping in my own bed again all the better.

The next day we had to say farewell to the car *sniff sniff*, but Vancouver has plenty to offer, if not sunny weather, and we made the most of our last few days off before heading back to work again and normal, boring life. On the bright side, my Schatz is home again, and I'm still super happy about that :)

While I'm At It

Hey again!
Christmas being over, I went back to work for a whole three days but then New Year's just snuck up on me! Now I'm home again and a little bored, just playing on the computer, and I thought, why not write another special holiday blog entry?

I really just want to share with you where I went and what I did on Tuesday:


Yay the new Olympic speed skating oval!

Now, I was already there for the grand opening way back on December 13th, at which time I got to skate for a whole 10 minutes before they kicked us off the ice. But my camera wasn't working that day anyway, so I took the 45 minute bus ride after work on Tuesday and went back there (and paid the $8 admission!) to skate for a good two hours.

Apparently you can fit 3 hockey rinks inside the ice track, so just to give you an idea of how huge this place is, I thought I would tape myself skating just one lap so you can see how long it takes. And I'm not going slowly! (I even think it only ended up being 3/4 of a lap...)


Weeee!! I feel like such an Olympian!


This is a much less blurry shot of the building. The roof is some kind of fancy wood pattern and the one wall is totally glass. It's very cool.


And last but not least, this is the women's bathroom. That's all rubber skate-friendly flooring. Also check out the fancy modern sinks!

Getting there from downtown was easy, but getting home on the bus (at night in the freezing rain) was a little tiresome and complicated, so I don't know how often I'll be making the trip across the river to play on the frozen Olympic goodness, however it's pretty awesome so I don't think it would take too much convincing.

Now... I wonder when they'll be opening the new Olympic bobsled track? ;)

It's Nicer Out There in Summer Anyway

Hello! Jennifer here!

Since I’m not coming home for Christmas this year, I thought I’d at least try and update the old blog and let you know how things have been going out here in Vancouver.

It’s sure been a while since May long weekend, hasn’t it? Let’s see… my 26th birthday must have come shortly after that. (26?? When did that happen??) . I don’t recall doing anything really special since Chris was in Europe at the time, although we did have a kind of tailgate barbecue lunch in the parking lot at work! That was pretty fun.

Now fast forward to Canada Day weekend and another very amazing camping trip to Pacific Rim National Park. That’s on the west side of Vancouver Island, where you camp right in the rainforest on the edge of an enormous beach overlooking the wide open Pacific. It was just breathtaking. We stayed for 5 days and it never rained once! Apparently that’s pretty amazing for a place that gets double the rain per year than Vancouver.


Here we go on the ferry from Horseshoe Bay!


This is Cathedral Grove on the island. Apparently this is where they filmed the Ewok Village in Star Wars.


This beach was endless. I guess that's why it's called "Long Beach".


Chris didn’t want a sunburn, so he constructed himself a very nice Japanese-style homeless shelter.


Let me at that wood!


I claim this land Giesbrechtoria!

It was such a great trip.
I think it also really helped me to deal with all the employment chaos that followed!

So here’s the story: For the last few weeks in June I’d been looking for a new job, I really liked my old job at Musicfolder.com but with Chris coming and going, I needed something with a little higher pay and better benefits. Then, at the end of June I received an offer! It was a bookkeeping job at a contracting company. I’d done a bunch of bookkeeping at my old job with the same program so I guess they thought I was a good choice. And it was within biking distance! Although I was sad to leave the great people at my old job, I was excited for the new opportunity, and as soon as we got back from our camping trip, I started as their junior bookkeeper. … I lasted 3 weeks.

I can’t say the work was too hard, but the office and the company was much smaller than I’d thought and I basically ended up sharing a tiny reception desk in an empty office with only this one woman who was not only my supervisor, but one of the meanest, most discouraging and evil people I’ve ever met. I kept a positive attitude most of the time, but at the end of the day I would end up being so terribly depressed that I would come home to Chris or call my friends and just cry.
After 3 weeks of that I decided to go and ask for my old job back, and my wonderful boss said yes of course! We’ve really missed you! Come in on Monday afternoon to sign a new contract…

But guess what happened on Monday morning?
I got another call. This time from none other than Service Canada, offering me a position I’d applied for a whole year earlier. Making 30% more than even the new bookkeeping job, not to mention government benefits. What a great surprise! … And then I came back down to Earth again. Oh no. Now I have to tell Musicfolder I can’t come back after all… well I technically could go back, but only for a month. Would they take me back for just a month? Would that be asking too much? I didn’t think my boss would go for that… but he was fine with it! I was so happy I promised to still come in and help out on one of my days off.

