It's the most wonderful time of the year...

First of all, an official apology for lack of updates on here and general poorness in replying to messages and emails. Things have been pretty busy here and up until last week we were still borrowing various different laptops as our only means of getting on the internet – at one point it got so bad that Lucy checked her Facebook on a sample laptop in an electronics store. However thanks to my wonderful father and the ever-reliable (and extortionate) FedEx, I’ve been reunited with my laptop. Seriously, there were practically tears in my eyes when it arrived – a reunion of old friends indeed. So now we’ve got no excuse not to keep you updated, and if you still find that we’re not replying to your messages then it probably is because we have better things to do with our time. Sorry!

So what have we been up to that’s kept us so busy you ask? Well sadly most of the week is taken up by work. We’ve both settled pretty well into our jobs. Lucy is now a certified expert at sorting post and answering the phone, however I’m told that her desk is always a mess and that there’s been a recent trend for callers to find themselves mysteriously forwarded to a random department when Lucy doesn’t know how to deal with their enquiries. Meanwhile 5 days a week on the Deli of Dreams is actually a lot more bearable than you might think, even with endless Christmas songs battering my ears for 8 hours a day! Now that I can tell the difference between my prosciutto and praga hams, and edamame and tabouleh salads (it’s been like learning a whole new language!) I’m getting on pretty well. And naturally my customer service skills are second to none, however that didn’t stop one elderly female customer from calling me retarded. Yes, you did read that right. This white-haired, bespectacled, barely 5-foot-tall old woman came to order some food, and as I was packaging it I accidentally broke the box; not a problem, just transfer it to another box, right? Apparently not. The old bag responded by marching behind the deli counter and claiming that this was typical of ‘my generation’ and that just like the Egyptians forgot how to build the pyramids, we’re going to forget how to run society. She then ordered me to tape the box up and muttered “your generation, what are you, retarded?” Perhaps it was karma for the time last Christmas that I called a different old woman a ‘stuck-up old cow’ while shopping in Manchester. I know it was wrong but she really deserved it!




Moving away from my ongoing battle with grannies the world over, let’s talk about Christmas. Last week we had one of the most Christmassy days ever! We headed downtown to Stanley Park (which is a massive park in the middle of the city if you don’t know) where a whole section has been closed off and lit up with approximately one billion fairy lights. We paid $8 to go on the Christmas train and sang along to carols as we chugged along the tracks looking at all the lights. Then we ate roasted chestnuts and saw some racoons before finally having a look at the animals in the kids’ zoo, it was a magical night! We also bought an advent calendar for each of our housemates, and with much excitement came to open the first door on December 1st only to discover that the chocolate tasted like it was at least three Christmases out of date! I wasn’t expecting Belgian’s finest, I love advent calendar chocolate, but it was really the most disgusting chocolate I’ve ever eaten. Funnily enough none of us have opened past door number 2!



Another highlight of the past few weeks came just last night, as Lucy, myself and our friend Jess ventured to the Kingdom of Gaga, seeing the Lady herself at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre. I must admit that it’s taken me a while to really get the whole Gaga thing, but it was a great show and definitely ranks among some of the best gigs I’ve been to. It was everything you’d expect from one of her shows: crazy costumes, some random chat and a genuinely good performance. Lucy’s put loads of pics on Facebook so if you’re curious then go take a look.

Before I forget, I feel I should mention that it hasn’t rained here for about 10 days! I was so convinced it would never stop that I had resigned myself to not see the sun for at least several months, but somehow (despite near-freezing temperatures) the weather has been so dry and actually sunny that I haven’t been caught out in the rain for nearly two weeks! It even meant that on my day off last week I managed to make it to the beach in Kitsilano which is only a 10-minute bus ride away from our house. I’ve always wanted to live somewhere near the sea, and as soon as the sun shines it’s clear that Vancouver really is a beautiful city; the mountains, the sea, every where’s clean, and best of all, there are no chavs…anywhere!

Sadly there’s still not been any snow in the city, however Lucy did make it up to Whistler and saw lots of it. Unfortunately I was working but she can tell you a bit about it…

Hello blog lovers! So last weekend was full of “Canada firsts” for me. It was my first trip on the infamous Greyhound Buses, the first time I felt like I saw the real Canada (mountains, forests etc) and the first time I saw any Canadian SNOW!! I’ve been holding out for the snow since I got here so you can imagine I was rather excited about the prospect of seeing tons of the stuff! Whistler is such a beautiful Christmassy place..imagine wooden buildings (cant think of a better word …lodges?!!), mountains everywhere you look and a cosy village feel. It was bloody freezing though and I’m not sure my attire of a skirt and tights on the Saturday night was the best idea…needless to say the excuse I used for drinking was to warm me up! My favourite activity while I was there was taking the gondola up the mountain and then taking another ‘peak2peak’ gondola between two mountains. The views were amazing although I could only literally spend two seconds outside before my whole body was numb from the wind and below zero temperatures. That was soon sorted though with an extremely tasty mug of hot chocolate which I drunk while taking in the impressive views from inside! As you can imagine I was really sad to be heading back to Vancouver on the Sunday especially after I failed to spot any celebrities (Paris Hilton had previously been sighted all around the village the weekend before) but with it only being a two hour bus journey I’m sure I will be heading back soon!

Well this entry is more than long enough already. I promise to write more regularly now that we’ve really got no excuses! Oh, just time for one more story. Perhaps the funniest moment of the last few weeks came courtesy of Miss Lucy Madden herself (what a surprise!) when on a night out she disgraced herself publicly by downing a shot only to have it reprise itself mere moments later…all over the bar. It all happened so quick it was like a blur of shot glasses and vomit, naturally after finishing off in the men’s toilets (the queue for the women’s was too long!) she was swiftly kicked out. Hilarious.

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