out of town, out of the country

Ahoy,

We departed for Seattle mid-August to visit our favorite Jewish programmer. For some reason, one of our friends got a ton of our other friends to go to Vancouver to climb at Squamish. How anyone could ever get a group that size to move en masse to another country is beyond me. It was amazing. It's difficult enough getting them all to drink boba with me. For fear of missing out, the RRS pondered very deeply over whether or not we should go because he was at the mercy of his academic schedule. What else is new? We ended up just going ahead and booking it because I was frankly sick of his moping, and I knew if we didn't go, he would continue to mope. "But our friends will never all be there again..." he queried. Oh, the drama (cue rolling my eyes).

Our friends O & H always pull out all the stops for us, which gives me hoster's remorse because I'm sure we don't give them the same royal treatment when they visit us in LA. How will I ever live up to the grandeur? After an evening in Seattle consisting of German food and bomb pie, we departed the next morning for Vancouver. We weren't in a hurry to leave because we had decided the night before that since the weather would be crummy on Saturday in Squamish, we would just call it a wash for climbing and spend the day in Vancouver.

Upon arriving, we dawdled our way out the hotel to catch the tail end of dim sum. It was delicious, probably the best mango pudding. We walked off some of the food (there was a lot of food to walk off) on our way to get java. It still hadn't rained, so our next stop was to rent bikes and ride around Stanley Park. The bikes we rented were probably the creakiest bikes we've ever ridden. It sounded like my bike was wheezing whenever I asked for more speed. The chains occasionally fell off or got tangled. Imagine my apprehension as I was going downhill wondering if my chain would dislodge itself on my back brake bike. It was a fun ride and weather was amiable.

For dinner, we made our way to Yaletown for some seafood.  It was all delicious and we ate everything. We were all pooped and ready for bed. The next day would be our climbing day in Squamish!

deleteriously served,
jt