Driving SUVs, Sweating in Vancouver, Crazy old men and THE MESSAGE

Wow, it's been a while since I last posted. I apologize but we have been SO busy and have had limited internet access. Since I last updated, we arrived in Langley BC and met my friend Gerrit. We got very lost because all the streets in Langley are numbers and the GPS wasn't showing his house. After driving around for a while we found Gerrit! After we settled in for a bit Gerrit had to take his siblings to piano lessons and soccer practice and wanted us to come with him, but in BC the drivers G2 drivers licenses only allow you to drive around one person other than family members, so his parents let me drive their SUV. I was pretty nervous but I got used to it after a while. Later that night we drove to White Rock and saw the ocean and walked along the pier. It was so beautiful! We even saw some people catching crabs but they ended up throwing them back in the water. After all that walking we were pretty hungry so we went to this really great restaurant only in BC called White Spot. The food was delicious so I hope that we go back there another time.

The next day we hopped on the Sky Train and went to Vancouver for the day. We first went to China Town and tried on some fun Chinese hats. I think we looked pretty ethnic and wonderful. I wanted to buy one but I didn't want to carry it around all day. We continued to walk some more and by this time the sun was shining down and it was getting warm. It was so lovely and everything was in bloom. We went for lunch at a restaurant called the Cactus Club. I think it is also a BC thing. We went into a few stores, walked around some more and then enjoyed people watching. We walked into the ritzy part of downtown and were walking in front of these 2 clearly very rich people. They were talking about going to a party and the one man responded "If I'm on the continent." We all had a good laugh. They were also talking about their drivers. Crazy! On our way back we stopped and looked at the Olympic flame. By this time though it was 4:30 and we were going to my second cousins house for dinner at 6:00. I HATE being late but I figured that we would be about 15 mins late. We went to the sky train to head back and had a slight detour because Gerrit wanted to see his friend on the way back. By this time I was getting stressed out because I didn't want to be late for family I have met only once! Once we got back to our car we had only 10 minutes to get there and a 30 minute drive ahead of us just to get to Gerrit's house and another 15 minutes to get to my family's house. We had heavy traffic and we ended up being 40 minutes late. I was so embarrassed but luckily my family was so nice and didn't mind AT ALL! We had a great visit with them and I really hope that I can visit them again in the near future.

The day after that (yesterday) we went to Fort Langley in the morning with Gerrit and he showed us around the cute little village. There were so many neat stores and homes. I bought a teapot for my new apartment. It can't wait to have people over to use it! Later on in the afternoon we drove to Vancouver. We had quite a bit of traffic and I was pretty proud of myself for driving in Vancouver :) We went and found a grocery store because this time we were so hungry. As we were leaving the parking lot some old man walked right into Kevin! He started yelling at us and I tried to drive away from him. He walked RIGHT in front of the car and wouldn't let us leave. I gave him a nice long honk and he asked me if I had a license. I ended up dodging him and found an alternate escape from the parking lot. That was our excitement for the day! We then went to Heather's moms friends house. Her name is Yvonne and her husband's name is Ross. They have 2 kids, 2 cats and 2 dogs and they live in a beautiful house. Yvonne took us on a driving tour and showed us around UBC, some of the beaches and Granville Island. Vancouver is a gorgeous city but I'm not sure I would want to live there because it is so busy. We went back to their house for dinner and had delicious chicken and vegetables and chocolate cake for dessert. It was lovely getting to meet new people and enjoying their company.

This morning we woke up nice and early to go and catch the ferry to Victoria. We were originally going to go to Nanaimo but we didn't go there because my friend wasn't able to meet us. The ferry worked out really well! We left the house at 9:00 am and had a 45 min drive to the ferry. There was very little traffic so we got to the ferry without any issues! We were planning on sitting and waiting for the 11:00 am ferry but much to our surprise we made it on the 10:00 am ferry! The ferry ride was so much fun. We found some really comfy seats but just outside the window there were people smoking. Heather thought it might be fun to make a sign to tell the people that smoking kills so we took a piece of paper and held up THE MESSAGE. Some people read it and we had a good time laughing about it. They also had a man overboard drill on the ferry. They threw a bucket over the side of the ferry so we got to watch them rescue it. Once we got to Victoria we stopped for lunch and then drove to Heather's grandpa's and his wife Margaret's house. They are such sweet people. Heather, Celina and I had a nap and then we went for a walk and got to see the neighbourhood. They live right on a golf course and we can see the ocean from their condo. It is beautiful! Tomorrow we are planning on walking around downtown Victoria and we are going over to my other second cousin's house for dinner.