The Pre-Trip

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Leg one: Vancouver

With snow falling in Toronto at 7am on the morning of Friday January 7th I took off to start my journey. My last couple of nights in Toronto were great. I had learned from previous flights that being hungover made air travel next to unbearable so I had scheduled my goodbye drinks out on Wednesday instead of Thursday. That was a fun night out (albeit the juniors managed to blow a 3-0 lead to the russians in the third) that ended up with some thailand advice from a crazy scotch bonnet eating bartender at the black bull and an impromptu head scab fight (i think the first ever). due to that the next day was spent quietly at home with the fam, some nice cook-up from big mamma, and my last hockey game for a while (we lost 8-6 but were down 7-2 at one point), followed by a really nice evening with my sisters at home playing cards. other than the guy beside me on the flight that didn't quiet understand the my side his side divide, the flight was fine, except the plane decided to land on the wrong side of the airport and drive the rest of the way there.....and i watched impatiently from my window as the stupid girl called for help after she realized she didnt know how to work the ramp to unload us. dad picked me up and we had a coffee downtown and then i met some friends for lunch at, fittingly, a vietnamese restaurant. next day i got picked up by lee, martina, dave, and dee in the nice SUV we had rented and headed off to ski at Whistler..545am wakeup call for that one but it paid off when we got our first run in by 930. Whistler was amazing, with a base of 2m and fresh snow fallen over night the mountain was beautiful. waiting for the peak chair as the sun was peaking out over the top of the mountain crazy skiers and snowboarders kept the line alive by attempting a 40-50 jump over a cliff. the crowd cheered as they landed, fell, sommersaulted, and in one case, found their ski after 20 minutes of digging. with temperatures at the peak of -15 it wasnt too cold and the first run was almost through a cloud of sparkles as sun shone on frost in the air. the ski legs came back over the course of the day but by the end they were on fire to the point I was almost regretting taking one more lift up with lee, but with the hip playing on my ipod (well gregs) it was awesome. another cool thing up there is that while waiting in line for the lift there are little birds that dive through the crowds and land on peoples upturned ski poles in search of food handouts..this led me to stand with my pole up for five minutes without any success. all three of us passed out in the back of the car on the ride back as lee tested out the limits of the apparently impressive ford flex..can you have any more skylights in a car? later on attempted to go to lees and drink but was to tired to really put any serious work in. all was not lost for my liver though...sunday morning started healthy enough, nice light breaky with dad and sher and then a nice jog along the seawall to kits yacht club and back. i even got the old man out but i was waiting so long at the end i started to walk back cause i was getting worried. turns out he had met a friend and thats why he was so late (at least thats what he told me) the weather was so nice, i jogged in a tshirt and shorts (in frieken january) and the seawall was bustling with other joggers, dogwalkers, and families. even though my last stay had resulted in 100's of dollars worth of repair to dads bike he let me take old diamondback out for another spin and i cursed my dad the whole way to keiths place for having the slowest bike made to man...people were jogging past me as i rolled down the burrard bridge. anyway, lee, bob, keith, tim and I watched philly lose to green bay during which many bets were made between lee and i with the stakes being shots of wisers that karina had given me for my birthday. the resultant energy of about 8 shots of wisers led lee and i to some old persons bar on denman that had a really good classic rock band...the bobcats...after consuming more drinks, drunkenly talking with lee about women, relationships, and harems, having some shots with the band, lee ordered us a tara reid..i dont know what it was but it was yellow, slutty, and we dropped a shot of something into it....either way that was the end of sanity and a large part of my memory for the night. i awoke to a camera full of pictures of lee and i in various places, one of me on top of an old classic pickup truck, we were singing karaoke in an empty bar drinking 1.5 liter cans of some strange japanese beer along with the sexy japanese hostess they provide each table with..i had to ask lee the next day who she was and if she had sat with us under her own will or was forced to in exchange for money..turns out she was paid. despite lee's protests i mounted diamondback, knowing she would faithfully return me to my lair as she always had, and headed home. to lees amazement i made it home (the key was avoiding the roundabout at the top of dads road that i always attempt to circle at the end of my inebriated cycling expeditions), although my hands were the coldest ever, and an elderly couple in my dads building stared slack jawed at me, probably confused as to why i was so drunk at 11 and had no use of my hands as i attempted to unlock the door to the bike storage room. lee called in sick the next day and i endured an early morning trip on the ferry to the island to see the grandparents. highlight of that was grandpa punching the air triumphantly after leaning in front of the radio listening to obama address the media following some crazy guy shooting up some congress lady about a year after sarah palin had put her in the crosshairs. After bussing and ferrying back to the mainland I tried to bike to meet lee for some squash...turned out diamondback was indeed dead. front tire was totally spent and as i was taking it off the bike rack the splash guard snapped off. sorry dad. ended up cabbing to play squash and was trounced by lee, but i did find out that a tarah ried is a shot of jagger dropped into half a redbull, half a smirnoff ice, and a shot of vodka...also found unfortunate video capturing me trainwrecking some boys to men.

Next stop, Thailand.

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