We left the United States on Saturday. Not for good of course, but we hit the end of the country and had one more stop to make before heading back. We had a great time in Seattle. I caught up with one of my favorite peeps in the world and former roommate, Julie. We've known each other so long I always feel right at home when I see her. She has an 8 and 5 year old...both wonderful and really funny kids so I warned her if they come up missing, don't bother with the Amber Alert...just check Chicago because it's likely they're with me. 

We've planted ourselves in Vancouver for a few days with our friends Gayle and Sandra. They are great cooks, have an unobstructed view of the English Bay and an expansive wine collection. Plus, they've been reading the blog and knew how much we liked a fire so had a recording of a crackling blaze on their flat screen when we walked in. I'm trying to push our check-out date as far out as possible because this whole set-up is working really well. Plus, Gayle is unemployed right now so she's got all the time in the world to show us around the city. Sandra is an attorney so I need to be really thorough in my research on squatters rights in Canada in case they try to boot us before we're ready to go. The fact that they don't know I'm using their internet connection to look up case law tells me this might be easier than I thought.

It poured on Sunday...our first really nasty day that kept us indoors. We made it out to Mass and were hermetically sealed the rest of the day. And that was perfectly fine because it was Super Bowl Sunday. Woo Hoo!!! Oh wait, we're in Canada...they could care less.  Sandra is Canadian and Gayle is a recent transplant from the States. Well, it was 3-1 we were watching the game. And, it was almost the same as being at home...except for the commercials. I think we missed a bunch. We did get the Bud commercials but were cut out of the rest. Gayle is a 30 year advertising veteran so she was not too pleased at how much air time was spent on the "Vancouver 2010 Olympics" versus the clever Pepsi, Doritos and whoever else spent $1 million for a 30 second ad. We had to pacify her by eating her homemade chili, drinking her wine and promising to hook the computer to the tv so we can watch the commercials later. We'll do whatever it takes to keep our hostess happy because as I mentioned, we're not leaving anytime soon.