Gold Metal Airport Stupidity

Today was the big day! We boarded our flight to Paris to see the Olympics.

Ernie perusing the WestJet menu.

Ern seems pretty unbothered by the actual flying process. He even says "up up up" when he looks out the window.

Zoe is with us.

We had a connection in Calgary, Canada. I was very mad about it. When we got to the airport the Canadian goobers working there demanded to see our inbound ticket stubs. Uh, those are in the trash now, you Canadian goober. Well they said if we didn't have those then we would have to leave the international connection line and go through immigration. Like... how else would I have appeared in this place unless I had just gotten off an international flight, you Canadian goober? We tried to go back to the plane to look for the tickets but they wouldn't let us back on. It was a real problem because we had a bunch of milk and who knows what else for Ernie, which surely wouldn't be allowed into Canada, land of the goober airports. Luckily Zoe had her ticket stub and took all of our stuff while the three of us were forced to waste a bunch of our time ceremonially entering Gooberland, I mean Canada. The immigration guy asked me the classic questions about why I was entering Canada and I let him know that I did not wish to do so but was being forced by a goober. We had a similar problem with a flight that connected through Gooberland and so I am now officially done with ever doing that ever, ever again.

Ernie watched the Elemental movie on the plane which features a person made of fire and another of water. Ernie was calling them Hothot and Wawa. It was very cute.

I recently made Lydia do a life update interview and one thing we talked about is things that we miss from when Ernie was a baby. I couldn’t think of much on the spot but on the flight I was reminded that I miss holding him while he sleeps and watching his eyes flutter and make funny faces while he dreams. When he was brand new it was funnily annoying because he would just mean mug me all day then have big beautiful smiles when he was asleep.

Pacific National Exhibition

I have a deep love of state fairs dating back to my upbringing in Springfield, Illinois, home to the Illinois State Fair. I noticed that Vancouver had sort of state fair when we moved to Seattle, and I've been thirsty for a visit ever since.

Canada sadly doesn't have "states" and so can't have state fairs. That's not my rules, that's the laws of nature. Instead they have these things they call exhibitions.

Much like a state fair they had plenty of hucksters peddling junk to those with more money than sense.

Is 30km fast? Slow? Literally no one knows.

These strange people did seem to share our affinity for taking an unhealthy thing then frying it to multiply the unhealthiness.

There was noticeably more British influence. Down in Real North America we belittle the Brits for having terrible food.

There was a free Chinese acrobat show.

I couldn't pass up Mac & Cheese Soft Serve.

These people are sick.

There was a drag version of Cher singing on stage which to me is pretty much the normal version of Cher singing on stage.

One thing that was very different to American fairs was they seemed to have a full blown casino operating under a few tents.

Canada is more extreme than most realize.

There's a national campaign teaching Canadians how to wipe their butts. Things here are much worse than I realized.

Here they were being taught how to enter and exit a bus.

A solid 65% percent of the reason to go to Vancouver is to buy the friggin delicious chocolate babka at Kozak Ukrainian Restaurant. They even had a little President Zelenskyy.

Time to get this babka chocolate into my face.

Friends, Lydia hasn't quite been the same lately. Sometimes when we go for walks she spreads out her arms and flaps her arms like she's a bird. I've caught her licking her lips at the park whenever a bird flies overhead. I'm afraid it all goes back to when I took her to that fancy restaurant in Matera, Italy and she ordered several dishes made from pigeon.

So when she heard there was a restaurant in Vancouver named Pidgin she got confusedly excited and demanded that we go there for dinner.

For a drink to start off with I ordered the Hardy Tardy-rhubarb liquer, pisco, sparkling wine

They started us off with an assortment of pickled pickles.

rabbit terrine, shiitake, radish, garlic scapes, sake kasu mustard

This particular dish was memorable because it was the first time I told another human that Lydia was pregnant. Pregnant ladies aren't supposed to eat raw meat or many cold meats, so I had a conversation with the waiter about what this dish entailed.

tempura zucchini blossom, Dungeness crab aioli

sockeye salmon, squid, vierge

lamb sirloin, miso garlic, eggplant caponata, kimchi cabbage, tomato paste, mentaiko

chocolate cake, vanilla mousse, yuzu curd

Lastly we visited Hard Rock Casino Vancouver. I like casinos, and I like the fun vibe and musical artifacts of Hard Rock Cafes, so this was a natural choice.

 I assume that this is what Canadians wear to church.

Even the casino parking lot was musical.