Honeymoon is over, still like being married.

I got a whopping 15 hours in Vancouver before flying out again, am now in Orlando, jetlagged to hell with the end trailings of a migrane. At least I’m the only girl on this trip, so I have a hotel room to myself!

I make it back to Vancouver on Wednesday afternoon, sleep in my own bed that night, head to Semiahmoo after work on Thursday for a night there, then back home on Friday, then fly to Vegas for a week on Saturday.

Assuming I survive into May, that’s when you can expect the honeymoon stories and pictures to appear!

Hasta Luego.

We made it to our beautiful villa in Spain, and not a moment too soon.

Morocco is a hard country to visit as a tourist. Totally worth it, but definitely more difficult than any trip I’ve taken before. I’ll get more into that in a post once we’re home.

Anyhow, just as we finally thought we’d at least figured out Marrakech and the Djeema El Fna, Morocco gave us one final fuck you.

Food poisoning.

That set in on the train at about 4:30am of the 12th of April and didn’t cease for the rest of the train ride to Tangier, or the trans-Mediterranean ferry to Algeciras, or the car ride into the Ronda Mountains to Gaucin, or indeed the rest of the day. And night.

Today, the 14th of April at lunch was our first real meal since the nefarious foodstuffs (not willing to try anything riskier than plain bread and weak tea). Needless to say, our simple homemade pasta primavera and salad (with all fresh, local produce, thankyouverymuch) was the best meal we’ve ever tasted.

In that fateful 36 hours, we’ve thrown up and pooped more times than I can count, in three kinds of transportation, across two continents. We have shared the kind of embarrassing bodily-function moments that guarantee we can never split up now for fear of the secrets getting out.

If we can make it through that, we can make it through anything!

Right?

Apparently I need to write this quickly, since Neil doesn’t want to pay for more than 30 minutes of Internet. Great, I got myself a cheap husband (kidding!) (mostly).

Thankfully, this particular internet cafe has the option available to change the keyboard from French to English layout, so typing will be much faster than last time.

Unfortunately, thanks to an influx of sand and bad wine (oh those Moroccans, so proud of their awful, AWFUL wine), my brain isn’t actually that fast, so I don’t have anything particularly poignant to say about the latter half of the Morocco part of the trip.

But I’ll share a short adventure tale:

After we left Fes (getting there from Marrakech via Casablanca and Rabat for those playing along at home) we made our way south to Merzouga to embark on our overnight camel trek.

Unfortunately we got a full-on Saharan sandstorm instead.

But the itinerary must be adhered to!

So picture this: complete beige-out conditions, we’ve got about 3m visibility in any given direction, and sand is blowing into the vehicle through any possible entry-point (air vents, window cracks, door jambs, etc.). Mini-dunes are building up on the road behind any available obstacles: rocks, trees, uneven pavement, abandoned vehicles - the mini-dunes are anywhere from a couple inches to a full two feet high. Palm trees and concrete power poles are toppling in the powerful winds.

And we’re carreening through this, over the tiny dunes, around the fallen trees, past frightened camels.

At 100km/h.

To say we were relieved to finally reach the resorts at the dunes is perhaps the biggest understatement I’ve ever made.

Needless to say we did not embark on the camels that evening.

The tour company did pull through though, and arranged for a suite in one of the nicest kasbahs in the area to wait out the storm. Typically they (the storms, not the Kasbahs) die out overnight and don’t start up again until the next afternoon.

So we whiled away the hours hiding from the sand and drinking Moroccan beer (marginally better than Heineken, but MUCH better than the wine) before we fell asleep.

And the desert sands lived up to the promise: the wind was gone at 5:00am and we headed out to catch the sun rising over Algeria from the Dunes of Erg Chebbi.

It was exactly as impressive as you’d think.

Unfortunately, I can’t share a picture right now, because USB connections, card readers or cd burning seem pretty nonexistent in this neck of the woods. But trust me, it was pretty awesome.

(Oh god - the person across the aisle in this internet cafe is blasting Fergie: must finish quick and run far, far away.)

After Merzouga we went to Ouarzazate, then back to Marrakech (our favourite city in Morocco so far). Tomorrow night we take the night train (Marrakech Express) to Tangier, then a ferry to Algeciras, rent a car and drive for a couple hours into the middle of nowhere (Gaucin) and just chill out for a week.

Hopefully the internet situation in Spain is a bit more favourable.

Hasta Luego!

Greetings from Fès!

