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Umm so I procrastinated blogging for far too long and now I have A LOT of things to catch up on. Like, huge life changes. O_O

UPDATE TIME!

  1. Scott got laid off.
  2. We decided to move back to Australia.
  3. I quit my job.
  4. We sold everything in our apartment and moved out.
  5. Currently in Nepean visiting papa.

The last month was crazy. It was really stressful to sort all of our life belongings into what we still needed, what we would ship to Australia, what to sell and what to donate or throw out. Al while I was still working almost every day. Hopefully we didn’t make any mistakes. Scott did an excellent job of managing dozens of Craigslist posts and we were able to sell everything.

I finally finished my crochet blanket, with like 3 days to spare. It’s so big!! It took me two years to finish. We have vacuum packed it and put it in the boxes to Australia.

Anyway so last weekend we flew to Montreal. We watched Dan-Que perform in a story telling show and took in a few Nuit Blanche exhibits. We hiked up Mont Royal and walked through underground tunnels. And ate and ate. We had bagels, smoked meat, Portuguese chicken, arepas, kouign amann and probably even more I’m forgetting right now. Thank you for all those great recommendations Facebook friends.

And now we are in Ottawa! It was tight but we managed to spend some time with a lot of my favourite Ottawa people. :) We went tubing (Scott crashed into a fence with his face and did 18 flips in the air, and got a fat lip), curling, escaped from an escape room, watched Eddie the Eagle, ate ridiculous amounts of dessert, and played A LOT of games (Careers, Clue, Scattergories, Quiddler, Wizard, Five Crowns). Fun!

UPCOMING TRIPS

  1. Listowel & Toronto
  2. Whistler for my last skeleton race ever :'(
  3. Epic roadtrip (Washington/Oregon/California/Nevada/Arizona/Utah/Idaho/Wyoming/Montana)
  4. Playa del Carmen, Mexico
  5. Walk across Spain (Camino de Santiago)
  6. Miscellaneous Europe (Glasgow/Ipswich/Rotterdam/Lund/??)
  7. Thailand

Approximate arrival in Melbourne, Australia: mid-July 2016

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I spent all last week in Whistler volunteering at the IBSF World Cup races as an official. There were three days of official training, and five races (W-skele, M-skele, W-bob and 2M-bob (x2)) over two days. It was really tiring (I spent 48 hours at the track in five days!) but it was also really fun and cool.

I did a lot of temperature taking, runner wiping, sled marshalling, bobsleigh weighing, icebox timing, scabbard heaving, and many more behind-the-scenes tasks. In between I got to watch a lot of the action and hang out with friends. No cheering though! Officials are neutral.

Me and Martins Dukurs! The Usain Bolt of skeleton. He has won 6 out of 6 of the races so far this year, and is on track to win his 7th World Cup title in a row. He has something like 50 World Cup gold medals in his trophy collection. Basically he is my (and everyone else’s) hero.

Women’s skeleton! I got to do one of the pre-race jobs so that during the race I could actually watch. I started up top, so I could watch one of Jane Channell’s famous extra speedy starts, and then slowly walked down to the bottom watching a person or two go by at every corner. Normally the whole track isn’t open like that so it was cool to watch people’s lines through some of the upper corners.

I watched the last bit at the bottom right beside the finish line where (some) girls were smashing into the wall extremely hard (like me).

Tina Hermann smashed the hardest and she won… so I guess it is a “good” line. Jane came 4th, after setting a new start record.

 

Men’s skeleton! Again, I finished up my tasks early so I could watch the race. Scott, Rosemarie and Liz came up to meet me too. It was SO COOL seeing all the ultra fast guys run. Some of them can run soooo far!!

Martins hadn’t had much luck in Whistler in the past, he lost the last World Cup in 2012 to a German, and lost the Olympics in 2010 to Jon Montgomery. All through training he hadn’t really been doing that well, so I actually started to doubt whether he could keep up his gold streak.

Buuuut… that was foolish, because as usual he blew everyone away. He even set a new track record on his first run. His brother Tomass set a new new one in his second run, but Martins still had enough of a lead to stay in first. Good day for the Dukurs family!

