Saturday Night: Jambalaya, Ice Hockey and Driving.

Had an interesting night out last night. Annette dropped around with the company car and then headed walked to a place called the Cactus Club just around the corner for tea where we had Jambalaya, which is awesome. For those that don't know, it's basically a cajun stir-fry consisting of chicken, prawns, celery, capsicum, red/kidney beans, spicy sausage, green beans, coriander and a few other ingredients all served on rice. It's very yummy. The waitresses at the Cactus Club are very nice too. I'm surprised they haven't been sued for discrimination. No complaints here though.

After tea, we drove out to see a couple of the guys from work play Ice Hockey out at Ladner, about 45 minutes from Downtown. Unfortunately, luck was not with them on the night and they went down 8-1. Did get to see a near punch up, which was cool too. The real downer for us was that we spent the last 20 minute period of the game trying to stave off hypothermia after the heating in the stands switched off for some reason. It was only after the game when we saw the switch on the wall behind the group of seats next to us marked "press button for heat". D'oh.

Headed back to the car to thaw out and then it was my turn to drive home. In the rain. At night. On the wrong side of the road. In an unfamiliar area. The only way it could have been made more difficult was if I wasn't wearing my glasses. And if I was drunk. It wasn't actually my first time driving here though; I drove Lisa from CHC Australia to the airport from the CHC building (about 2km) the other afternoon without much trouble. It's strange at first as I continually reach down to my left looking for the handbrake and as I am used to driving a manual, keep having problems getting the key out of the ignition. You can not remove the key from the ignition if the car is not in 'Park'. As I'm used to driving a manual, I'm used to either leaving it in gear or in neutral.

Took the car out again today to the nearest Safeway to go shopping and I think I'm getting the hang of it now. Driving in a familiar location is definitely half the battle.