Peek of the Peaks

Fri 28 Jan

The morning after the first day skiing is always tough. We had slept the sleep of the very sleepy. Now we woke the wakefulness of those with very sore muscles. Thighs hurt, calves hurt, even the muscles in my feet (?) hurt. Ouch. I had chafe from my rental boots below my calves, not cool. Fortunately we had painkillers.

Breakfast with all the trimmings (fried egg on a bagel and fresh coffee) then headed out to the snow. The weather had turned a bit nasty overnight, raining at the base of the mountain, but this meant snow higher up. New snow is great, but the visibility was not.

Slow, snowplough turns were the order of the morning. Still, the snow was very forgiving so when I had my first tumble of the trip (Mom, don't worry, I was wearing a helmet and pads and had my jersey on) it wasn't too uncomfortable. The sleet and snow was quite chilly so both of us wrapped up warmly in our most stylish headie/neck warmer items. Very dashing. With now only noses exposed to the elements, we ventured onwards.

For lunch we went to the only place in Whistler not run by or for Australians so not much in the way of vegetarian options for La. I was more fortunate and by this time was famished (precipitation makes me hungry) so made do with a super beef curry soup and rare roast beef sandwich. Delish.

After lunch we carried on skiing till the sun went down, with a brief pause for hot chocolate and brownies somewhere high up on Whistler mountain. Another great day on the pistes, albeit one where we didn't actually see where we skied.

After showering and chilling for a bit, we took a drive then a walk round Whistler Village. The shops and restaurants are quite expensive, sorry, extensive. And monuments and plaques and other evidence of the Winter Olympics all over the show.

A quiet, simple supper back in the apartment. Shabbat Shalom all.

Morning, noon and night. Day 13.

Sat 29 Jan

The snow from yesterday continued through the night, roads covered and hopefully a nice dusting of powder on the pistes. Saturdays must be a popular day-trip day for Whistler as there was a steady stream of cars into the village. So much for 'no crowds' comments from a few days ago.

Arriving at the Creekside gondola, oh, boy, yes, there were queues of people. Or rather, loads of skiers standing in line. Absent, though, was any shoving, pushing-in or unpleasantness. Everyone still polite. Even the stoner dudes in our gondola very politely shared their smelly Subway sandwiches' delightful stench with us the whole way up.

At the top, another long line for the first chair lift, but again this went smoothly, everyone waiting their turn, going one/one at merge points. Amazing, and quite a contrast to some of the chaos we'd seen in European resorts.

The morning was quite clear, new snow on the ground made for excellent skiing. We did some great runs close to the peak of Whistler mountain. Awesome. We were enjoying the conditions so much that we almost forgot to eat lunch. Almost. Dropped whatever we were doing and had a bite there and then at a place next to the peak 2 peak gondola. I was starving (fresh powder makes me hungry) so we both had soup and a slice of pizza. Delish.

Then, full of hope and courage we braved that overgrown pendulum swinging between mountains AKA the Peak 2 Peak gondola. I was sweating, butterflies in my stomach. All for nothing really as the cloud was so low and so thick we couldn't see anything. It was like being in a gondola shaped lift with windows looking out onto greyness. Score!

La says that this doesn't count so apparently we have to do this peak 2 peak thing again when we can actually see how far we are going to fall to our certain deaths. Rumour has it Sunday will be sunny. Yay.

We decided to treat ourselves to supper out so strolled down to a great sushi place near our apartment.

Scrambled, pizza and bento. Day 14.

Whistlering as we go

Wed 26 Jan

And so, onto Whistler. Took the SkyTrain (above ground, driverless train system) into Vancouver waterfront area to pick up our hire car. We had reserved something small (Focus) but due to availability, we were given a small 4x4 (Mitsubishi RVR). Very cool!

The drive to Whistler is totally simples, taking the Sea to Sky Highway all the way. Beautiful road with pine tree'd mountains on the one side and Horseshoe Bay on the other. At Squamish the road then winds inland and we started to gain some altitude. A very comfortable 2 hours from Vancouver, we were there!

