The unbearable sadness of old friendships

 I am not able to spend an appropriate amount of time with each old friend on these 'round the world trips.  I feel a bit a guilty, but i make a decent effort and do   i can, considering that I live 12000km away from most of them.  I manage face time with nearly everyone every year or two.

Clean Danish design, of course

My re-acquaintance with my uni mate, Nina, is a wonderful random side-effect of my Swiss Air round the world business ticket.  I fly Swiss through Asia or Africa to Europe, then to America, then I get to fly United or Air Canada back to Sydney.  Readers know that flying United isn't a smart choice, so I hightail it up to Vancouver and take the 16.5 hour 777-200ER nonstop to Sydney at midnight.  

Vancouver is lovely, and naturalistic, and Nina embodies the city to a tee, gracious and fun, with a beautiful house and gardens, food and wine for days.  There's no need to leave her house but the city is too cosmopolitan and scenic to miss.  I am a fool for not staying longer!

Last night her mate Deborah popped by to make a trout dinner with grilled veggies, and elderberry flavored profiteroles for dinner.  How posh. 

I just have to sit back and enjoy and try to keep my creeping cough at bay.  I do not want to end up in quarantine in Sydney for tuberculosis again, like after that Myanmar trip two Christmases ago.  I had bought a stack of azithromax at a no rx needed chemist in dodgy Zanzibar, and popped one down last night, to kill off any sneaky bugs that got into my system during this long trip.  It hit me like a brick wall, especially after a bottle of yummy Okanagan Valley BC shirazes.  But after my first in-house warm shower in a week (Yosemite and the River were camp showers), i think I have gotten my lungs cleared of any intruders, and ready for the 16.5 hour flight across the Pacific Ocean tonight.

Out the door.  Nina lent me the max regulation sized old duffel bag for one of my two 32kg bags to make room for fish!!

Annual pilgrimage to longliner seafood on Granville island to pack my annual diet of fresh wild Alaskan and Canadian salmon and halibut.  The owner is again shocked at my knowledge of the Aussie customs regs 

Nina and I checking out waiter's ass.

Deborah chose a quaint vego eatery, the Parker, for my final night on the road in her new ghetto hood, ghetto for Vancouver at least.  She expects to grieved own veggies here on her rooftop.  I just want to jump the waiter, but can focus on the meal since there will be boys galore once I get home.

All of the food here is prepped in this tiny corner: totally vego and organic.

 

Hi mum, if you're reading this right now, nina says hi and sends you a hug.

Deborah speaking bad Russian tells us while kindly serving that she grew up behind the garlic curtain..

 

We are at peak capacity, says nina.