Friday, January 30, 2009

Vancouver BC Jan 16-18th 2009


Oh my WORD. A mini weekend vacation to Vancouver, BC. It was wonderful! We stayed at the Grand Westin Hotel off of Robson. This was one of the most fabulous hotels I have ever stepped foot in. So fancy! It was all glass windows in the shape of a grand piano. (Thus the name) The suite was on the 20th floor (1/3rd of the way to the top) and the view was fabulous looking down on all the city lights and traffic and competing with the other sky risers as to which was the tallest. Stunning.
The mornings and throughout most of the days a dense fog hovered over the city so walking around was especially pretty -casting great shadows and lighting for some great photos.
This was the view from our room...
It was just neat to relax, and walk around the many shops and snap some fun pictures and take in all the great food that the great city of Vancouver had to offer.


Of course we ate at Milestones and LOVED it




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Miles and I were laughing at all the little souvenir shops and clothing retail shop windows as they all seemed to be filled with President Elect Obama paraphernalia. I mean,..... really? In Canada
?.... I did not vote for the guy, so maybe my opinion doesn't matter, but even if I did, a T-shirt with his picture on it does't really make sense to me in a foreign country. It would completely make sense being in America. I understand that. It is a big deal...but not in Canada. We laughed so hard at how dumb that was. He is some sort of celebrity here....which just seems very strange. It would make more sense if they were T-shirst with the Queen's face on them, but Obama? REALLY? Really? Really! So funny.




We had such a great time. It was tough to come back to work and get back into the normal swing of things...

4 comments:

M. L. Huitt said...

Maybe this will help you understand the Obama craziness a bit better...but he really is a celebrity to the rest of the world. People here in England (and all over Europe) are SO excited about his election. Alot of my non-American friends here watched the inauguration. And everywhere I went, people who know that I'm American kept congratulating me on our new President.

I think that the rest of the world sees the fact that a black man has been elected the President of the U.S. as a bigger deal than we Americans realize. It symbolizes a shift in America's global perspective to them...and Obama's ideals help to influence that view. They see him as a visionary they can respect and want to work alongside, whereas the rest of the world (whether Americans like it or not) was honestly getting really sick of, and disillusioned by, President Bush.

Hope that sheds some light on the t-shirts situation to you. ;o)

P.S. I miss youuuuu.

Miles and Jenny said...

Thanks but let me explain further ....

It’s just annoying see people who don’t really have any deep understanding of US politics so heartily endorse the new American president. I don’t think it has much to do with his race (for example, name another country that has elected a racial minority to their highest seat?) as it does to his being very smooth and his being not Bush. Europeans (not necessarily the rest of the world) may have been getting disillusioned with Bush, but that’s mainly because European media reports very selectively on his policies. For example Bush has done more for Africa than any other person in history. I am not saying i agree with all of Bush's policies here. -He knows and has admitted to mistakes. Don't we all? I think the Bush haters just want to Hate. But he has done a lot of good and not gotten the respect for those good things he has doen and respect deserves.

I get the Obama craziness, I just find it annoying and slightly hypocritical for people with only superficial understanding of the issues to get so excited about him. I really think it’s mostly due to his celebrity status (I don’t see any Joe Biden T-shirts, and he represents the same change). I hope he does a good job,( I sincerely want him to succeed and make the right decisions) but I wonder how many shirts Europeans will be buying in a year when he still hasn’t removed any troops from Iraq and has put off closing Guantanamo since he has no place to put the inmates (European countries have already refused to take any of them).

-miss you too Chat with me soon!

Molly said...

Did you notice that all of the shirts were on sale?? :)

Miles and Jenn said...

yes, we did notice they were all on sale. It was pretty funny...