We were a little too early to check into our accommodation in Whistler Creekside, so we took a drive to Whistler- and Blackcomb Villages. Legacy of the Winter Olympics 2010 were everywhere, the amount and variety of shops, restaurants and accommodation is quite impressive. Stocked up on grocery supplies and then back to Creekside, checked into our apartment and then still had time to get our lift passes and our skis and boots. Score!

Had some tea and croissants then cooked a simple supper - I was starving (4x4 vehicles make me hungry) - relaxed and then early night in preparation for the first day of skiing.

Morning, noon and night. Day 11.

Thu 27 Jan

The Creekside Gondola is across the road from our apartment. So, tumbled out of bed, breakfast and dressed for the snow, picked up skis and then (pow) we were at the gondola. Actually, before this we had dithered for a few moments (10 minutes!) deciding best place to store lift passes. Seriously.

The skiing here is sublime. Very long runs, mostly wide, tree-lined and not crowded. And everyone is so polite! Whole morning skiing then down to Whistler Village for lunch. Now is when we had equipment incident #1 (more details to follow). Lunch was soup and a deli sandwich at a coffee shop run by Australians - by this time I was ravenous (gondolas make me hungry). Delish. Actually, the whole resort is over-run with Australians and Brits and Saffas. Canadians are few and far between. Yesterday was even 'Australia Day' with a number of people skiing wrapped in flags (just the flags, no warm ski kit underneath. Go figure.).

Incident #1: as Laurel clicked off her skis before lunch, her snow brake broke off. This is a small piece of the boot restraint that also serves to prevent the ski sliding off by itself if it comes off during a fall. We managed to find the small screw that is part of the snow brake and luckily were right next to loads of ski rental places. Took her skis into a shop and they swapped them with a new set. Whew.

After lunch we took another Gondola up, this time to the Whistler side of the peak to peak Gondola. Some background - Whistler and Blackcomb are two mountains with associated skiing areas. Our ski passes cover both areas as they are pretty much two parts of a greater whole. In the run up to the 2010 Winter Olympics a gondola was built joining the peaks of both mountains. This is now, I think, the longest such gondola, 4.4km long including 3km of unsupported span. It takes 11 minutes to travel peak-to-peak. Sheesh. And some of the cabins have glass floors. Double sheesh. I'm not looking forward to going on it, but I guess it must be done. Today was not that day; we were going to ski back down to Creekside. Whew.

To recap, Laurel had incident #1, we'd just eaten lunch, taken the gondola up, and now putting skis on is when we had incident #2. This time my skis. Similar problem. Snow brake fell clean off, a different screw had come loose. Anyways, luckily there was a ski service building at the top of the mountain so I got mine fixed. But our confidence in our rentals was falling fast. This did not prevent us skiing down to Creekside, of course, which we did. Awesome!

At the bottom we went and had a bit of a shout at the ski rental place. Much apologies from them and offers of discounts etc. We just really wanted them to assure us this would not happen again, at least not to us on this trip. So they got one of their ski experts to double check both our skis. Mine were ok, but Laurel's (remember, these are the new ones she got before lunch!) needed some serious re-tightening. Anyways, we're all fine and so are our skis. We think. We know. (We hope.)

Headed back to the apartment for tea, chill, supper and another early night. Exhausted.

Breakfast, soup, supper. Day 12.

Short Stack Rock On

Tue 25 Jan

Got up relatively early and went for a jog. Nice to be out on the road, but didn't pick very good route so loads of soot and fumes ingested. Next time I'll head for the suburban hills or the treadmill in the gym in La-Sis's apartment block.

We met a new mom friend for lunch in Dunbar at a cool place called Jethro's. Brunch and burgers sort of place, slightly rock chick/gothic vibe, run by a pregnant punk poppie with nose piercing and hair like Spike from Gremlins 2. By this time I was seriously peckish (leather trim makes me hungry) so I wolfed down a short stack of buttermilk pancakes - not crepes, the type that are 2cm thick and the size of a dinner plate! Delish.

