Vancouver and San Francisco

Hi all! I thought I'd finally share the photos from my trip on here. Ali and I spent 2 weeks in Vancouver visiting my brother, his wife Shauna and their lovely little boy Finnegan. My nephew is the cutest. We also went to San Francisco for a few nights, I'd been before but I love it so much I can never resist a return visit. Mostly we hung out with family, saw the sights and ATE. 

Ali was really excited about trying Jappadogs!

It was good!

 

My lovely nephew and sister in law.

Can you see a racoon in there?

We went to see Kimbra one night, she's my fav. She was wonderful. My brother and his wife were going to see The Shins the same night right beside us so we went out for nutella and strawberry crépes and stood drinking cinnamon liqueur from a coffee cup in the street. So much fun! Then Ali and I went off to Kimbra, danced and danced and drank many drinks then came home with food and passed out. 

A lumberjack show (seriously) on Grouse mountain.

This was like the best thing I ever ate ever.

On to San Francisco now...

Amazing Alcatraz.

We met up with our friends Chris and Anne for 2 nights in SF. They are big foodies (Anne runs a cookery blog called Waffle Hearts) and any time we meet they take us somewhere amazing (like when we went to Ninja in NYC). The first night Anne just told us "wear something you don't mind spilling food on". Hmmm! Turns out we were going to Opaque, everyone keeps telling me they have seen it on CSI. It's basically a pitch black restaurant, you order before you go in and then you dine in the dark! So surreal, it was so much fun! Pouring water was....interesting. And I definitely dropped a green bean in my cocktail at one point. Eventually I just gave up on cutlery and used my hands...what? Nobody could see! I mean you honestly couldn't see one speck of light. The servers are all either completely or partially blind and try to guide you through the experience. I felt so full leaving, but had no idea how much I'd actually eaten as I hadn't seen any of it! 

The second night we went to this amazing thing called Off the Grid. There's a real culture of food trucks and street food in SF, and I don't mean messy kebabs and burgers - I mean real good food, there was even a creme brulée tent! Basically on Fridays they all get together in one space and you can eat whatever you want! We had pulled pork sliders (called Pork Floyd), Indian food, mango and sticky rice popsicles, cupcakes and kettle corn. So good! There was live music too, it was such a lovely evening. 

Lovely Chris and Anne, Chris is from Norway and Anne is from Washington. We just got the invitation to their wedding in Italy in June - can't wait! 

The cupcakes from here were GOOD. I had salted caramel, so yummy!

Sorry for bombarding you with photos, but hopefully you enjoyed them! I love sharing my holiday photos. It was so lovely to see my brother and his little family. I hope I can go back and visit soon. It really struck me on my trip how lucky I am to have so many people around me that love me, and how much I love my family. I go to Vancouver and get to spend time with amazing people, I get to live with someone I love completely, and when I'm not at my own home I get to be with my brothers and sisters and parents and grandparents and my little nieces and honestly - there's never a dull moment with them all around.