Day 001 - Arrived in Vancouver, went to Siggraph

Woke up at 3.30 am to catch our 7 am flight to Sydney from Brisbane Domestic Airport.  Couldn’t sleep the night before so only had 3 hours sleep.  It was hard saying goodbye to mum and dad.  

Marc got the shits when we landed in Sydney coz I wouldn’t get off the phone.  Then Shan yelled at me and told me to turn off my phone and pay attention to my husband. cute.

The flight, although was long, it was relatively good.  Can’t say that much for plane food. I only slept 2 or 3 hours on the place so its now been 33 hours since I woke up in my bed on the Gold Coast.  I am soooo tired.

yeah baby !

Had a great day today, although our first hour in Vancouver started off as a bumpy ride… to say the least.  Here we were in the taxi from the airport to our accommodation, looking around in the brand new Prias (I was rather impressed that most taxies were Prias).  For some strange reason I asked myself.. where are the airbags on this car… and bang!  We go rear-ended so violently that I slambed my head on the front seat and then back again.  

At the scene of our accident

Now that I think about it, I was probably wondering where the airbags were due to the fact that we watched a movie on the plane where the main character gets into a taxi accident after arriving at the airport… or was it the taxi driver’s crazy driving skills…. Either way Marc and I were both very frazzled to say the least, not knowing if we should get our stuff out of the car and let the 3 drivers sort themselves out.  We both had sore neck and back but we are fine, it could have been much worse.

We went on to spend an awesome day with Marc’s friend Oba, who introduced us to a bunch of people and took us around Vancouver and The Siggraph Convention. We joked that Oba was the ‘Global slut’ of visual effects as he seams to have worked for every company in every country and knows almost everyone.

Marc, Oba, Oliver & Ethan at Siggraph 2011

Marc was interviewed by a camera crew about receiving a Pixar collectable, tried a pregnancy simulator, ran into an old friend and spoke with the top people in the visual effects industry. We also had an amazing breakfast at Medina Cafe so all in all it was a pretty good start to our trip.

Marc at 9 months pregnant (simulator) and yes Marc was forced to do it.
It felt like an alien was trying to escape from inside his belly. 

I’m about to pass out from exhaustion so will have to continue this tomorrow.  Can’t believe we’re in Canada Baby!


Sandrine