So... now you’re looking at one of the newest members of the team at Vancouver’s Employment Insurance Call Center! Officially I’m a “Citizen Service Officer” but really just an EI Call Center agent. It took about 2 months of training, and it’s pretty challenging but a good job and, thank goodness, the people there are all really nice.


This is my building (the tall one with the round thing on top), right downtown at the edge of the harbour.


How thoughtful! I like these people already.


These binders are what taught me to do my job. Did I mention 2 months of training…


… just to be able to say “I’m sorry sir, this is the Employment Insurance Information line, if you have a question about your taxes, you’ll have to call Canada Revenue. Here’s the number…”

Just a week after I started working there is when Chris left for Europe again. Wasn’t he just there, you ask? Yes, he was there for 3 weeks in May on a study tour. He spent the summer here at home and now he’s doing an actual internship at the European Union. He’s been in Brussels since September working for the EU’s Environmental Agency doing all kinds of fancy political things. It was pretty hard for me at first to have him gone, and I sure still miss him, but I’ve made myself nice and busy with work and friends, we also email constantly and webcam every week or two, so it’s kind of become normal now and I’m doing fine. Chris and I talked about visiting at Christmas but decided it was too expensive and there wasn’t enough time, so he’ll be going to his grandfather’s in Germany for the holidays, then he’s moving to Berlin for 2 more months to do a second internship at the German Parliament. The way it looks right now, he’ll be home at the beginning of March. I know it’s a long time but, like I said I’m doing fine and working a lot. I’m also really proud of him! As soon as he actually gets paid to do this stuff (and not just do free internships) I’ll be right there with him, working or teaching English or something in this or that exciting foreign country. Right now, though, I just gotta pay the rent here at home, and Vancouver’s pretty nice too.


You don't see mountain-ocean sunsets like this just anywhere.


These are just couple of my friends around here!

On Thanksgiving I was invited to my friend Jessica’s in Victoria. She loves cooking too and we went all out on dinner!


No pain, no gain.


Voila!

I also ended up getting someone to come and take the spare room and split the rent for the past four months, a really sweet girl named Elizabeth from Ontario who was doing an internship in Vancouver for the fall semester. She actually just moved out last weekend and went back home, but not before decorating my kitchen with the biggest, gaudiest, most awesome Christmas decorations. Yeah we had good times together as roommates and I hope we keep in touch.


She’s also a champion Christmas present wrapper-and-giver.

Speaking of people moving away, Chris’ family have officially made their way to Florida. They’d been living here in Vancouver for about 5 years, so the US government decided that it was time for their dad to get another transfer. The family submitted a list of 5 choices and I think Florida was #5 but that’s the one they got. Before we knew it, the time came at the end of November to load all of their things onto moving trucks and set off across the continent. I think they’re in a hotel at the moment while still trying to sell their house out here (it’s really nice, let me know if you’re interested!), but sooner or later they’ll be settled in down south and I foresee a visit to Cape Canaveral… umm… I mean…the Stockmans’ new house in the near future.


One thing’s for sure, they won’t have any of this out there! But hey, we’re not supposed to have it here either, so who knows!

And that brings me to MY parents, you know, the ones who will never, ever move away. Turns out they will go on vacation, though! While I’m sure Dad is still brimming with stories of his unguided tours of the slums of Mexico, allow me to say a little about their final shore excursion – visiting me in Vancouver!

I met them at the airport after work on the Saturday, and they stayed at my little place here until Tuesday night. I got to cook them dinner, we went to church, visited IKEA, ate sushi (well, not Mom), I got to see their pictures from the cruise, I gave them their Christmas presents, it was a really nice time! Most fun of all was renting bikes and touring around Stanley Park on a beautiful, freezing cold day.








Thanks for visiting, you guys! Come back anytime! And bring my sister!

What are my plans for Christmas, you ask? Well, I’ll be working on the 24th, and in the evening one of my friends said she'd come hang out with me after her gathering. Then comes Christmas Day, and have no fear, I’ve already been to Blockbuster and made my picks. I’m going to sleep in, maybe go to church, but really just relax and watch movies! I didn’t think I would, but I’m actually looking forward to it! Then, on Boxing Day another friend is coming over and we’re going to do a bit of cooking and shopping and celebrating together. I might also go skating again on the newly finished Olympic speed-skating oval.

I’ll still be thinking of everyone out there in Altona, though! I hope you all enjoy the gatherings with all the family, food and presents, and I want to wish everyone lots of joy, peace, health and happiness as you celebrate the birth of Christ, and as you start another brand new year!

Love,
Jennifer

Geniuses at Play

Welcome to summer in Vancouver. On your left, you’ll find the writhing, blue ocean. On your right, you’ll see a range of hazy, snow-speckled mountain peaks, and directly above is the brilliant warm-but-not-hot sun, adorning a perfectly cloudless sky.