Hqve you ever touch)typed on q FrenchùQrqbic keyboqrd§ It co,es out so,ething like this:::

(Have you ever touch-typed on a French/Arabic keyboard? It comes out something like this…)

Anyhow, Morocco is amazing so far. It was really hard to feel comfortable at first, and we’re still pushed heavily toward tourist traps most of the time, but we’re slowly getting the hang of the country.

Average temperatures have been 28-32 degrees celsius, which is perfect (though still damn hot when wandering around outside). There’s no AC, but the stone and plaster architecture keeps it very comfortable indoors or in the narrow streets of the medinas.

Interesting tidbits:

The country is COVERED in cats. Seriously. It’s because Arabs consider them to be very clean as far as animals go, and they keep the mice down (there’s really a lot of garbage everywhere - seems this ancient society still hasn’t figured out what to do with their water bottles and snickers wrappers). But yes, cats everywhere.

The food is amazing. There only seem to be three major dishes: tajines, pastilles, and couscous. All three come in beef, chicken, lamb, seafood or vegetarian. And thanks to very strong traditions of Moroccan hospitality, we’re fed a LOT of all three at nearly every meal. When we come home 20kg heavier, you’ll know why.

Driving is an adventure and lines & signs on the road are merely suggestions. Throw in kamikaze scooters, fearless pedestrians, countless horse-, donkey- and hand-carts (not to mention an abundance of random herds of sheep, goats and cattle), well we’re just very glad we have a driver, instead of attempting to navigate the roads ourselves. Inshallah (God willing) we’ll make it home safe and sound.

There is no experience in the West quite like the traditional Moroccan hammam. If you had any modesty or inhibitions (or nipples) before this process, you won’t by the time you’re done.

Anyhow, internet has been spotty to say the least, but we’ll try another update in a week or so and report on the desert and our camel camping trip. And of course we’re journalling the rest of the trip to share (with photos) when we’re home.

Bon Soir!

Well, we did it!

I’m currently hanging out in bed at the Fairmont YVR, drinking coffee and slowly waking up before breakfast. Our flight leaves at 15:10.

For the wedding, the weather turned around completely and we had beautiful sunshine as the perfect backdrop to a really lovely ceremony.

And the reception was definitely the most fun party we’ve ever thrown.

For pictures, stalk the Blue Olive site. I’m sure many of my flickr contacts will also be posting photos (we totally felt like celebrities with paparazzi all night).

And now I’m going to go get ready to fly away with my husband (and try to get more used to the words husband and wife).

In the meantime, check out my flickr page for honeymoon updates, and see ya when we’re home!

Hi there. How are you? I’m okay! (Sometimes I forget people I don’t talk to often, or ever, read this and then think I have dropped off the face of the planet from anger or illness or both - hi mom!). I really am okay though. Wedding planning is still on track, and while I’ve had a sore throat for most of the week, I’m otherwise fine and well (and have been duly swabbed to check for strep, etc. - results in on Monday).

So, with that bit of housekeeping aside, the next major project Neil and I are tackling on the wedding/honeymoon front is getting our honeymoon luggage and supplies all sorted out. Because we won’t actually be in any one place more than 2 nights (except for a few days toward the end of our trip) and would like to fly with carry-on luggage only, we’re going to backpack.

Everything we’ve seen recommends a pack no more than 30L in size, so it doesn’t require an inflexible internal frame and can be shoved under a plane seat or in a train luggage compartment or carried on a bus. I also just like the idea of traveling light.

So, after consulting a few sources (mostly travelindependent.info and the packing list from On the Road with This Fish), here’s the plan so far (and this is just mine - Neil’s will be similar, and obviously we won’t each carry a camera and laptop…):

Clothes (Avg. temps will be in the low-mid 20’s Celsius)
1 long-sleeve shirt
3 short sleeve shirts
1 button-down shirt
1 cardigan
1 pair of “convertible” pants (legs zip off into shorts - they dry quickly and are comfortable)
1 pair of Tilley pants
1 pair of linen pants
PJ’s
3 pair of overnight-dry socks
3 pair of overnight-dry underwear
2 bras
Comfortable walking shoes (I’m thinking Ecco)
Flip Flops
Light Fleece pullover
Swimsuit
Tilley Hat

I figure if I want anything fancier, I’ll buy stuff there. We have mostly adventure-ish and relaxation-based activities planned, so i can’t see bringing nicer shoes or a dress/skirt at all.