Jon Montgomery was there, watching. He held the track record since the Olympics until that day! Nice guy. I asked him if it was weird for him to be there not as an athlete and he said it was just nice to not have to deal with the pressure.

Sunset view on a mini break to the icebar and VIP tent with the volunteer crew. So pretty. So needed at that point. Rosemarie and Liz got to go in too since they did some volunteering for guest services too. :)

The bobsleigh races were hella exciting. Super duper close races, track records galore, crashes, the atmosphere up top, holy moly it was awesome. I was “working” but still managed to somewhat follow what was going on.

Photo by Charlie Booker.

Scott, Rosemarie and Liz had a blast cheering and hanging out at the finish with the bobsleigh guys. They all had raspy voices from screaming so much. GO GO GO GO GO! That’s Chris Spring and Lascelles Brown (who Scott is hugging hahahaha) who won gold for Canada!

Then afterwards Scott and I went out to the Longhorn for the afterparty with all the other officials (and a lot of the athletes). Scott talked to a lot of them. I am too shy. He got an awesome terrible picture with Martins where Scott looks like this :D and Martins looks like this >:( hahaha. Fun times.

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Vancouverites are so lucky when it comes to sushi.

Ask me what my favourite sushi place is and my answer is something like “Cheap sushi? Fancy sushi? Mid-price sushi? Am I with people that like mayo? Do I want to be able to have conversations? Any neighbourhood?” and so on. It is impossible to narrow it down to one.

Sushi Oyama is my favourite mid-priced, mayo heavy, Burnaby sushi joint. Ha.

We’ve been here many times before.

Rainbow roll. Tamago, tuna, salmon, tai, tako, ebi, avocado, mayo. Basically a bit of everything! Very delicious.

Sound trap roll. Cucumber, avocado, eep fried prawn, tuna on top, tempura bits, mayo. Too much mayo in my opinion though, and I am a mayo fan! And weirdly sweet.

We also had yam tempura but it was not very photogenic. Tasted good though.

Sushi Oyama Menu, Reviews, Photos, Location and Info - Zomato

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We were craving something warm after a cold morning of errands and shopping at MEC. I saw the sign for “ROBOT CUT NOODLES” and the decision was made.

This is the robot. I should have taken a video, but basically the robot is holding a big chunk of noodle dough in one hand and its other arm moves back and forth and shaves off little bits of irregularly shaped noodles which the dude is collecting in a basket.

Sichuan pork ribs (?) shaved noodle soup

Beef shaved noodles with sour spicy soup

Both soups were good. The noodles were nice and chewy, the broth flavourful. We ate and slurped and splashed droplets all over the table. It was spicy but not too spicy.

Old Ginger Menu, Reviews, Photos, Location and Info - Zomato

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Way back on Scott’s birthday I brought him to the Downtown Eastside for a surprise dinner at Ask For Luigi’s. We got there just after 5 (they open at 5:30 for dinner) but just missed getting a table in the first seating (they don’t take reservations). But no worries, they take your phone number and text you when the table is ready. So we headed down the street to Alibi Room and had a drink while we waited. PS totally need to go back to Alibi Room sometime, it’s cool!

Anyway Ask for Luigi’s is a teeny tiny Italian restaurant on the edge of Gastown. They have a small menu, a bunch of wine, and cozy atmosphere.

We started with the crispy bucantini and fontina crocchette. The waitress described it as blended up pasta, mixed with cheese, deep fried, in a rich tomato sauce. It was yummy.

Scott ordered the tagliatelle with rabbit ragu, porcini and olives. With tons of parmesan of course. Salty. Very tasty.

I ordered the (whole wheat) pappardelle with wild boar ragu. Plus parmesan. It was nice, a lot like pulled pork. Very generously meaty and very manly.

I ended up liking Scott’s more than mine and he liked mine more, so we switched plates part way through. Which amused me, because I purposely didn’t make Scott change his order (I have a terrible habit of telling him what to get) since it was his birthday, haha.

We both left happy and very full. However, both of us didn’t feel super great that evening or the next day. I wonder if it was because everything was super rich? Maybe our stomachs aren’t used to that much butter.

Ask for Luigi Menu, Reviews, Photos, Location and Info - Zomato