Yes, after all of my Vancouver-bashing this past year, this July has brought me to the point where I can admit that it’s pretty darn nice here. And what a month it’s been! Not to mention June… and May…

It’s been a while, hasn’t it? Yes, well allow me to pick up around May long weekend when I went camping for the first time in years. I went with my new good friend Harmony, just the two of us, for a fabulous 3 days away at a tiny lake in the middle of the mountains. Considering the weather was fabulous, there was a big demand on campsites that weekend. Fortunately, BC has some kind of policy where a campground can only reserve ½ of its sites and the others fill up on a first come, first served basis. Being as awesome and spontaneous as we are, of course, we didn’t have a reservation. This meant that we’d need to somehow beat the crowd on Friday afternoon, but how? Then, as we pondered this, Harmony had the most amazing brainwave: drive the 1.5 hours to the campground BEFORE work on Friday, book a site at 7am when the gates open, and drive back down to work at 9. Genius!

So that’s what the genius did :)

Well, pretty much. She got to the campsite all right, but had to wait in line at the gate for 10 minutes. When she finally got to the campground office, she was told that the last site had been taken by the guy in front of her. And it was only 7:10am!

As luck would have it, though, the ranger directed her to a few other smaller walk-in campgrounds in the area, and thevery next one she tried she got the best site in the place. She made it back to work almost* on time, and that same afternoon she picked me up and we drove right back there with plenty of time to set up and settle in. The weather that weekend was indeed fabulous. So much so that we did absolutely nothing but sit on the dock. Just sit. And sit. Jump in the lake. Sit some more. There were a couple other dock inhabitants there that we chatted with, which was nice, and of course when the sun went down we had our campfire and s’mores… uhumm… I mean dinner.

These were some falls stopped at on the way up. That’s BC for ya - amazing waterfalls just randomly as you drive down the highway…

Another spectacular sight; also known as the view from the scary, lonesome logging road that lead to our campground.

Home sweet lakeview home!

Can you identify the muscular Giesbrecht legs?

What winter?

Ah yes. May long weekend. Only the beginning of many more lakes, hikes, beaches and sunsets that I've been soaking in the past few weeks. I promise I will write about them all too! Not to mention what I am now referring to as "my employment upheaval fiasco". Another time, however. The revelations must happen in stages. At present I must bask in my blogging accomplishments by watching TV.

I'll Be Home With Skates On

Seeing as the trees outside are laden with pink blossoms, the neighbor kids are playing outside in shorts, and the sun is beaming its golden warmth through my window, I think it’s only appropriate to talk about… Christmas.

It was a strange departure. As a matter of fact, it was a strange vacation altogether. I hadn’t actually been home for Christmas for 3 years and it was surprising how much had changed, not to mention what happened while we were there. Anyway, the week before we left, I was so excited. My boss was gracious enough to give me a few extra days off so that we could buy sale seats on the plane, we had managed to check everyone off our gift lists, procure a few warmer items of clothing, and arrange a ride to the airport…

… or so we thought. Yes, it seems something came up for Chris’ parents and the day before we left, they called and said they wouldn’t be driving us. So we took a cab! Ok maybe this doesn’t sound so strange to you, (as a matter of fact it was awesome!) but you’d have to know what Chris thinks about cabs, so suffice it to say this amounted to a very last-resort type of decision.

Our flight was good, as far as I can remember, and believe me I would definitely remember if it was bad. Just Steph picked us up at good old YWG this time, and wasn’t she just so happy to see us when we came down the escalator wearing fuzzy santa hats and waving frantically! Haha, I seem to remember her pulling her own hat down over her face. Oh, Steph.

We were humbly welcomed by the flat and cold.

The fun didn’t last long, though. You see Grandma had gone into the hospital a day or two before with some mysterious debilitating illness, so we basically dropped our bags off at home and then went directly to the hospital to be with the rest of the family. The doctors thought it was a stroke, then not, then food poisoning, then not. Her vision, her nerves, her respiration, everything was out of whack and we were all really scared. I don’t remember how long she stayed in the ICU but she was still there when we flew back. Yes, and we ended up spending most of Christmas Day in the hospital as well. Needless to say, nobody was feeling very festive.

Skipping ahead for a moment, Grandma has given us another reason never to doubt how amazing she is. Although they never actually diagnosed her and the recovery was pretty slow, she’s living back at home and things are almost back to normal. As a matter of fact, the whole family got together just a couple of weeks ago and celebrated Christmas for real.

End Drama.