Handy Stuff
Sewing Kit with safety pins
LED Headlamp
Travel sheets of in-sink laundry detergent
Clothes line
Ear plugs
Sleep mask
Antibacterial hand wipes
Pocket pack tissues
Microfibre travel towel
Fold-flat water bottle

Electronics
XO Laptop and charger
Cell phone and charger
Plug Adapters
Camera and charger
Gorillapod Tripod
Spare SD memory cards
iPod and charger

First-Aid Stuff
Band-Aids
Mole Skin
Neosporin
Assorted Pharmaceuticals (Pepto, Imodium, Advil, cold medicine, sleep aid)

Toiletries
Hand lotion
Deodorant
Chapstick
Facewash, etc.
Travel make-up palate
Body soap
Toothpaste/toothbrush
Dental floss
Shampoo/Conditioner
Hair Brush & Elastics

Practical Stuff
Passport
Local & International Driving permits
Travel & Medical insurance coverage info
Money belt
Credit & Debit cards (we’ve been burned by cards being canceled in foreign countries before - so we plan on taking 2 credit cards and one debit card in each of our names, so if one is canceled we still have a backup)
Copies of passport and financial info
shoulder bag/daypack

Anything you can see that we’re missing, that you wouldn’t go without? Or anything I’ve listed that you’d just leave home?

It might be less of a hassle.

This is what happens when an airline British Airways flies codeshare with goes out of business.

You lose your pretty good rate one stop flights (transfer airlines at Heathrow) and, if you’re unwilling to add 2 more stops and $700 per person, get this instead:

March 31
Depart YVR 15:05

April 1
Arrive LGW 10:10 (after a touchdown in Belfast)
Depart LHR 19:15 (after the lovely Gatwick-Heathrow bus journey)
Arrive BCN 22:15

Scratch that, the travel agent is a fucking idiot (when I called her on the fact that “the dates on these itineraries you sent me don’t match up” she told me I was wrong and she just typed the wrong thing - turns out I was right) and had to change everything, again.

Depart LGW 14:45 (at least there’s no bus ride)
Arrive MAD 18:10 (and overnight in Madrid)

April 2
Depart BCN 00:10
Arrive RAK 00:30
Depart MAD 10:30
Arrive CMN 10:05
Depart CMN 12:00
Arrive RAK 12:40

Hope GAP Adventures will change the first part of our tour, because we’ve now missed Day 1. Recover from that ordeal and enjoy our North African/Spanish Adventure just in time for:

April 18
Depart AGP 22:15
Arrive MAD 23:20 (figure out a place to sleep or party in Madrid)
Stay somewhere near the Malaga Airport

April 19
depart AGP 07:00
Arrive LHR 08:25 (and bus back to Gatwick - hooray!)
Depart MAD 07:35
Arrive LGW 09:15
Depart LGW 13:20
Arrive YVR 15:25

If things get fucked up again, I swear some heads are gonna roll. I’d just take the damn refund and rebook the flights ourselves if I hadn’t already looked and seen for myself that anything with a reasonable itinerary and arrival/departure schedule is at least $1500 more for the two of us.

I am just hoping that between the fact that it’s our honeymoon, and this atrocious itinerary, we’ll get some sort of upgrade!

And guess who gets to be in Orlando for work on April 20th? Oh yes, that’d be me! But damned if I’m not stopping home for at least 5 minutes first!!! Sheesh!

I’m flying solo this week as Neil jets off to the exotic plains of Columbus, Ohio.

I suppose it’s only fair he finally gets his own trip - after all, I’ve been to New York and Las Vegas while he’s stayed behind, holding down the fort.

What I think is completely unfair however, is that he’s going to Columbus (home of the Bluejackets and the Buckeyes and not much else) and gets a celebrity sighting out of it, while I went to Vegas (twice!) and NYC and only managed to get hassled by the mob.

Apparently Currie Graham was catching the United flight from YVR to O’Hare at 8am today.

Then again, I’m mostly useless at actually recognizing celebrities while out and about anyhow.

It only hit me about 45 minutes after the fact that I stood next to Mario Cantone in line at Cafe Artigiano on Hornby one day. And Neil was the one who pointed out I was sitting a mere two empty stools away from Peter Gallagher at Tojo’s Omakase Bar last month.

All this in spite of the fact that I’m the TV watcher in the relationship, while his nose is usually buried in a book or his laptop on the couch next to me.

