Thanksgiving Day

Today was a beautiful day in Vancouver. A lot to be thankful for: I am on vacation, in Canada, my leg feels better, the clouds are thinning out, and I finally had my Bosnian coffee in the morning!

After saying goodbye to my friend's mom, since I won't see her tonight, we started our day with breakfast at a Balkan restaurant, Bosnian 'pita', spinakopita. We stopped in couple of stores where I was looking for a few souvenir shirts and then headed downtown. We first walked through a mall and then onto the busy city center. I must say it again, I like places where there are people on the streets. And I noticed there were no extra overweight people. Walking takes care of that. I picked up coffee at another local coffee place, Blenz, and felt like a real tourist with all the picture taking. Hey, it's my vacation. I am aloud to have fun. :)



One interesting thing I noticed is that there are many places associated with the British, there was London Drugs, London School, London Place, and a sightseeing tours bus with huge Britain flag on it. Apparently, they here pledge to the queen and pay her taxes. Who knew!?

The weather was nicer and nicer, so it was just begging to be outside. we next went over to Kinston park and walked all around the east side which has great views of the downtown. There were many locals there jogging and playing with their dogs. I saw a holly bush grown into a tree, some Canadian ducks, and many crows.



We left the park as the son was coming down. We drove through the china town, another parts of down and then all the way to the other side of Burnaby to a small mountain with beautiful views of the city, now all lit up at night. By the time we got home, it was already passed five, and we just took a quick bite, packed all our stuff and headed toward the border.

My friend's sister lives north of Belinggham, just some 30 miles away, but there is a border in between. The weight was close to an hour, because all the people were going over for the black Friday sales. They require people to turn off their engines while waiting in the line in front of a special traffic light, which made our car quite cold to be in. We should our documents and were back in the US close to 9 PM.

My friend's family had some friends over for Thanksgiving and it turned out that the Bosnian lady that was there, was my ski instructor when I was a kid and gone skiing with group from my mom's company. This lady, Gordana, also worked there, and now lives in Belingham with her husband Nenad. We gorged on some good eats, as is common for this holiday. There was some politics discussion at the table, again what is common for the holidays, but I just tune out to that. The house was warm, fire in the stove, food and wine and friends, memories of the old days shared and new ones made. Oh yeah, I have lots to be thankful for.

Happy Thanksgiving!