Now who wants to hear about skating and igloos and Twister and Guitar Hero? Oh, how I make life in Altona sound so exciting.

Of course I really don’t remember when we did what, and most of the pictures that were taken of our visit don’t even seem to be in our possession. (Although my brilliant prose should be sufficient to fill your minds with the most vivid of images, go ahead and send me Christmas pictures if you have any!) We didn’t want to drag the camera around in the cold, I guess, but allow me to still highlight some of the things we got up to out on frozen prairies:

Skating

Chris’ first time ever! And on the potentially-longest skating path in the world, no less. We went to the Forks, you know and I’d never even been there in the winter and let me tell you right now: way more fun than in summer!

( insert picture of Chris on skates )

Seeing the Fam

How do I bear to be away from these people?

Seeing the Friends

The good thing about visiting on the holidays is that you can just throw a party and see everyone at once instead of going out for breakfast here and lunch there etc. etc. My dear friend Jenna and her husband Tyler were ambitious enough to invite all us crazies over to their place to celebrate the season. It was so awesome to hang out with everyone again, and all their husbands too, of course, and this time there was even a baby! Way to go Suzy! We ate a lot of food, told a lot of stories, looked at a lot of pictures, and played a lot of Guitar Hero. Way too much fun.

( instert picture of incredibly good-looking friend group, cute baby and/or me rocking out with a plastic guitar )

We even got to hang out with a few people non-party style. We got to see Shannon’s new house and even have dinner with Sheila’s whole family including her charming fiancé-now-husband and stepdaughter!

( insert memory of best reuben sandwiches ever! )

Spending time at the Janzes… and the Janzes

Since Steph and Trevor have their own apartment in Winnipeg now, when I go out there, it’s like I actually have two homes to visit. Which is awesome because Winnipeg is where all the action is. We spent a few nights there, as far as I remember. We did a lot of home cooking, a bit of shopping, movie watching, the skating, and oh yes, there was a Best Buy on Boxing Day adventure that Chris and Trevor seemed to thoroughly enjoy.

The other Janzes would be Trevor’s parents. It seems Chris and I have all but adopted them as a third set of in-laws and we usually end up also paying them a visit whenever we’re in town. I swear Elaine’s baking has nothing to do with it ;) This time it was winter, though, and since they live (or lived, I should say) seven miles off the highway between Nowheresfeld and Nowheresstadt, of course we got snowed in at their place and had to spend the night. The blizzard and the warm house in combination with Twister, Cranium, Tri Bond and chocolate cake made for a pretty fun time!

( insert picture of Chris and Trevor in compromising positions )

Are we there yet?

Iglooing!

Saving the best for last, may I present an event that we actually do have pictures of: our construction of an igloo in the backyard and subsequent camping out in it! Oh, it was just – 20 degrees, no big deal.

Let’s start out with the backyard that is the winter wonderland of my childhood:

The igloo building process takes a few days, actually. And first you must always practice your snow construction skills, preferably on a loved one.

Ok, technically it was a “quincy hut” since we didn’t use arctic snow-blocks to make it, but we just called it an igloo because it was more fun.

Anybody home?

We took these pictures the morning after our campout. Obviously we survived.

Let us now observe the Homo Sapien during hibernation…

Notice the breadth of his feet, this must be the alpha male…

His hibernation interrupted, the Homo Sapien curiously emerges from his den…

He must be hungry, the females are going to have to wait their turn…

Yeah, it was great. We had a ton of blankets and wore sweats and hoodies and toques and were quite warm. We asked Mom for a flashlight but she just gave us a bucket of tea-lights and told us to light all of them inside so it would be romantic. In fear of our sleeping bags going up in flames, we opted for an electric candle. It was cute. And we still stayed warm! The only things that seemed to get cold were our eyelids, because your eyes make the edges of them wet, I guess. It was weird.

Apparently Dad had a campout of his own a few weeks after we left. Nice to see it being used :) He’s also kept us up to date with pictures of our precious igloo, sending them every so often so we could observe its deterioration. As of today, I believe they were in double-digit temperatures out there so I’m sure it’s history. I did, however, create a time-lapse slide show for any of you who aren't quite sick of this igloo talk. And for the first time ever, I've embedded a slideshow in the blog! I feel bad contaminating the blog with such cheap and dirty code, but the melting effect was so cool. Anyway, voila.

Of course there was way more that happened in those 10 days, the least of which was Grandma Klassen coaching Chris in turkey-carving, but I'm starting to get full just thinking about it, so I'll leave it there.

More to come about 2008, thanks for still reading!

And That, Gentlemen, Is How We Do That

Greetings, Earthlings.
I trust all have been surviving the winter months. Temperatures have been above zero, and skies unusually clear lately in this part of the world, so we can't really complain. Life has been progressing as usual; working, studying, eating, sleeping. We do manage to bust out of our shell once in a while and do something worth writing about… but only once in a while.

