The Daily Chai: The Daily Chai

Today's chai was purchased by a certain nine year old who wanted to get me my daily chai. Good girl. It was tasty. And free. Free food and drinks are always appreciated, especially when purchased by your offspring.

We had a quiet morning at Zoe's before we left for Granville Island. Granville Island is great little area in Vancouver with a farmer's market and lots of interesting shops. The kids loved it, especially the Kid Market, a building with several different toy stores. Kate spent the rest of her spending money today on the normal crap that nine year olds buy. I didn't care, after all, I got my latte out of her. We had lunch in the food court which overlooks English Bay and then we went outside to the pier to chase the pigeons. Anna was determined to pet them and pouted when they wouldn't cooperate. I find it amusing as well as irritating as hell that this kid, who can't walk two blocks without crying to be carried, can chase pigeons at full speed for ten minutes straight.

My most exciting purchase was some lavender and goat milk soap that I bought last time that I absolutely love and I ran out of recently. I stocked up, so I'm all set. Thrilling, I'm aware. We also found delicious macaroons which Kate assured me she adored so could we get one of each flavour, pretty please? I happily obliged by purchasing half a dozen of those sweet concoctions. Kate and Anna took tiny bites of each one and told me they didn't like them. So I ate them. All six. By myself. Thanks kids.

We left Granville Island and drove over to Gastown to meet a friend of mine I haven't seen in about ten years. I've had two babies and she's gotten married and we both finished our BAs doing it part time since we last saw each other. Life. And a large country between us. It was so good to see her and break bread and just talk about everything that is happening with us. Catching up with a long lost friend is good for the soul. I highly recommend you go out and do it right now. Who do you miss? Call them.

I called several people on the phone today. It was weird. I really never talk on the phone anymore. I don't know how to end conversations, I've lost the skill. But to those I spoke with, thank you for being on the other end today.

It's been four full days in the city and I'm finding it pretty easy to get around and I'm recognizing the streets I spend the most time on. Thank goodness for the GPS on my phone, but each day, I'm using it less and less. I'm planning to go a little further afield on Thursday and Friday, so I might need that GPS again, but I'm loving driving around the city. I always worry that I'll have trouble or I'll get irrevocable lost because I have a terrible sense of direction, but I drove all over Europe with only some minor mishaps (see here and here). My only real problem is I find I get easily distracted by the scenery and miss my turn ;-)