Whales and cities and packages oh my!

Well, my Mom and Marlene have taken the great grey bird back home to PA, and so my life returns to eating Ramen while sitting on the couch watching tv normalcy. It was really great having them visit, we had loads of fun and I think they really enjoyed the visit as well. Marlene was quite taken with Seattle (who wouldn't be?) and we've all fallen in love with Vancouver. We had quite a busy weekend after the Thursday yarn crawl. Friday morning we woke up early and drove up to Anacortes, WA to depart for our 5-6 hour whale-watching adventure. This was our steady-hulled craft, the Island Explorer II:

Knitting was accomplished:
Whales were watched: We saw a group of 6 'transient' orcas, which are the "mammal-eaters," as opposed to our resident orcas, which eat mostly salmon. We saw this group 5 times, about 5 minutes or so apart. Apparently this was a really good day; the company guarantees you will see whales or they'll keep taking you until you do, but seeing this many, and transients no less, is apparently rare. The whales were really beautiful to see. So slick and shiny. I'd always figured whale-watching was overrated but it was really great and I have been proven wrong. We also saw harbor porpoises and harbor seals, but the photos aren't very blog-worthy.

After the whale-watching we drove up to Vancouver. We stayed at the Delta Vancouver Suites, which I would highly recommend to anyone considering a trip up there. The room was lovely and the staff was very helpful and made us excellent dinner recommendations (and reservations) for both nights were there. Saturday night we ate at Capone's, in Yaletown. They had live jazz, but thankfully it was too quiet for me to hear since I'm not a big jazz fan. There was drinking of martinis. There was also, and I'm not kidding, TV in the bathroom. More specifically, a Chevy ad, on a flat-panel TV, in the stall. I found this totally mesmerizing, which is surely the point. But seriously, is it necessary to advertise in the bathroom? Just because you can really doesn't mean you should... Our waiter, Ken, was brilliant, and we had a great dinner there, including the best creme brulee I've ever eaten.

Saturday we went to the Granville Public Market, which is a bit like Seattle's Pike Place Market, but with fewer souvenirs and more artisan shops. I resisted the urge to buy an ironing board cover with an almost naked man who became inappropriately naked when you heated him up (how appropriate). I thought this would be a great gift for my friend Heidi, but, well, I just couldn't bring myself to buy it.

You can see the weather was lovely! We spent the rest of Saturday shopping. Many cute things were purchased, including a great teal purse that my mother found at Aldo and that I had to go back for the next day, having determined I couldn't live without it after watching her carry it around Saturday night. I was very excited to find a Zara store in Vancouver, as I love Zara but didn't think there were any stores in the US (although looking now I see I was quite wrong about that). We had a nice dinner on the waterfront, although I forget the name of the restaurant.

That cute green top I'm wearing? On sale at Zara :) I think it's probably supposed to tie in the front but I like it the way I have it since the ties are really long. Marlene is wearing a handknit cotton sweater she bought on Granville Island. It's a very nice sweater, and as she said, "It fits well and I didn't have to knit it myself, so I'm buying it!"

I think I'll finish my Vancouver post about the Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Classical Chinese Garden tomorrow, because that will be another long post with a bunch of photos and this is already a big post.

However, before I go I have to give a giant thank you to my August Project:Colorswap pal, Stella, who sent me this lovely box of goodies:

Here we have 4 skeins of Adrienne Vittadini Fiora, in a deep purple. Stella thought it was black when she bought it, as did I when I took it out of the box, and now we're both convinced it's purple, which is just fine with me. It's a slightly fuzzy mohair/nylon/wool blend, with small sequins. I'm thinking it would make a nice lacy scarf. There was also a nice black notebook, adorable panda stickers, and neat zebra paper clips. And a bar of soap, which will go into the shower immediately since I bought a new suction soap holder. And licorice (already consumed) as well as licorice Altoids. And that origami bird (at least I think it's a bird), which totally blew me away and which I'm guessing Stella made herself. I'm jealous, since I've tried origami a few times and I'm apparently completely incompetent at folding. Which is also true with fitted sheets, now that I think about it...anyway, thank you Stella! I love my box and I'm glad you enjoyed yours as well!