Vancouver (I'm a giant dork)

I made it in one piece!

I was a little nervous about the flight, but all in all, it wasn't bad. I have to say, it was a definite pleasure flying West Jet. The flight attendants were great, the seats weren't too bad, lots of leg room and the satellite TV's were awesome. I was too cheap to buy a movie, but I had Discovery and Animal Planet to keep me company. In the end, I put my knitting in my checked luggage, because I just didn't want to take the chance.

It's been over 10 years since I've flown anywhere; things have changed significantly since then. As I got to security, I did what the person in front of me did and put stuff in a plastic tray. I figured you put stuff in there that you didn't want ex-rayed. I had no idea you were supposed to empty your pockets - ya, I emptied 1/2 my bag and then walked through with my belt on and nothing happened. LOL. If there are no signs and no one tells you, how are you supposed to know what to do?! Ya, keep laughing. It could happen to anyone, but really, no one noticed and no one said anything, so in the end it didn't matter. I probably could have taken my knitting with me.

The contrast between Pearson and Vancouver airports is amazing. In Toronto, you have to walk for miles before you get to the next check in. Vancouver, you get off the plane and there's the baggage claim area. Large and impersonal verses smaller, but still spacious and welcoming.

Imagine that Vancouver had to gall to RAIN when I got here. The hair is a little frizzy but not out of complete control, that was 'till we went for dinner at a Japanese restaurant called Guu. I am more or less a vegetarian / very picky eater, so it was not entirely my kind of place, but the food that I did eat was very good and the restaurant itself was entertaining - all the yelling (greetings, orders, food up) in Japanese.

The hair out of control part came when I went to the bathroom after our meal. The 'relieving' part out of the way, I washed my hands and leaned forward to look at my face in the mirror. There was a nice arrangement on the small counter top with a Gerber daisy, pussy willow and a twisty branch. Can you see where this is heading? I was going to splash some water on my face and tidy up a bit, but my hair decided to make friends with the twisty branch. As I pulled back from the mirror, the vase came with me. I am ever so graceful (in a very dorky way). I dumped the vase, righted it, dumped it again as it was still attached and managed to splash the remainder of the water on my leg - I stood it back up, sorted out hair from twig, dried the floor and counter as well as I could and ran like hell. As I got outside, my sister asked if they yelled at me - my first word was "No!" then it occurred to me she meant did they yell good-bye? I proceeded to tell her my 'hair' encounter.

We did a hell of a lot of walking yesterday. It was great seeing Rachael and nice meeting Henrick - we had too much fun checking out his behind!! So far today, I'm just hanging out, but I think I will head out shortly and wander around for a bit. Coffee sounds like a great idea!!

Knitting Knews . . .
. . . I had the ribbing and 1 pattern repeat done on the 2nd sock pal sock and I managed to drop a stitch. Not so bad you say? I dropped the stitch several rows back and didn't notice - doh! So I frogged it back to the ribbing and started again. I now have the ribbing and 1 pattern repeat without the dropped stitch and the beginning of the 2nd.
It is a self patterning sock yarn and I had been thinking about making the colours match, but decided that I didn't want to have to pull all of that yarn out of the ball to get them to the matching point. I was a little afraid that I wouldn't have enough yarn and I really don't know if I would be able to find a match for it out here.

BTW, if you know of any yarny places that I should visit, please let me know!!