After lunch we were given a tour of all the best places to live in Vancouver by La-Sis - no pressure there. Then went to another friend for tea in Kitsilano, a few blocks up from the beach. Then some window shopping for a laptop for La-Sis and cushions/chairs/mirrors (!) for her flat.

Finished off the day with a coffee- and- cake visit to my aunt, who lives near Granville Island. We met her son (my first cousin) and wife for the first time. Hours of family reminiscing and history and chin-wagging and a most incredible confection invention called Tuxedo cake. Awesome!

Breakfast, brunch, tea, supper and cake. Day 10.

Planes, (no) trains and automobiles

Two for the price of one today...

Sun 23 Jan

Pretty much a travel day, up before dawn and took yellow cab to JFK. Seamless check-in and then security OK. Terminal 8 is huge and new and beautiful and then only has about 2 shops and 2 food places to choose from. Ok, more than 2 but not much.

Arrived in LA to glorious sunshine! Seriously, didn't even need jumper. Luggage checked through from NY so just walked from Terminal 4 to Terminal 3 (outside in the glorious sunshine!). Another boring security queue - La had the (mis)fortune of being scanned in one of the US airports' new X-Ray scanners. For some reason, straight after she was scanned they decided to take a break so I slipped by in the normal metal detector.

Terminal 3 at LAX is a bit of a dump, we're on another BYO food airline and the waiting area was littered with litter and sleeping backpackers (on the floor) and screaming kids and very few food options. Woe was us - I was ravenous (gaining 3 hours makes me hungry). At least La managed to think quickly and grab a space at an available re-charging point giving our netbook and my iPod much needed juice while we waited.

The guy sitting across from us in the waiting lounge was snoring loudly. I mean, this was a crowded, noisy terminal and we can hear him, like some sort of asthmatic cow. And then his head sagged to his chest and, yes, we have drool, people. Lovely.

Side bar, just remembered another quote from the other day: Lifelong swallowing of saliva causes death.

Anyway, flight to Vancouver was only 3 hours so had no inflight entertainment. Except playing 'get your knee and foot away from my space' with the Easter Island statue sitting next to me who was using his blackberry *during* taxiing and probably while we were in-flight, the bastard. Plus he had some BO issues, not ever-present but came through in occasional waves of pong. Never a good thing.

Temperature in Vancouver -> a positively barmy 7 Deg C

Time change -> GMT - 8 hours

Currency -> £1 = C$ 1.5 ish

It was great to clear customs (super-efficient, Canadian style) and bags were waiting and so was La's sister. Yay! Back to her place for chill, tea, supper and sleep. Bliss.

Bagel for breakfast and lunch but proper supper, Day 8.

Mon 24 Jan

Nice and relaxing day spent shopping, eating and schmoozing.

We met up with some of La's sister's friends for coffee and then hit the Sears sales hard. This was for clothes for *me* (gasp shock horror). My personal shopper (La's sister) was on home turf, seamlessly picking out items for my consideration. Deputy shopper and key veto holder (La) was right on hand for the 'aha' or 'na ah' decisions. In a record much-less-than-an-hour, we had decided by majority vote on 3 shirts and a sweater (seriously, that's about all the shopping I could handle). No more 'only fleece top' comments about me on this trip!

Took a pause from shopping for a quick food court adventure. Not a moment too soon as I was starving (trying on clothes makes me hungry). Greek meaty pitta stuff for me and La-Sis and a salad for La. Delish!

The morning rain persisted throughout the day so we pretty much confined ourselves indoors. Window shopping, shopping, food shopping and then some serious tea and homemade cookie consumption back at La-Sis's place.

La-Sis then slaved away in the kitchen preparing supper for us. We rewarded her by treating her to a private viewing of our wedding photos. Mazal Tov!

There was morning, noon and night, Day 9.

Never trust a reversing cat

I began the day with a few miles run in Owings Mills, Baltimore. No new snow overnight but clear skies meant a pretty crisp morning. I ran for 33 minutes, my hands warmed up after 28. It was fantastic! Back at La's cousin's place, furious slaving away in the kitchen by our hosts (thanks guys!) meant French toast fulfilment. Yum.