A couple of weeks ago, for example, we went out for dinner with Erin and Rachel and their respective men. We hang out oh so rarely, but all the more reason to make the most of it when we do (recalling: weekend of karaoke madness). So this particular dinner date took us far up into the hills of West Vancouver to a little fine dining establishment known as The Salmon House on the Hill. The view was spectacular and the décor was spectacularly indigenous. The prices were a little too spectacular and my food was a little on the pooey side but we really just had fun going out and dining. Grant was kind enough to chauffer us all home, right back into the heart of Vancouver and we repaid the favour by inviting one and all into our Maison Cosmos for fresh coffee cake and tea… and perhaps some home-brew schnapps we smuggled back from good old Deutschland.

One lump or two?

This must have been post-schnapps

Sigh. So much has happened since then. Let’s get together again soon.

And now allow me to direct your attention upwards (and back a couple of days). As you may or may not be aware, there occurred a lunar eclipse this past week and we were fortunate enough to have clear skies, a big-ass camera and a landlord with a second floor balcony.

This was the result:

And that, gentlemen, is how we do that.

Summer '07 Part IV: Döner-vergnügen

Happy New Year, dear blog readers! We’re back from Christmas in Winter Wonderland and ready for life to go back to “normal”. There will be some crazy Christmas pictures up here soon, you can be sure, but until then…

…Remember how I was writing about the summer of 2007 and how I’d wanted to have it done at least before 2008 rolls around? Well, that didn’t happen. But count yourselves lucky, because now you can take at least 10 minutes out of your bleak, winter day and transport yourselves to summertime in one of the most gorgeous regions of Europe…

It all started in Vancouver International airport.

There’s a new fish tank in there. Nice totem-thing. As a matter of fact, that airport is starting to look more like Aboriginal Disney World than anything else.

We were really excited to see old Deutschland again, but our vacation didn't get off to the best of starts. Seeing as flying is really not my thing and it was something like 6am, all I wanted to do was get through security and catch some Zs in the gate before we boarded the plane. But a certain someone and his family have issues saying goodbye until the last possible minute, (even if it is for just three and a half weeks) and we ended up standing idly in the check-in area for a grueling amount of time before we went through security.

And *sigh* boarding the plane was no better, to tell the truth. This time we were on Lufthansa’s economy line called Condor, and it actually smelled like cigarettes. Of course it’s been ages since smoking was allowed on flights, right? So then how old was this plane?? And it didn’t have seat-back TVs either. Maybe I’m spoiled, but I don’t think that it’s too much to ask in this day and age, especially on overseas flights from one industry-leading country to another, to have a TV somewhere in my line of vision! To top it off, there was massive turbulence for extended periods, particularly at mealtime. This, of course, made me feel more like contributing to the food on my tray than eating it…

But we finally arrived here:

And solid ground never felt so good.

From there we picked up our bags, navigated the airport, hopped a train, then another train and possibly another, and made our way deeper and deeper into the beautiful German countryside. At our destination, Herr Kiefer (a wonderful neighbor and friend of the family) picked us up from the last train station and brought us right to Opa’s door.

Here it is: home sweet home for all of August, 2007.

A short background: Chris’ grandfather (“Opa”) lives in this house with his brother (Chris’ uncle) Emil. Opa doesn’t walk much anymore due to back problems, and spends most of his time either watching TV in his room or sitting at the kitchen table eating liverwurst or drinking coffee. Emil is a little younger and has been taking care of the house since Chris’ grandmother died in 2005.

The thought of spending a month living in this little house with these two (three?) old men was a little intimidating to me at first, but of course they ended up being great hosts. Uncle Emil would bring home fresh rolls in the morning and go shopping and cook us delicious German meals every single day, and Opa would always make sure that I had one of his sweaters on hand in case I got cold, and that there was space in his room for us to bring in the kitchen chairs and watch TV with him. Once I started to understand more of their dialect, Opa and I even managed to have a nice conversation here and there, and not without a healthy bit of teasing.

Chris loves this house more than any other place in the world I think. And it’s easy to see why. The little town is so cute and located in a beautiful, forested valley and the air out there smells absolutely delicious. The house is located at the edge of town and backs onto a little ice-cold stream, and across the stream is a small pasture, and beyond that is the other side of the thick, wooded valley. Chris is so in love with the air here that every evening before bed, he would stand in front of the open window look out over the valley and simply inhale (often quite loudly) for 2 or 3 minutes.

