You Dance A Dance Class

The title has nothing to do with anything related to this blog post aside from it being a line from Friends that my husband repeated over and over this weekend! And it's funny if you say it with passion and emotion like the dance instructor from Friends.

On Sunday, James and I spent the day and night in downtown Vancouver. We gifted ourselves with a Groupon for Christmas with a night at the Hyatt Regency hotel. We were a little disappointed with the downtown. Isn't it supposed to be a bustling and active and energetic city? Especially on the weekend?? Well, we thought so. But it wasn't. Quite the opposite actually. Maybe it was just because it was a Sunday? But that doesn't make sense.

We checked into our hotel in the afternoon and I wanted to take James to this Italian cafe that my friend and I just visited last week and their Chai Lattes were A-mazing. Best Chai lattes ever! This place is called Sciue, you think it's pronounced "ski-ewe" but it's not. Apparently it's pronounced "shway". It's Italian. Well, it was closed on a Sunday afternoon. So we turned on our trusty iPhone devices and looked up some other cafes near by. You see, our plan for the weekend was to NOT eat at the conventional, franchise places that we normally go to (ie: Starbucks, Milestones) but to try new places, and places that are unique to downtown. Well, we wandered to a few other possible contendors but, what would you know, they were CLOSED! What the heck?! Hello downtown Vancouver, apparently you are not active on Sundays. In the end, after walking around for almost an hour, we ended up at Starbucks. Trusty ol' Starbucks. Lame. I mean, it was good tasting, but a lame situation!

For dinner we walked down to Bin941 as per a friend's recommendation and I'm so glad we did! The atmosphere of this little eclectic hole in the wall was awesome! The service was great and friendly, the music was perfect I even asked for the name of the artist (Adele) and the food was phenomenal! I ordered the flank steak covered with a cinnamon chipotle sauce and served with skinny pepper pommes frites (french fries). The sweet taste with the steak was unreal. So good!

Later in the evening we wanted to go out for drinks somewhere near our hotel so I could wear my heels and dress up a bit, but the bars/lounges near us were dead. D-E-A-D! Not a single person. Lame-ooo!! So we went back to our hotel and used our coupon at the Mosaic Bar and Grill for one free menu item when you purchase another menu item. Dessert time! Oh, but aside from the three older New Zealander men sitting at the bar talking, this place was also dead. You could hear crickets.

James ordered a cheese cake with fruit compote and I wanted to order a slice of chocolate cake. The waitress informed me that for two dollars more I could order the WHOLE cake, better bang for your buck, kind of thing. Well, being Menno and all it didn't take much convincing on my part so I ordered the whole cake. Wow. It was a massive cube of chocolate cake and icing. We still have 3/4 of the thing left!

It was really nice to sleep in a King size bed. It would have been even nicer had my husband not snored all night. =) The next morning we lazed in bed for a while and then packed up our things and sky trained to Cafe Medina for brunch, another recommendation. James ordered the omlet and I ordered three (yes, three) waffles. They were mini though, so leave me alone! And two toppings for my waffles - dark chocolate and white chocolate pistacio rosemary. Oh WOW! Best waffles ever!!

After sipping our chai lattes (I hope by now you're very much well aware of my love for chai lattes!) we trained back to the hotel where I was picked up by these two lovely people for their engagement session in Stanley Park. Then it was time to pick up our Girlie and head home.

Aside from downtown being really lame on Sunday's, we had a great little night away! It's fun to pretend we're tourists in our own city (kind of). Now if this headache would leave me well alone so I could get out of bed I would very much appreciate it.

Enjoy your Tuesday!