Noah, the master of the house (a ginger cat) showed off his old trick of chewing leaves off one of the house plants, a nearly dead one specifically left in situ for that purpose. He then treated us to his new (?) trick of a sort of feline moonwalk, backed himself into a corner of the kitchen and then did a great impression of 'ginger vomiting cat'. Much hilarity followed. Not sure if backwards walking in cats is always a pre-cursor to such things or just a once off. Anyone?

We then went to a cool part of Baltimore called Hampden. Think of the neighbourhood depicted in the movie "Hairspray"- there was even a pink flamingo-shaped guitar in a shop window. Went to the Golden West Cafe for lunch. For some reason there was a moose head (wearing a party hat) mounted above our table. Go figure. I was starving (laughing at cats makes me hungry) and had an awesome rare steak wrap. Delish. From there we did some window shopping, all very 'Hon' (look it up!).

Then La's cousin dropped us back at the bus stop for our trip back to New York. Bye Bye Maryland, you were great!

Back in NYC, we met a friend for supper in Soho, great little place called Bread, then back to our NY 'mom' to pack. Tomorrow is mostly a travel day so today pretty much our last day in the USA. For now.

Breakfast, lunch and supper. Day 7

Drop the gun or pick a room

Today we explored Baltimore. Downtown, east side, west side, upside, downside. We saw it all. La's cousin was our fearless driver and tour guide, braving the east side corners and the infamous old Jewish hood - Corn Beef Row.

Baltimore is home to the USA's 3rd oldest synagogue still in its original property. Even though they were closed to the public today, thanks to family gonnections we were given a private tour of the Lloyd street shul, the Jewish museum and the Bnei Israel shul next door. Also in the Lombard Street area we popped into the Kibbitz Room at Attman's deli for a look see - we feasted our eyes only but let me tell you Carnegie Deli better watch out!

Down to Fell's point to check out the trendy restaurants and old harbour area there. While there we saw the building used as the main police station in "Homicide: Life on the Street". And if you're a fan of The Wire, plenty of familiarish buildings, the Domino Sugar sign, street corners and the dock area. To name drop a bit, La's cousin knows the creator of both shows (David Simon) and we saw where he lived before he was famous, and sort of also saw where he now lives. I am not a stalker, serious!

By this time I was starving (Baltimore crime dramas make me hungry) so we went to the American Visionary Art Museum and started with an awesome lunch in their restaurant. Then took in their current exhibition "What makes us smile". My personal favourites included a bench covered in self-re-inflating whoopee cushions and lots of postcard humour - a loosely paraphrased example being 'the sound of your snoring means I can fart'.

We left Baltimore City via the the street where artist Loring Cornish lives. He has turned his house into an incredible piece of installation art - the entire façade (And the one two doors down) have been totally covered with mosaic made from bits of glass and mirror. Apparently the inside is similarly decorated although today was not an open house day. Stunning.

Back for Friday night supper with La's cousins and aunty and friends. Shabbat Shalom everyone!

Morning, noon and night. Day 6.

Neither snow nor rain can stay us from our mission

Been a bit slack so this post will cover the last 3 days...

Tue 18 Jan

Woke up with intention to go for a run in Central Park. Overnight snow all over the place, sleety rain, so gave up on that idea. Gutted. Decided to do more walking (!!) round the city instead. Started off with tour of Brooklyn courtesy of our hop on/off tickets. Found a bus, with a driver, but no guide. Upstairs section was uninhabitable - the front section had sprung a leak and water was collecting on the floor. The rear section was relatively dry, but freezing cold and the clear plastic ceiling was covered in snow so in any case not able to see anything.

Back downstairs I had time to get the compulsory daily Starbucks and once the guide turned up we set off. Pretty interesting tour, guide was a Brooklyn local with a bag of chips on his shoulder, very colourful stories. Downstairs windows had no snow but so much steam on the inside we couldn't see outside. We had to make do with our minds eyes. His routine was amusingly punctuated by torrents of water flowing down the stairs from the upstairs flood. All round, great info and entertaining tour.

