We were privileged this summer to attend 5 different weddings. The final wedding was this past weekend on September 7, in Vancouver, B.C. My cousin Mike and his bride Bonny had a beautiful ceremony and a wonderful reception. Most of the Davolt clan made the trip to our friendly neighbors up north. However, Erin, due to being 8 months pregnant decided not to go against doctors orders and stay at home with Nathan (I thought she should come, because hey, if the baby was born in Canada, then we get free healthcare! And he would still be a US citizen! What's not to like about that?).
Erin was a bit nervous about my leaving for the weekend, so we decided to cash in some airline miles and have me fly in Saturday morning and fly home Sunday. This was my first international flight, and despite it being sort of the starter flight of international flights everything went smoothly. I was quite disappointed that I did not get a stamp in my passport though.
The wedding and the reception were wonderful. Hands down this reception had the best food of the summer. Not only was the food good, but so was the wine and there were plenty of choices in the food department as well. Being that this was a Davolt wedding, there was bound to be some awkwardness on the dance floor and I wanted to make sure both my sister and I had a slightly awkward dance experience. I wish I had taken a picture of the DJ; he was a character to be sure, and not necessarily in the manner you would choose.
I don't think anyone has ever actually eaten in at this restaurant before. They didn't give us any plates, we had to ask for cups to drink from the 2 liter we bought, and the look on the lady's face as she served saw us taking our seats was priceless. Now I know Canadians are said to be pretty friendly, but we definitely broke some sort of rule eating in a take-out restaurant. After all that, we had spent about 3 hours searching for a place to eat only to end up at a hole-in-the-wall with not very good pizza and now we had to scramble to get to the wedding on time. I was the only one in wedding clothes, so everyone else had to change in the car or on the side of the road only to rush to the church. Oh, it was classic.
The rest of the day was great, we all enjoyed a good time at the wedding, and there were only a few sibling arguments throughout the evening and the next morning. The following morning Jesse and his family got up and left at 4am to get back to Boise while the rest of us headed to church. Jenn then took off for home with Aunt Debbie and Grandma, while Dad and I had a very good burger at Vera's Burger Shack. We were even able to catch the last half of the fourth quarter of the Seahawks game before he dropped me off at the airport for my return flight home. All in all it was a great weekend.
Erin was a bit nervous about my leaving for the weekend, so we decided to cash in some airline miles and have me fly in Saturday morning and fly home Sunday. This was my first international flight, and despite it being sort of the starter flight of international flights everything went smoothly. I was quite disappointed that I did not get a stamp in my passport though.
The wedding and the reception were wonderful. Hands down this reception had the best food of the summer. Not only was the food good, but so was the wine and there were plenty of choices in the food department as well. Being that this was a Davolt wedding, there was bound to be some awkwardness on the dance floor and I wanted to make sure both my sister and I had a slightly awkward dance experience. I wish I had taken a picture of the DJ; he was a character to be sure, and not necessarily in the manner you would choose.
The wedding was great, but the real adventure was the search for food before the wedding. My flight arrived at 11:30am, and the wedding was not until 4:00pm. As usual, Dad had a vague plan to get some food and do something fun that afternoon. That sounded great to me, I am always up for exploring a new city and doing some sight seeing.
Oh boy, I had no idea what we were in for. Upon being picked up from the airport, Dad headed straight toward Stanley Park. Awesome, right? Well maybe if we had got something to eat first, but we had two issues: the first being we were hungry, the second is, we headed to Stanley Park with little to no plan about what we would do there. I think it was really the only touristy place in the city anyone knew about. So we happen to see some signs for a mini-train which was great for Trey, he loved it, I barely fit in it. We then went for a short walk in the park, but very shortly into the walk everyone decided we were all hungry and we better go find some food.
This is when the real comedy of errors began. The idea sounded great and filled with good intentions. My brother, Jesse's birthday was the following day so we would head towards the wedding and find a pizza place where we could celebrate his birthday and spend a bit of time together. However, the reality was terrible. Here we are driving through a major metropolitan city in another country, my dad driving a mini van, Jesse following in his SUV, looking for a suburban type sit down pizza joint with parking, while only finding hole-in-the-wall pizza-by-the-slice places with street parking that apparently was not an option.
Needless to say, I am sure a few Canadians were cursing at the crazy Americans who were running red lights and cutting them off. Every three blocks Mom, in her best backseat driver voice would remind Dad that he had someone following him and that he needed to adjust his driving accordingly. Jennifer, would pick a random pizza place in Dad's GPS and we'd find our way there only to see it had a total of 4 chairs in it, so we would move on.
Finally, after almost 2 hours of searching, of driving through China town and skipping a few non-pizza options we pull into an urban strip mall right in front of a Pho restaurant and ask Jesse what he wants to do. He says he is willing to have Pizza or BBQ, to which I say in my best smart-ass big brother who already knows the answer to the question voice, "What about Pho?" (not neccesarily my favorite, but at this point I am willing to eat just about anything, and why not try some Asian food in a city known for having large Asian population when we are in what appears to be its international district?). Jesse repeats that he is okay with Pizza or BBQ, but we need to eat very soon as he is getting grumpy. So on we go, looking for a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow.
Dad is ready to stop at McDonalds, which is just depressing. I mean we are in a foreign country, trying to celebrate a birthday, can we not find something better than McDonalds? Mom, in the best line of the day, pipes in that at least Jesse is flexible in where he will eat. Jennifer and I just about lose it after that.
We finally get close to the church and realize our choices are slim to none. But, we still must have pizza, so we find a little hole-in-the-wall take-out pizza place with just enough chairs for all of us and order a couple pizzas.I don't think anyone has ever actually eaten in at this restaurant before. They didn't give us any plates, we had to ask for cups to drink from the 2 liter we bought, and the look on the lady's face as she served saw us taking our seats was priceless. Now I know Canadians are said to be pretty friendly, but we definitely broke some sort of rule eating in a take-out restaurant. After all that, we had spent about 3 hours searching for a place to eat only to end up at a hole-in-the-wall with not very good pizza and now we had to scramble to get to the wedding on time. I was the only one in wedding clothes, so everyone else had to change in the car or on the side of the road only to rush to the church. Oh, it was classic.
The rest of the day was great, we all enjoyed a good time at the wedding, and there were only a few sibling arguments throughout the evening and the next morning. The following morning Jesse and his family got up and left at 4am to get back to Boise while the rest of us headed to church. Jenn then took off for home with Aunt Debbie and Grandma, while Dad and I had a very good burger at Vera's Burger Shack. We were even able to catch the last half of the fourth quarter of the Seahawks game before he dropped me off at the airport for my return flight home. All in all it was a great weekend.
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