ahh.. back home again and it feels like i never left. vancouver was a lot of fun even though it was cold most of the time i was there. really glad that i decided to take a coat despite toronto having 21C plus temperatures the few days before i departed.

most of the trip was spent catching up with my pseudo australian friends. i met up with jen a couple times for lunch. the first time was at a place right by the water where we ate burgers and drank beer and had fun with the waiter who made fun of us for the silly things we were saying. does anyone who doesnt live in vancouver use the expression "its a gong show" ? i dont. the other time we went to granville island and had perogies and curry and it was excellent. almost kinda like going to the vic market, but different. we walked all around the buildings on granville island which i missed the first time i went there myself.

i caught up with jeremy to go for beers, belgian, at my request, somehwere just outside of downtown vancity. i cant remember teh name of the street, so um, i guess it doesnt matter. that place was good even though there was like 87 extremely loud asians sitting at the table next to us for most of the time we were in the bar.

i met a bunch of carolina's friends, family and work mates so that was all good. her soon to be sister in law came over from the island to go to queens of the stone age with us. i thought about going back and going to the vicoria show too, but uh, i didnt. it was fun with rebecca there since we stood up front on the rail, then squeed like fans girls during and after the show. yep, never too old to do that.

i met up with clayton and gitta a couple of times. they live off robson street so it was near everything. the first time we went to the cupcake store (sofaking awesome). i only had one cupcake but easily could have finished 4 or 5. its on denman is you live in vancity and have never been. get there.
the second lunch date with them was the day of liam finn's show and their friend steph came too. i ended up going back to new west before the show cause i think carol had to do something somewhere before we could go.

liam was awesome. EJ was not off her face drunk like the last time i saw them play in melbourne. they played a little community centre hall in west van that looked like a church form the inside without the religious memorabilia. the ceilings were high and we sat in pews and the acoustic were fantastic. every other person had a pearl jam shirt or hoodie on. i did not.

after departing vancouver we (carol + me) went down to seattle for flight to mars. we stayed at grant's house so got to catch up with him for a little bit too. we did some shopping and wandering in capitol hill and we ate at dick's. actually we ate in the car since someone didnt want to stand at the counter. as a joke we went into hot topic and i contemplated buying a belt. i didnt, and days later somewhat regretted it when my pants kept getting too low in the goddamn mosh.

prior to the flight to mars show, we met up with a colleague of carol's who is also a big PJ fan, but being decades older than me had seen the who & zepplin in the 70s etc and had many good concerts stories. we kept saying how you have to go to europe to do shows cause the crowds there are so much better than america. its probably wrong ot give advice to someone my parents age.. anyways.

flight to mars and the hendrix tribute were great. at one point during the shadow reunion i looked over to the side of the stage and thought that guy looks like duff mckagan. then the guy who looked like duff was putting one one of mike's guitars. yah, it was him, and they played a couple ramones songs. very cool. i was so tired at this show which took away from it a bit.

i left seattle the next morning to go do some queens of the stone age shows in canada. during the trip i flew alaska air and west jet for the first time. i went back to saskatoon < insert runnin' back to saskatoon joke here > something i never thought id do. i learned that the cities in the prairies are not as far apart as i thought there were, even though we still flew. josh homme is my homeboy. ok thats a lie, but he did dedicate infinity to me in winnipeg :D and i heard era vulgaris 4 times. woo. more on this later..

and while i was gone is was sonia, andrew, lara and asal's birthdays.. who's combined age is more than 100, whatever that means.

happy mother's day to my mom, who is now asking me when i am going to grow up.

and, THANK YOU TO CLAIRE WHO SENT ME ANZAC BISCUITS BECAUSE SHE IS SO AWESOMELY COOL. YEEEAH!