At the back of the house, and overlooking it all, is a covered balcony almost as big as the house itself. It has a red tile floor that holds the sun’s warmth well into the evening and a bounty of patio furniture, including an exercise bike. This balcony is where we spent most of those dreamy August days.

This is the view from the balcony out onto the pasture. The “breathing window” is just above.

Sorry! Did I wake you?

German books and tabloids were our staples out there.

Back in the day, Opa was an avid hunter and if you happened to miss out on any of his stories, the décor of the house will remind you. May I present: the Weishaar residence!

The stairwell and front hallway.

The kitchen where Uncle Emil works his magic. (And Christian and Jenny so graciously clean up.)

The little (and only) corner toilet. Apparently this house didn’t even have full plumbing until 1995!

Under the rustic antler-theme lamp, we find the precious grandchildren. Recognize the one in the middle?

It's such a sweet little place. But if only the air here had some sort of healing power… You see, despite the pleasant surroundings, I didn’t get off to a very good start out there in Germany, either. The first couple of days out there were plagued with serious jetlag, which is to be expected, but then, despite being served big, delicious meals each day, my appetite decided to vanish. Turns out I’d got the same stomach acid problem that I had when we first arrived in Japan. I figure it might have something to do with the travel anxiety in combination with the long flights and airsickness. But not to worry. We made a quick visit to a very cool doctor, I recovered after a couple of days and I was once again able to enjoy Germany in all of its rich, meaty goodness.

Of course there’s never much going on in such a small town, but we were quite content spending our days reading on the balcony, going for long walks in the woods, helping here and there around the house and watching German-dubbed syndicated American prime-time TV with Opa. We’d visit the grocery store every now and then and pick up some of those German goodies that we long for back home like Hanuta, Almighurt, Salat Krönung and Miracoli, and we’d sit around on the balcony in the evenings, snacking away and reading the tabloids until it got too dark to make out the words.

On a lot of days we’d also be “invited”. Chris has a multitude of family friends up and down the street from his Opa’s house and we must have visited nearly all of them. We’d spend afternoons and evenings at these peoples’ places eating cake and drinking coffee, or even having dinner and wine, beer, or schnapps (or, in the case of Herr Kiefer, all of the above). For the most part, I’d be using the bulk of my concentration to make out the lightning fast dialect they were speaking, so they usually ended up thinking of me as a “quiet one”. But when I did manage to get a word in here and there they usually understood and complimented my German, which made feel nice. Yeah, the people out there were actually really, really nice to us. “Oh you poor kids”, they’d say, “stuck in that old house with those old men… why don’t you borrow our bicycles for the day” or “why don’t you come with us shopping to the city?” One weekend, some friends even lent us their car! “Oh, you’ve never driven a stickshift?” they said, “Just play around with it. It’s not that hard.” (!) So we did! And it was totally fun.

Although we really would have been happy spending our whole visit there in Thaleischweiler-Fröschen (yes, that’s the town’s name… don’t ask.), we simply could not go to Germany without visiting our old stomping grounds, and the place where we met – Mannheim. So one random weekday, we packed our backpacks, said “tschüss” to Opa for a little while, and hopped on a train, and then another (and then a bus, actually, because one of the train lines was under repair), and then another, and we eventually arrived in Mannheim, the nostalgia washing over us like a tidal wave of Fanta as we emerged from the station.

Waiting for the train.

Nice shirt. Hope you fit in.

Our first stop, after dropping our backpacks at the Bed and Breakfast was:

None other than the Namli. There are very few of you who will appreciate this, but those who do will be incredibly jealous.

Once we had satisfied that particular two-year long-craving, we set out to see what was new in the city. As it turned out, at our old university – also known as the giant Baroque castle on the Rhein river – they had finished the exterior renovations and also dug up all the grass, removed the fountain, and left a giant brick courtyard in its place.

It was nice to see the finished front façade, but we did miss the greenery.

There were such beautiful August flowers at the Paradeplatz, (city “parade” grounds). (much nicer than the Nazi banners that had plastered this place not 70 years ago...)

Seeing as Opa wasn’t one to have a microwave, much less a computer, by the time we’d arrived in Mannheim during our second week, we were pretty internet-starved. I hadn’t even let my family know we’d got there okay! But it was now time, and a bit of wandering brought us to this nice, cheap internet café close to the place where we used to play pool.

I feel really at home here for some reason…

Our B&B was actually not far from there either. We’d found it on the internet already before we’d left Japan and booked a room for these two nights in August. It was called the “Goldene Gans” (Golden Goose) and it was just perfect. Our room had a nice little shower and bathroom and a small balcony with pots of frothy, red geraniums hanging off the railing.

