Vancouver

I live about an hour from the City of Vancouver (depending on traffic). A lot of people out her in "the Valley" find going into Vancouver an big deal. Personally, even though it's a bit of a drive, it's something I *love* to do...as evidenced by my activities over the past two days.
Friday night I left work and met Mere and we went into Vancouver together. We walked around a bit first and found a really cool used book store and drooled over all the neat tools in a kitchen store. We decided to have dinner at "Moose's Down Under" which is an Australian type pub. It was great and Mere had a fund time identifying all the Aussie influences there.

After that we went over to Canada Place and took in the Friday night opera singers in the Pan Pacific Hotel. We continued to wander around down town for awhile and then made our way over to "Cafe Crepe" on Granville for a yummy nutella, banana crepe and coffee.

Saturday found me back in Vancouver in many of the same places that Mere I had visited only this time I was accompanied by two of my brothers, Seth and Aaron. Mom and Dad went over to Victoria for Friday and Saturday in celebration of their 27th Anniversary so I was "in charge" of Aaron. He actually stayed the night at a friends house on Friday because they had to do papers but when he was done Seth and I picked him up. We went to IHOP for breakfast and then drove through the rain into Vancouver. fun :)
Our first stop was at "Mink, A Chocolate Cafe" on West Hastings. It came highly recommended and I now know why. Seth had a mocha and a Belgian waffle (I'm in love with the glass that he got) Aaron just had a chocolate bar and I treated myself to the "Personal Fondue" (which Aaron helped me eat). It was wonderful! Not cheap but so good.
From there we went and bought tickets to see "Pirates of the Carribean 3" and then wandered through Chapters, the Pacific Centre Mall, and HMV on Robson.
I got a kick out of the display for the new Simpsons movie at the movie theatre and made the boys pose for a picture. Neither of them were too impressed but they complied :D
So there, two days in Vancouver in a row and both in one section of the city. There is still SO much more to explore. That's why I love going down there!<