So I was probably standing next to Paris Hilton in the towel line at the Mandalay Bay pool and just didn’t notice…

Neil and I were planning on taking an impromptu vacation over the Christmas break, partly to try and avoid being home to see if we could postpone closing on our new place until after the GST goes down on January 1st, and partly because we’re sad we won’t be in our new home for Christmas - something we’d really been looking forward to - and wanted some sort of consolation prize.

Then we were told by our Lawyer that there will be a transitional period around the GST change, and while we may have to pay out the 6% tax initially, we can fill out some paperwork to be reimbursed for the additional 1%. Huzzah!

So we re-thought the vacation thing. I’ve been away a lot lately, and Neil is going off to Ohio next week, so another set of flights wasn’t really appealing. That, and with the upcoming moving, new furniture and wedding costs, we could afford a small getaway, but really couldn’t afford to chase the sun.

But dammit, we still wanted our consolation prize!

So we trundled off figuring we’d start looking at new digital cameras, since we were planning on buying one for the honeymoon anyway, and thought it would be nice to have something that wasn’t 2 megapixels and 4 years old to take holiday photos with.

We walked into Lens & Shutter, intending to look at the latest in point & shoot technology. But for the kind of pictures we want to take (travel landscapes, low-light and night-sky shots) we admitted to ourselves what we knew all along - a pocket camera was going to be completely inadequate.

So we started looking at larger cameras - and by that point, in terms of price, one might as well start exploring the world of entry-level digital SLR’s. So we did. And walked out of the store with the Pentax K10D.

Neither of us has followed the world of digital SLR’s particularly carefully, so we weren’t even aware there were entry-level options other than the Canon Digital Rebel and Nikon D80. But Pentax, despite coming a bit late to the digital SLR game, has put out a camera that competes on price with the lower-end Canon and Nikon lines, but competes on features with the much more expensive Canon EOS 30D and Nikon D200. It’s a pretty incredible value for money.

The three pictures in this post represent the 3 best (read: only passable) pictures of the 200 or so we’ve taken so far (wine by Neil, dogs by me).

Next step: picking up a book on digital SLR photography to figure out what all the features mean (seriously, I don’t even know what an F-Stop actually is) and taking a short course on digital SLR photography. Any recommendations?

Neil and I went to the Canucks game tonight - my first attendance at GM Place of the season - to watch them take on the Edmonton Oilers.

The game was unremarkable. Mediocre hockey at its finest. The game was 0-0 (pet peeve of mine - calling a game “scoreless.” There is a score: it is 0-0) through all 3 periods and the 5 minute overtime. The Canucks finally lost in the 3rd shot of the shootout.

What *was* remarkable though, was seeing Greg Neufeld (2nd from the right in the photo), Canadian Idol 2006 and 2007 top 10 contestant as a fellow game attendee. The remarkable part wasn’t seeing him there - after all he is a local boy - the remarkable part was how freaking SHORT he is!

After watching the Idol series and seeing him practically tower over nearly everyone else on stage, it was highly disconcerting to walk past him and see that he’s at least an inch or two shorter than Neil (who is 5′10 and a tiny bit - and I have been explicitly told that I must include the “tiny bit” which is very important!).

But I was seriously expecting Neufeld to ring in around at least 6 feet. Apparently not so.

Anyhow, Greg, in case you google yourself (or if you know Greg and/or google him): you still rock the casbah, even though your stature is somewhat diminished from what I expected. I still think you should have won and your voice is like buttah and if you actually become as famous as you deserve (and therefore completely unreachable to a commoner such as myself) I will bump John Cusak from top spot on my laminated list (he’s getting a bit long in the tooth now anyhow).

And now I must go start researching other TV personality and assorted celebrity heights. Next thing you’re going to tell me Tom Cruise is only 5 feet tall.

Oh wait….

I made it back on Thursday from “Fabulous Las Vegas” and am so incredibly glad the crazy travel time is over. Now we can get on with crazy running time and crazy moving time and crazy wedding time - hopefully in that order.

Vegas was good, though was really all work. And while I love what I do, it doesn’t make for very interesting blogging, so suffice to say I rocked the casbah with my trade-show-fu, and didn’t do much else. Quick hotel review: THEHotel at Mandalay Bay is really nice. So is Mandalay Beach. But the two are a 1/4 mile hike through the casino/mall apart. You have been warned. Quick restaurant review: Alize at the Palms is really not worth the money. Sensi at Bellagio really is worth the money.

Running update: I haven’t run since the day before I left for New York. I feel like a whale out of water - all floppy and useless and struggling to breathe. Now that I have the time and inclination to do anything but work and sleep, I’m going back to Week 2 of the Couch to 5k program.