Our second day brought us to our favorite (even more favoriter than Mannheim) city in this region: Heidelberg. We arrived bright and early and climbed directly up to one of my most beloved places in the whole world, Heidelberg’s hillside Renaissance castle and gardens. It’s a bit of a climb, but really only a bump in the road compared to Grouse Mountain. Getting to the top, though, and looking down from the castle over the old part of the city will make just about anyone feel like a postcard photographer. Of course the pictures will never do justice the river, the big church, the old bridges and the charming houses notched into the other side of the valley; however big our camera lenses are ;)

Postcards aside, entering the castle grounds themselves never ceases to make me feel like a 16^th century princess, with riches and gowns and gardens and horses and princes vying for my affection.

I’m still not really sure how this tower ended up like this. Must have been some catapult.

This is the view from the tennis court / back garden. There are actually a lot of rooms inside the castle, like a ballroom and throne room and such, which have been restored. I went on a guided tour back in 2004 and saw all of it, but we were too cheap to pay admission this time. In fact, looking back, I realize went to this castle on September 3^rd, 2004 – when I had been in Germany for only three days and it became my favorite place right away! I didn’t even have a camera yet, but you can read more about it in that dear old blog, Jen in Deutschland.

The castle under our belts, we decided it was time to put some food there as well. Our descent and quest for lunch brought us to none other than the Heidelberg market square.

Ignore the car, this is where we had lunch! Now, this is one thing North America is in need of: huge pedestrian shopping zones with ubiquitous outdoor dining areas.

And then the shopping began. The street leading from the streetcar loop to the market, is one long, tall alley of 500-year-old buildings, and more importantly, amazing gelato, coffee, art and shopping.

A beautiful August afternoon really attracts the tourists out here. But it’s easy to see why.

Rachel: This one is for you.

And, well… this might also be self-explanatory.

So we really shopped until we dropped that afternoon. Dropped about 200 Euros, that is. The jeans like me in Germany, what can I say? And after a year of trying to find clothes that fit in miniature Japan-land, this was like a glorious homecoming.

The next day, well… I’m not exactly sure what we did on which day anymore (it was 6 months ago!)… so I’m going to say we toured around Mannheim a bit more, since those are the pictures that come up next.

According to this shot, we managed to indulge at least one more time in Mannheim’s dönery goodness. (That day in Heidelberg back in ’04, by the way, was also my first döner ever. *single tear*)

Like a kid in a... döner shop :)

And one more closeup: we’ll miss you little guy, but we’ll be back!

All fueled up, let’s check out Mannheim once more. Given more time, we would have probably gone and seen our old apartments and hangouts and stuff, but we were due back at Opa’s in another day so we had to stick to the main attractions.

Some of the newer European architecture in Mannheim’s pedestrian shopping zone.

After sitting on the balcony for two weeks, all that walking and touring around was a little strenuous… OK fine, this shot is really just showing off my new jeans.

A view from the water tower, the sun’s going down on the Fußgängerzone…

… and so we head to the old Wasserturm park.

I tried to avoid looking over at the hideous-red-suit conference centre where I used to work. Staring at the tower and the changing, illuminated fountain was cool enough, of course, and it was just so…

… well, I was going to say “romantic”, but….

Moving on to the last day of our excursion, after a lovely German breakfast at the Golden Goose, we checked out and departed for our next-next favorite town in all the region, Speyer. This was the location of one of Chris’ and my first dates, spent touring museums and galleries until all hours of the night, and which ended with us being stranded at the train station until 5:30am when we caught the local back to Mannheim.

Anyways, it’s really nice when you know your way around because you don’t waste your touring time studying maps or vacillatingly searching for places to eat. Of course, in Speyer you are just naturally drawn to the humongous cathedral at the end of the main avenue.

Built by who-knows-how-many hours of peasant labour and similarly ridiculous amounts of indulgence money, the cathedreal really still is such a beautiful place. Hearing voices singing inside of it sounds absolutely incredible, as you might imagine. We were hoping to attend a mass here on one of the days, but unfortunately it just didn’t fit into our plans.

As Chris went in search of East German Christmas ornaments at the souvenir shop, I stole his camera and wandered around the back of the cathedral, which was under construction the last time we were here. There were some simple gardens there now and even walking paths, it was really nice.

Of course, there are other cool things to see in Speyer, too.

We also had the opportunity to eat at Chris’ all-time favorite Italian restaurant (although now that Japan’s Cappricosa is on the list, I’m not so sure…) in their outdoor courtyard, in the very shadow of the cathedral. Mmm, blueberry soda and wild mushroom ravioli...

That afternoon, I believe, is when we boarded the train that would take us back to Opa’s house. This little weekend in Mannheim was really nostalgic and a lot of fun, but incredibly short. We’d lived there for a whole year, after all! There were so many more places we could have visited, but we were invited to Germany by Chris’ grandfather, and spending time there with him was really our main reason for coming out.

