Backtrack: Winter Holidays Week 2011

I celebrated my last week of the year in the company of good friends.

Tuesday, December 27th
I spent the afternoon/evening with Pleuve where we engorged ourselves with Richmond eats, taking a breather in between by shopping for our hipster glahsses (the "h" is there to denote that this word is spoken with a British accent whenever we refer to our new purchases). Our food stops were the Richmond Public Market for bubble tea and chewy cheese biscuits and Shanghai River for steamed pork dumplings, spicy peanut noodles, and prawns topped with mayonnaise and nuts. We did a bit of shopping and I discovered a very amusing title in the Chinese bookstore. I'm pretty sure we spoke in British accents the whole day. A lot of new Euve catchphrases were created and we added Britney Spears to our list of mutually awesome impressions (the other one is Macy Gray).

Wednesday, December 28th
I overslept and was late for brunch with Ralph which instead turned into lunch. (I only have myself to blame for watching Misfits in the wee hours of my holiday week.) We were originally going to eat at Café Medina but due to my tardiness and the long lineup, we headed to Gastown for our gastronomical adventure consisting of Save-on-Meats for yummy diner grub, tea at Coffeebar (so ironic!), and beers at Chill Winston. I discovered Éphémère. It was the first time we had hung out in probably a year!

Thursday, December 29th
My brunch plans fell through yet again, this time with Olim. I spent the day buying last-minute groceries and helping set up for a dinner we were throwing for family friends. The menu included Giagi's zuppa di pesce and risotto. Che risotto!

Friday, December 30th
aka "my pants day"
To make a long story short, I will say that I had a wardrobe malfunction that did not hamper my day in the visible-to-strangers sense, but kept me on edge for most of it. And of course it would be on the one day that I'd be out of the house from morning to night.

I met up with a few of my colleagues for afternoon tea at the Urban Tea Merchant, an oasis in the downtown core. We followed that up with a bit of Boxing Week shopping (I purchased some items at Gap and French Connection--none of which would help my situation) and then stopped at Oli's for her help before meeting with Pleuve and RaeRae to pick up our glahsses in Richmond. It was freezing but my excitement somehow radiated through to warm me. We then went to Jamiekins' fun birthday dinner at Stackhouse Burger Bar before heading to the fantastic Mother Mother concert. I had so much fun if you don't count all the pushing and elbowing I had to do to survive the mosh pit in the first couple of songs, after which I quickly retreated back to avoid having to spend the night as a concert warrior/veteran.