bonne annee*

Happy New Year one and all, I hope you had a nice holiday celebration. Sadly, these are the best photos evidencing my trundle up to Vancouver, BC for New Year's Eve. Which means that I was having too much fun trapsing about to worry about getting Really Good Shots. One of my favo(u)rite moments of the evening was hitting the bar at The Sutton Place hotel (erm, one of the fanciest addresses in town, thank you very much) and feeling all cool as I ordered two manhattans, thinking the $20 dollar bill I'd fished out of my coat pocket would cover them, with a small tip.

Well.

I glanced at the bill and probably said a swear word or something in my dumbfoundedness at the $24-something price tag. I was no longer in State College, home of the $2 gin tonics. No sir. Looking back, I WISH I had retorted to the bartender, "OH. Was that a twenty? I thought I put down a FIFTY. Here, let me add a ten spot to that for ya there, oh ya eh.". I felt super cool at tipping $6.00 just because...I could. Yeah, so $30.00 CDN (approx. point of sale exchange rate, $5,099 USD) for two manhattans? I say cheer yay. Live it up. At least they were well made. A great topper to our previous drinkies at The Fairmount--which I still call "The Hotel Vancouver" because I just can't get used to the name change, much like I have trouble calling Seattle's Olympic Four Seasons by its new name, "The Fairmount", er, in Seattle. Got all that?

There were also in-between-fancy-hotel-bar drinks at Malone's Pub, where we also waited over an hour for damn chicken wings, resulting in the Great Returned Cover Charge Caper of 2006/07. Grr. But I do admit that it was cute to hear the very young Malone's bartender be all, "oh, I'm really sore-y aboat that". And for the record, BC-ers don't really say 'aBOAT' (er, wouldn't that be like Minnesota or something?) but it's more of a softer combo of 'abowt' and 'a boat'. But you can definitely hear 'em coming a mile away. Get a Western Canadian to say "hey, did you see Saddam in the Madza eating pasta? It was a really great process, eh, you shoulda been there" and roll at the tight 'a' vowel sounds, not to mention the 'pro'-cess and 'bean'. So there you go.

Right. Proof that I was indeed in Canada:
December 31, 2006 (Vancouver)

And proof that it was indeed Very Rainy Almost The Whole Time:
January 1, 2007 (White Rock, B.C.)

By popular request, a closeup of That New Hat or the 'chapeau noveau':


Lastly, a New Year's joke: Jazz bands in Canada don't play "Take the A Train", they play "Take the Train, eh?"

*my utterance after 'desole Monsier' to the Quebecker who tried to panhandle me near Robson St. shortly after midnight. It's amazing how totally awesome my French is (ha) after libations.