From there we strolled through the Financial District, Wall street, the big brass bull statue, saw Ground Zero, then mastered the NYC subway to make our way to Greenwich Village for lunch. I was starving (floods make me hungry) and partook of some delicious Chinese food. While still in the Village we strolled the streets, serious window shopping and saw the oldest Pharmacy in New York. Fascinating.

Onwards to some retail therapy at Columbus Circle (again). Whole Foods is incredible and my wallet was very glad we got there *after* lunch. Back onto the subway to Columbia University to meet a friend who works there and his brother who doesn't. Quick look around the fantastic university buildings and then some coffee and cake more or less opposite the diner used in Seinfeld. And a drink at the famous Lenox Lounge jazz club in Harlem. Pretty cool, man.

To close off the day we joined our hosts for the greatest kosher Moroccan cuisine in the Upper West side. Note to self: a veal chop is basically a baby T-bone steak. Huge!

It was morning, yada yada, Day 3.

Wed 19 Jan

Today the rain had disappeared and the ambushing slush soup puddles were gone too so first thing I dressed and went for a jog in Central Park. It took about 5 very stop-start minutes of jogging up 5 avenue blocks to get there which was not so cool (New York traffic light phases are veerrrrry long) but I got there. Hundreds of runners and dog walkers and cyclists circling the inner ring road/path thing. And now I was one of them. Sporting my London Marathon finisher T-Shirt (over a long sleeve top, don't worry I was warm) I was the envy of all who bothered to look up. Lovely start to the day and very glad I did it. That's that checked off the list.

We decided to fill the rest of the day with as much tourist stuff as possible. Breezed through Grand Central Terminal (very grand, really) and then strolled down 5th Avenue (the wrong way for the posh shops), past the Empire State Building. By this time it had clouded over again and started raining so couldn't really see the tops of the buildings so gave up on top of the Rock or Empire State Building viewing thang.

Then, deep breath, we went to Macy's. It is huge. And has stuff in it. Not much more I can say, although La prob has loads more to contribute on that one.

We then made our way to B&H, an electronics store owned and run by Frum Jews. Everyone behind a counter's name is Sholomo or Chaim and has a beard and payot. I kid you not. Apparently even their internet shopping site closes on Shabbes. During sales process of a very reasonably priced SD card for my camera, Shlomo (I think) wanted my details for their computer. I decided to spell out my name and surname. 'Are you Jewish' he asked me. Hilarity ensued.

Once you have chosen your item, they give you an order receipt for it and tell you to pay downstairs for it. My memory card was put onto a complicated but efficent set of tunnels, pulleys and conveyors, lifts and balances and found its ways to a collection area near the tills. Then, as you leave the store, a Rastafarian man encourages you to buy some kosher falafel from the kosher falafel caravan 2 yards away. Fascinating.

After that we went to Carnegie deli for lunch. I was ravenous (shopping near Frumas makes me hungry). I had "the best" pastrami sandwich in the world. Huge. About 2 inches of hot pastrami. Delicious. No hot English Mustard in sight if I must be critical. And I must. La had the biggest tuna salad in existence. We were so full we had to politely decline the waiter's offer of the best cheesecake in the world. Thrice.

From there we walked past or into the following:

Carnegie Hall

The Big Big Apple Apple store

Tiffany and Co

De Beers

More of 5th avenue, this time the side with the posh shops

We rounded off the day with a bus trip to Baltimore where we'd be staying with La's family for a few days.

Morning, noon and night. Day 4.

Thu 20 Jan

Today La's cousin kindly drove us to the Washington DC, the capital with the Capitol. It was a gorgeous clear and crisp day. We started off at the White House. To be precise, the back entrance. The famous view of the front is not really visible from either the road or the pedestrian walkway, but the views from behind are fabulous. (a number of obvious jokes omitted here)

Next stop, the Lincoln Memorial via Arlington Cemetery. We walked up the steps humming Rocky them tune. I know *that* was Philadelphia, but the steps felt the same to me. From the Lincoln statue there is an incredible view of the Washington memorial (big obelisk thing) with its reflection clearly showing in the, erm, Reflecting Pool. It is hard to describe the scale of the grounds and the monuments and the everything. Huge. Monumental. Also saw the memorials to the soldiers lost in the Vietnam and Korean wars.