The next two weeks went by with more bike riding, walking, hiking, eating of gelato, more döners, yogurt, and hanging out with more people here and there and having coffee and cake. One thing I really regret is not getting any pictures of Chris’ grandfather and uncle! Chris is usually the one with the camera and I guess it just didn’t cross his mind! We did get a shot of the neighbors, though.

This is the Roos family. Do you remember the wedding that Chris and I attended out here in 2005? Well, it was Bärbel and Frank’s wedding, the two people next to Chris in the picture. Their son Hendrick was a tiny baby back then, and now he’s just the cutest little blonde-haired brown-eyed thing ever. On the other side of the picture is Bärbel’s sister and her family. Their parents live next door to Chris’ grandfather and these women are really good friends of Chris’ mom.

Wie süß!

Man, I wish I had pictures of all the people we spent time with that month. There we aunts, uncles, neighbors, friends, it was insane! I guess you just don’t think of busting out the camera every time you sit down for a cup of coffee, and anyway I’m sure we’ll be back.

Last but not least, there's Chris’ Oma. We must have visited her grave a couple of times each week. We also weren’t really that busy otherwise, but we enjoyed it. We talked a lot about her there and prayed and cleaned the area around the gravestone. All the neighbors agree she was the most wonderful lady and she died far too soon (in 2002, she was 67). She’s buried in a family plot with her mother-in-law (Chris’ great-grandmother) who actually only died in 2005.

In some ways it was an eternity, and in other ways it just flew by, but as August drew to a close, our German vacation also came to an end and we were faced with another overseas flight (our third this year!). Given the horridness of our departing flight, we somewhat feared what was in store for us on the return flight, but also thought it might only get better from there. Incidentally, the former would be most accurate. Since this blog entry really must come to an end soon, I’ll spare you the gory details of this particular flight, but our experience did include driving around in circles on the tarmac in a bus full of sweaty people for at least 30 minutes before we even set foot on an aircraft. Ok, enough. I know it’s cheap, but never fly Condor. That’s all I have to say about that.

Fast-forward to Vancouver where a new house, new school, new job, and brand new life were waiting for us in a strange city in a country that had become all but foreign to us over the past year.

How exciting! I wonder what they’re going to do now??

Oh right… you’ve read about all that already (it was 6 months ago, can you believe??) and we’re doing fine, I guess! As a matter of fact, I have just made the realization that I’ve now finished sorting through the photos and blogging bout “Summer ‘07”. Yes, that’s done so I’m doing very well, indeed! Now as for that Japan scrapbook…

How nice of you to ask!

Where has the time gone? I feel like just yesterday we were just getting started in this crazy city, and now it's already Christmas time and we're on our way back to Manitoba! What's also crazy is I haven't been "home" for Christmas in 3 years! So I figured I'd give a little update to cover some of the FAQs before we get there.

Job: Is going well, I'm not making as much as I'd like, but might be getting a promotion soon. Also my last interview at the Service Canada office (federal government) went really well and I'm expecting to hear back from them in January.

Chris: Is now done the first semester of his Master's program. He's really enjoying it, although it's a lot of work. He's also working part time as an AV nerd at the business school next to his institute.

Wedding: Looking like it's going to be postponed till the fall or probably spring 2009. Chris might have the chance to do an internship this coming spring at the German Parliament, and by the time he finds out if he's going, it'll be too late to plan a wedding. In the summer, his family is also probably going to be moving back to the states due to his dad's job and a wedding would apparently be too stressful for them. But I'm looking at it this way: maybe the extra time will help to convince them that it's a good idea in the first place ;)

Oh, and we've also kind of started leaning towards having it here in Vancouver instead of in Altona. It was my dad that convinced me, actually. Becuase we have a church here and a pastor that we like and it would be way easier to organize. So start planning your 2009 Vancouver vacations, everyone! Or would you just like us to wait until 2010 and you can come to the Olympics all in one shot? Let me know :)

House: Still renting from the Chinese pastor couple (who had a baby on November 15th, by the way - Joshua. He's so beautiful and we went to his baptism last weekend at their church). Since I only started working in November, we haven't really had the funds to furnish it the way we like just yet, but it's coming. In case anyone was wondering about Christmas presents, I'm thinking queen sheets, bathroom towels (white), kitchen towels, picture frames, cake pans, baking dishes and IKEA gift certificates :)

Christmas: Weather permitting, we're flying out this Tuesday (the 18th) at 7:00am Pacific Time and planning to attend all the family gatherings we can, and then some! So see you soon and Merry Christmas!