Moving update: We finally dealt with securing our mortgage. No I don’t wanna talk about the rate (which, like all rates at this time, is atrocious). I also don’t wanna talk about how the GST is going down another 1% 2 weeks after our current estimated closing date. It’s ok, I didn’t want those thousands of dollars anyhow. We are trying very hard (and mostly succeeding) to be Zen about it all, since we can’t do anything about it anyhow.

Wedding update: Our engagement announcement ran in the Province and Sun last weekend (November 3 & 4, 2007). Thanks again to everyone who called/emailed/sms’d to pass on well-wishes. I’m not entirely sure how long the online version runs (I think I remember my mom mentioning 3-months or so), but you can also see it online for the time being here. Other than that, planning keeps on keepin’ on keepin’ on.

Oh, hi there. I kindof disappeared for a bit didn’t I? Rest assured, I was not mugged, nor did I get lost. I was, however, hassled by the mob.

It’s fairly well known ’round these parts that the Jacob K. Javits Convention Centre labor department is pretty much run by the mafia. And I’m not even joking. It’s not wiseguys walking around in Armani suits or anything - but these guys are definitely connected. You do not mess with them, or the system.

They are the exclusive (and I mean exclusive) supplier of shipping, handling, construction and electrical labor in the building. You play by their rules.

You do not touch anything. You do not “take away” their jobs. This includes repairing shoddy workmanship and plugging in your own lights/tv’s (again, not kidding).

For the most part it’s ok - you sit around your pile of half-assembled structure and crates and wait a lot for things to be done. It’s pretty standard that any one of a number of laborers will show up with a work order, look at it, look at your stuff say “I gotta go get a tool/part” and disappear for 2 hours.

But, with a huge heaping helping of patience, I persevered and our booth was constructed relatively competently and in plenty of time for us to get ready for the show opening. Another company with a setup near us wasn’t so lucky - they had shipping troubles, and when their booth arrived late, they tried to expedite things by starting construction themselves. They were then blacklisted by the labor who refused to put up their booth and also wouldn’t let them (these guys are masters of intimidation) do it themselves.

Eventually, after the foremen decided the offending exhibitor had suffered enough, they constructed the booth in just the nick of time. The exhibitor was finally firing up their laptops (one of the few things you can do yourself) when the show floor opened.

Anyhow, we figured we were out of the woods, and had our booth ready to go. Then our video guys showed up to capture some footage of our in-booth demos. And they pulled out some extension cords and got ready to plug in their floodlights.

And that’s when fucking Tony Soprano shows up. “Whoaaahh you? Whadduyuh think ya dooin’? WHOOSE YO’ BAWSSS?”

HOLY SHIT

We unplugged and put away the lights posthaste and apologized profusely. And that was pretty much the end of that. If we’d wanted the lights, it was made abundantly clear that we’d have to order a contractor to plug in the extension cords. They didn’t say what would happen if we’d refused to take things down - but none of us were interested in finding out.

So we shot our video on battery, sans extra lighting.

And ever since, I’ve had an unshakeable urge to watch the Godfather.

I’m leaving for New York City tomorrow morning at ass o’clock - so I’m finishing up some last-minute laundry and packing.

I have the sneaking suspicion I’m forgetting something. Of course I have no idea what. My list seems complete, and I have all the items on it ready to go.

Perhaps you can think of something I haven’t?

And if not, leave me a comment with something fun to see or do in NYC. I’m staying in Times Square, and will get my share of good eats. My evenings will probably be busy with parties and schmoozing (with work people - so not quite as glamorous as it sounds), but I’ll have some weekday daytimes free to sightsee and shop. I plan on using at least one of those to go for a run in Central Park (yep - still doing that running thing).

What are your top must-see’s?

I’m going positively squirrely lately with the lack of home-improvement/beautification efforts happening around my domicile.

Since we’re moving in a few months, all of that kind of stuff has been put on hold. There’s no point spending our hard-earned cash on things that likely won’t work out in a completely different space.

But who can say no to free!

Duane Storey’s giving away 8×12 prints of his beautiful photography to the first 20 people who post about his new photo blog.

So here I am!

We’ve got art in our place from Korea, Japan, China, England, Italy and Sweden (if Ikea prints count) - but nothing local so far.

I’m thinking this one would be a beautiful start to a local collection on our walls.

Go check him out - you’ll be glad you did!