Drove to region of the Mall with all the museums for lunch in the National Museum of the American Indian. Some good views of the Capitol building. We did end up in the museum itself, but food first. I was famished (Capitols make me hungry). I wolfed down a Buffalo Chili with fried flat bread and a coffee. De-lish. Then onto the Air and Space museum (NASA space craft leftovers, like, the one that they came back from the moon in!) and the National History Museum (just *had* to see the Hope diamond, darling) and the Smithsonian Institution. Note, even the museum guards are packing handguns. Astonishing.

Other stuff we saw:

Treasury department, National Archive and loads of cops. And military helicopters. Apparently the Chinese premier was visiting Mr O this week.

Day 5.

No soup for you

Suitably fortified with tea and chocolate babka, we set off to conquer NYC. Spent most of the morning shivering in the (covered) top deck of a tour bus round the Downtown area. Now I knew to expect sky scrapers and all that, but really wasn't quite prepared for how big they are. Truly magnificent.

I remember the following: Macys, Empire State Building, Rockefeller building, that bull statue, Wall Street, 5th Avenue, Flatiron building, Battery Park, Broadway Avenue, Times Square, 3 bridges. Central Park, Time Warner buildings, Carnegie Hall. Greenwich Village, China Town, Little Italy, the UN. There are probably a few things I forgot too.

By this time we needed some hot liquid to thaw icicle toes and other bits. Soup, sandwich, Starbucks, blueberry muffin (all me, the cold makes me hungry!) and then back to a tour of the Uptown area.

Upper West side, the soup place that inspired *that* Seinfeld episode, Central Park again, Columbus circle, Columbia University, some churches, some weird NY institution that thinks hotdogs go well with papaya juice. Harlem, Malcolm X boulevard, Marin Luther King Jnr avenue, Central Park (again, the Park avenue side with all the museums and mansions).

Supper at a friend in the Upper West Side and then home for tea (did I mention we brought PG Tips with us?). Relatively early night, yay! Weather man has said there may be snow or icy rain tomorrow and temperatures down to -6 degrees C. And I forgot to pack my gatkes...

Morning, noon and night. Day 2.

Empire state of tired

Arrived in NYC a few hours ago. Gorgeous sunshine, blue skies but very cold. Freezing in fact, below zero, even 32F.

Time change -> GMT - 5 hours

Currency -> £1 = US$ 1.5 ish

To recap the day so far:

Left a very balmy London 11am GMT. I reset my watch on take off and then had a very nice chicken with celeriac mash with a beer for breakfast at 7am. Long distance travel makes me ravenous so I also finished off La's porcini mushrooms. 3 movies (The Social Network, some research on New York with Drew Barrymore and Justin Long, and some other film) and a Michael McIntyre later, our round the world trip officially started.

Cab from the airport to our friends in upper east side of Manhattan, darling. Dumped our stuff and then donned ski jackets (freezing!) and went for a walk to shake out the BA cobwebs. Saw Gracie Mansion and walked next to the East River.

Going out for dinner/drinks with our hosts in an hour or so. The following were mentioned: Times Square, Top of the Rock, Marriot Marquis. All sounds great, as long as I can go in jeans, a fleece top and trainers... so just like in London, then.

Update: Cabbed to Times square to look round and grab a bite to eat. OMG! Lights, screens, all us tourists. Stood in 'that spot' so that the camera puts you on the screen, yay. And loads of cops. With guns!

Went to a deli (Mr Broadway, in, erm, Broadway) for late supper - deep filled beef tongue sandwich. Two regular slices of Rye, then about 3 ruminants worth of tongue. Delish!

Very tired and a little tongue-tied, back to our hosts for first night in New York.

It was afternoon, it was evening. Day 1.